I recently wrote a review of my packing list for Latin America, here are six of the less obvious items that turned out to be indispensable: Earplugs – Noisy hotels/hostels, long bus journeys with crying babies, Bolivian folk music. All enough to cause loss of sleep, and subsequently bad moods. All preventable with a decent [...]

Back to Latin America Summary >> Clothes 1 Pair Trousers – used sparingly, in nightclubs and whe ntemperature dipped – especially in Bolivia 1 Pair Cargo Shorts – used extensively. I recommend Gap. Lasted very well, had pockets repaired in Panama then replaced in Colombia. 3 T Shirts – White t-shirts didn’t last too well. [...]

Days 282 to 293 – Wednesday 28th June to Sunday 9th July 2006 I arrived in Panama City in mid afternoon, and didn’t want to travel out to Penonome that same day so I checked in at Zuly’s, the hostel I stayed at back in February, and caught up with goings on in the World [...]

Highlights Equipment Review Final Route Highlights The original blog – “roylloydjones” – started out as an almost daily journal from my eleven month backpacking trip around Latin America in 2005/06, recording daily events as I travelled by any mode of transport available – car, bus, train, aeroplane, rickshaw, canoe, sail boat, speed boat and ferry, [...]

Days 265 to 281 – Sunday 11th to Tuesday 27th June 2006 I flew back to Panama, spent a week with Yami and returned to Cartagena. I then tried to go south to Medellin, but the buses were a little bit of a problem due to the FARC in the region, so I decided to [...]

Day 246 – Tuesday 23rd May 2006 I woke up about 8am and we were still moving. Apparently we had suffered no more hold ups and we were progressing nicely. The bad news was that we had been held up for about 3 hours, which meant that instead of 22 hours it would take 25 [...]

Day 245 – Monday 22nd May 2006 Aaron & I woke up early as planned, packed our things up and checked out of our hostel. Our plan was to head to the Pacific coast of Colombia for the week before heading back to Cali for the weekend to hit the town.

Day 243 – Saturday 20th May 2006 We waited until lunchtime to go to the airport to take our flight to Cali. We said see goodbye to the Swedes and Jon and took a taxi. The airport was the most security conscious airport I have seen. A check in the taxi on the way into [...]

Days 240 to 242 – Wednesday 17th to Friday 19th May 2006 Waking up for my first full day in Colombia was a decent feeling as Colombia was probably one of the countries I had most looked forward to visiting since starting to think about travelling in this part of the world.

Day 239 – Tuesday 16th May 2006 I woke feeling groggy, packed my stuff, woke Aaron and we left Quito. I didn’t see anything there but I wasn’t overly concerned as at this time the only thing I wanted to do was get to Colombia.