This is a piece I wrote after our route in South America joined a popular trail: Because our route today took in part of a relatively popular walk, we have the luxury of an information sheet containing times, distances, descriptions and, notably, an ascent profile. This showed a steep 400-metre ascent over a short distance. The route was described as 'tough'. I have no idea how much up and down we did over ...

I have recently started a new diet. Last year, Laura and I began swimming the Thames as part of our Greater London Triathlon. We would drive out west, put our wetsuits on then swim until I got tired or cold. And it was always me shivering or aching, not Laura. I've done one big swim before but hadn't done any training for this swim. In fact, I'd deliberately avoided pools due to a dodgy shoulder. Laura, how ...

Long days slogging next to a road have Laura questioning the purpose of our South America trip... Don't get me wrong, I love expeditions - whatever that term means. I love a physical challenge, feeling my body become harder and tougher and pushing myself both physically and mentally. I love being outside, followering the natural rhytms of the sun, embracing the elements and living simply with few possession ...

Here are two forgotten diary entries from the start of our trip to South America. Forgotten because we couldn't find the diary at the time so Laura wrote them on some scraps of paper which got mislaid. This is a description of our New Year's Eve: Last night was pretty wild. We started with wine on the plane, followed by a beer in the airport, and then unrolled our mats on the airport floor and promptly fell ...

These two entries come after a long period of travel in an attempt to reach the west coast of Chile. Laura first: Dusty clothes, sandpaper throat, gritty eyes. Thirsty. Sun-induced headache, hurts to move. Thirsty. Listless torpor punctuated only by brief spells of action as we drag ourselves up to flag down the infrequent vehicles. Heavy heart as another car speeds by, scattering us with stones and leaving ...

This is something I wrote shortly after reaching Patagonia last month: From Rio De Janeiro to Buenos Aires and Comodoro Rivadavia, things have gotten stranger. Big cities the world over have many similarities as a result of increasing globalisation but the further out you get, the more the differences start to show. From the little we saw of Rio, it seemed pretty cool and some things were certainly novel - ...

Our diary entries one week before departure for South America. This is what Laura wrote (probably at her desk): Christmas is coming and Patagonia preparations are going well. Parcels containing shiny new kit arrive at work almost every day, and every spare moment is spent planning the trip. The contrast between my working life and what we are about to do is deeply enjoyable – most of my colleagues are baffl ...

In Patagonia, Laura and I each kept a diary. Instead of just documenting the events of the day, we took the opportunity to write a brief reflection/pondering around an idea that the journey had sparked. We wrote a couple of entries before we departed for which the brief was to write 200 words on the broad topic of what the trip meant to us. Here is mine: "This trip to South America has been a pipe dream of ...

The wind buffets me from behind and I continue to stumble forward in the heat. Twenty kilograms of rucksack crush down on each shoulder. It is not an unbearable weight but it means that everything requires extra effort. Everything, like, thinking, smiling, suppressing sobs and trying not to be sick. I lean forward to transfer some weight from my back onto my walking poles but a gust knocks me first from the ...

I've just got back from Patagonia. The normal blogging schedule will now resume. In a nutshell down south, we spent close to a week making our way to the Pacific coast, followed by a week and a half of hard walking, then about the same amount of time doing some more relaxed exploration. Getting to the start was a long series of planes, stop overs, buses and hitches. We had a tough initiation to our walking ...

The route we have followed so far has either been popular - in the case of the last few days through the mountains - or at least a necessary leg of a journey - in the case of our march to Villa O´Higgins. But ask anyone about the territory to the east and you get little more than shrugs. The west coast is beautiful. It has jagged mountains, spectacular glaciers, gorgeous lakes. However, from the sounds of t ...

Our first deadline had been met - the ferry across the fjord - but another loomed large: another ferry departing in two days´time. This one was south across a lake that was difficult to get round without crossing borders and several hundred miles´detour. It also only ran twice a week which meant either marching close to 100km in our first two days, or a four day delay. We shouldered our heavy packs and took ...