A small grid of quiet, dusty streets in the precordillera of northern Chile, the Aymara village of Putre sits about 75km west of, and at 3500m is 1.2 vertical kilometres below the remote Bolivia/Chile border post at Chungara. The population is somewhere around 1500 but to walk the streets is… more »
Happily the winds were not as bad as forecast and I only needed four (and a bit) days... more »
“Three nights you are staying, yes? Here you are..” said the girl at my hospedaje in Copacabana as,... more »
It wasn’t quite what I had planned for the road ahead, however there are far worse ways to... more »
Fear, I think, is one of the greatest obstacles to doing ‘stuff’ in life; fear of what might happen, or what people might think for example, whether it’s changing jobs, trying something new, or disappearing off for a bike ride “somewhere else”…. There has always been a little bit of… more »
Should you delve into the annals of the history of cycling in the UK then you’ll find Cornwall... more »
The town I live in has been, and still is, the butt of many jokes within Cornwall. With... more »
Back in Cornwall as of last night and I’ve completed my compulsory tasks for the day, essentially to... more »
Aside from the riding itself one of the best things about bike touring is the sense of community... more »
It’s always ‘challenging’ returning home after a decent adventure but this time seems to have been, or rather ‘is’, particularly difficult. All I can think about it is the mountains – nothing new there – accompanied by a crippling apathy with respect to what passes for normal life. I’m tired too…… more »
I had a little bit of time in Delhi… I found street photography quite difficult. Despite the obvious... more »
‘Highway’ is probably being quite generous, for much of it’s length it is little more than a rough... more »
I’m really happy, got my Inner Line Permit. It had been on my mind a little because I... more »
It has been a while since I posted anything of a sea kayaking flavour; when I have been out I haven’t been taking a camera. Sometimes I just can’t be bothered with a camera, it’s nice just to go paddling with mates without thinking about photos. After all there is… more »
It took a whole year of procrastination and the opportunity to acquire one at a somewhat reduced price,... more »
After my last post I had thought I might follow up with some apparently intelligent thoughts around things... more »
It is seldom that sea kayaks and sheep appear all wrapped up in the same story but that’s what... more »
I thought that, for once, I could perhaps make myself useful and scribble a general info flavoured post with info on maps and stuff – especially given that Crete is such an accessible, cheap to fly to destination (at least for those of us in Europe :-) ) with some absolutely… more »
I could quite happily have spent a week on the Lasithi Plateau… however with a flight on Wednesday... more »
It’s warm… as I rolled up my tarp at 8am this morning on the little patch of sand... more »
Got some late afternoon shade and a mug of tea here in Zaros so time for a quick... more »
For the last couple of bicycle journeys I’ve travelled really light so just used a 7″ Android tablet as a tool for updating this journal – not ideal but it did the job and took up very little room along with my camera, a Fuji x100s – I think the most… more »
Sometimes it takes me even longer to get around to sorting it out. For the two weeks since... more »
Arrival back into Marrakech was something of an anti-climax after the truly fantastic riding of the last 8... more »
It was a very definite sense of deja-vu. Not the first time I’d found myself sat by a... more »
Happily the winds were not as bad as forecast and I only needed four (and a bit) days to cover the 260ish km to Sajama. It could have been five days but for the asphalt stretch between La Paz and Coro Coro; I was able to get 100km under my… more »
It can be quite hard to deal with a forced change of plan sometimes, especially when coming to... more »
With the exception of a few incidents, best forgotten, in Ecuador years ago, the people of South America... more »
So very different to the quiet towns and villages of the highlands; noiser, grittier, busier, Ayacucho at times... more »
Most folk are familiar with the Peru described by evocative Inca ruins, traditional Quechua & Aymara cultures and... more »
A final few bits and bobs of street photography from Jauja. I’m well enough I think to sling... more »
When I was younger my cycling peers and I considered mudguards on a bike to be deeply uncool. From an early age my father was very fond of the idea that I should always have a sensible bike so it was much to his chagrin that mudguards would be removed… more »
I’m really not on board with the way the bike industry is constantly inventing new standards for things... more »
For whatever reason I recently decided that I needed to build myself a new lightweight tourer, day-tripper, ultralight... more »
After an awful lot of cycling-heavy content… time to get back to that other fun thing to do..... more »
** A quick update on this post, a couple of years on, while I remember. I’ve since ‘cold-set’... more »
In the absence of anything interesting to write about this week (I’m swamped with development work, and with the start of the race season less than 2 months away also spending a majority of spare time on two wheels) this post is just going to continue the theme started in the… more »
cold, wet and windy in Istanbul for the last couple of days… must be time to fly home..
I understand that for some folk who received the email version of my last post, rather than clicking... more »
It is only 140km from Afyon to Eskişehir but it is very much a journey that needs to be... more »
Putre etcThe Wild WestLa PazVia CondoririTiticaca etcCusco Streets
Bits and bobs, and other stuffMi Familia AyacuchanaA little bit of Ayacucho
Huancavelica to Ayacucho
