Confession: I am not an ethical traveller. I say this because when I think back over my travels, there have been many situations I probably should have questioned more than I…
I caught my first glimpse of the Kogi tribe from the window of a local bus. We were trundling down Colombia’s main coastal highway, fresh from Parque Tayrona and on our…
I didn’t even know we’d arrived in Morado K’asa until Roxana pulled at my arm. Clambering past a mother and her baby, we jumped down from the little micro bus and…
When travelling, you come across a lot of terrible toilets. Some are squats, while others are holes; some are on moving transport or in the middle of nowhere; some come with…
My first Spanish classes – in Colombia The beginning of September has brought with it the sudden realisation that I’ve been in South America for seven months. Which means I’ve also…
“This is a forgotten place,” Marcos says, as he unlocks the chain wrapped tight around a set of big blue doors. “But you’re with me. You’re probably safer up here than…
I’m not the first person to say I love the heat. When I was younger it was great, sure: sunbathing by swimming pools in Turkey and Greece with my family, summer…
Life moves differently in the Ecuador Amazon. We’d been out on a day’s hike through the rainforest to reach a secluded waterfall, unexpectedly accompanied by a young Ecuadorian girl who’d been…
“¿Tres ensaladas de frutas, por favor?” I leave the tiny serving hatch, where three women wearing hair nets and harried expressions rush back and forth. Plates of food scattered around the…
When looking for volunteering projects in foreign countries, one of the first things to catch people’s eye is working with children. There are so many orphaned and impoverished children around the…