In the Peruvian jungle, along the Amazon, lurk mosquitoes carrying botfly eggs. Nothing exotic ever happens to me on trips, so finally, something interesting to write about. I’ve highlighted this post because since I first wrote about it, this page has been visited by over 100,00 people… who are probably somewhat more scared of jungles than they were before.

Well, my friend Peter confirmed it with a dab of vaseline, some patience and good light. I have a botfly.
I’ve done a separate page about it here.

When someone says they want to see you at noon, your mind usually meanders to thoughts of lunches. A salad perhaps, or maybe some pasta. And a beer. Hmmmm… lovely lovely beer.
Not Dr O’Dempsey. Nice bloke though he is, he had an ulterior motive.
You see, since New York I noticed that a mosquito bite had [...]

I’ve often wondered about this - a lot of travellers take out traveller’s cheques or buy currency from their bank in advance. They often then exchange at banks when abroad.
As a regular overseas traveller I always felt, but hadn’t really researched properly, that ATM’s and credit card transactions were best - in spite of [...]

There’s a whole lot to catch up on isn’t there? The jungle, leaving South America, and New York.
But you know, I’m feeling kind of lazy at the moment, so I’ll describe things in the way of a five year old. That might make for less typing:
The jungle was dead brill!!! There were [...]

Funny things stereotypes. They give you expectations. And then you find they often don’t match reality. New York is quiet… almost restful, after the jungle and Lima. There aren’t horns going off everywhere, people are polite and helpful (though they are in Peru also, I just can’t understand them so much) [...]

I thought a handy idea would be to carry some samplers of aftershave. Then if I wanted to smell nice I could just use that. Small and light.
These samples tend to come in small glass vials.
And in a rucksack, small glass vials aren’t so clever. They were safely inside my washbag, but [...]

Sounds kinda sweet in the song.
But not when one of the b*stard things turns up on your neck. And talk about big… I’ve seen plenty in France and Spain, but this one looked capable of carrying off a small child.
Other wildlife I’ve met today includes a gian ant-eater. Comedy looks and big wet [...]

Just a couple of days ago I was in Santiago, a city with a gleaming underground system purchased from the French. If you want to get a feel for the Santiago Metro, try travelling on line 1 in Paris. The trains are almost identical. The main difference is that the system is [...]