It's three days and 30km of absolute beauty, of conversations with strangers not marred by smartphone interruptions, set to a soundtrack of silence only broken by the songs of exotic birds and rushing water...
From the taxi back we watched a guy strolling the busy high street in broad daylight, getting nostrils deep in a bag of Colombia's finest/or worst, who knows. I smiled to myself, Medellin was super aggressive, and I liked it.
Photographs from the early 2000's show an island paradise of unimaginable beauty, arriving by boat on January 4th 2017, although still beautiful, it was clear this place had met its 'stellar death' well before we arrived.
Backpacking on a budget especially is all encompassing, and for the most part overwhelmingly positive (i’ll cover that next time), here I have chosen three things that grind my gears, completely subjective of course, with a travelling lifestyle. Bare in mind throughout that this all makes up maybe 10% of the whole experience, I adore this life.
Embraced by ocean on the very north western tip of this great continent, it has bones of fortress walls and a belly of multicoloured colonial buildings, rhythmic salsa drums provide the heartbeat that pumps a melting pot of humankind through its narrow pastel streets...
Away from the neon glow of the big cities, this was a chance to peer into real life for these hill dwellers that have survived for generations, barring the addition of a few Premier League shirts, almost unchanged.
Set in a valley of forest green hills, small businesses sit like punctuation marks along the road, dogs came sniffing inquisitively and then left us for the next...
Where most of Vietnam bares the scars of recent horrors, Phu Quoc, even after housing South Vietnam's largest prisoner camp during the war, is a literal and metaphorical breath of fresh air...
