Mingling after a talk about my eye opening experiences in the Tien-Shan mountains, I was cursing myself for not having planned an expedition for the following summer when the previous one had been such a success. That was when I was approached by Sarah (who’s silhouette you can see on the title bar of this website) who asked was I interested in joining an expedition to Bolivia next summer? Hell yes!

I immediately went home to look up “Bolivia” on an atlas.

With Sarah and four others, we located a quiet spot in the neglected Quimsa-Cruz range. Bolivia has four cordilleras and this was the smallest of them and the only one with no mountains over 6,000m. That meant no one ever went there and all the mountains we climbed were first British ascents.

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The expedition was in part funded by our university’s Expedition & Travel Committee (they also supported the Kyrgyzstan trip and this one too). I now sit on the committee and help mentor successful applicants, many of whom fill these pages.

Compared with the Kyrgyzstan expedition, this was a raging success and a whole lot more in keeping with current health and safety standards. It was also my first and only experience to date with South America which only served to expand my eyelids beyond their already wide gaze and fuel my adventurous fire for another trip.

It was after this expedition, in a small hut at the edge of a red lake not far from a white salt plain, perhaps a little delirious from food poisoning, that the idea for traveling Around the World in 80 Ways was born.