Needing to escape the cold and grey Anni and I headed east to Abu Dhabi for Christmas. Well, it was a comfortable 21 to 25 degrees so pretty agreeable. Picking up the hire car at the airport we drove out to Qasr al Sarab, out in the Liwa Desert on Christmas Eve. Easy drive on fast roads; although the speed cameras may yet come back to haunt me. Qasr al Sarab is settled deep in the desert about 20kms from the border with Saudi. There is nothing else, just this hu...

We arrived at Cairo international, excited to be in the "New Egypt", following the people's revolution of 25 Jan 2011....a date that will no doubt have street names and perhaps even future cities named after it - for Egypt already has 6 October City (the date they and Syria launched an attack on Israel in Sinai and Golan Heights with early success - the 'Yom Kippur War') and 26 July Bridge etc, the former having a lovely hospital and being our end point...

Guatemala, trails of the Conquistadors. Another trip with my mountain bike and bunch of mountain bikers. Mud, bruises, sweat, blood and beautiful scenery. Stunning vistas, fascinating people and, grueling days of biking, many tumbles, scrapes and a few wipe outs too. Loved it! Easily the most challenging biking so far with a 5 to 6000 calories burn per day...so much food and far too many forms of refried beans!

In Chicago for a few days, well, two days to be exact and one of those was work. Having come almost directly from Dubai with just a day back in the UK, it was a bit of a shock to the system arriving to 14 inches of snow and temperatures down to something below ridiculous - that's minus 14 celsius in plain speak! I only got to see a small part of downtown Chicago. Millennium park, where the big bean sits reflecting Chicago night and day, was pretty impressive, ...

So Dubai. It is my birthday and we have gone in search of some sun. A long weekend, during which the sun seemed to slip to the other side of the world and our shorts and T's remained in the bags. Still it was warm enough at around 23 celsius in the day and cooler at night. I had always thought Dubai would be full of bling, as culturally deep as a pot of slimmers yoghurt and fun for a short break, but that's about it. So I was pleased to be proven wrong. Even in...