Futaleufu was a pretty town, despite the obvious paucity of incomes and the thick blanket of volcanic ash that brought the town to a standstill in 2008 and triggered the re-location of the regional capital from Chaiten. Even the sound of it was pretty and the citizens seemed to have some semblance of civic pride with a gleaming new plaza, well maintained sidewalks, rose gardens in almost every yard. And the houses were different here too; all wooden, clad in shin...

There really is nothing like fresh baked bread in the morning. Heading to the bus stop in the early morning as most of the residents of El Bolson slept on, we came across a tiny bakery (one room, husband, wife and daughter and one oven) from whom we purchased a whole loaf of freshly baked bread and a selection of fried sweet bread sticks. As we sat outside in the warm morning sun and ate the baker joined us periodically, escaping the heat of his workspace and ...

It was only as I sat in the dusty stone-built - but now disused - railway station on the outskirts of Bariloche (circa 1934), waiting for a bus and crunching through a re-heated bowl of spaghetti bolognese that I began to have what you might call second thoughts about what I was about to embark upon... A middle-aged desk jockey taking two young novices (both kith and kin) on a scant plan deep into the Andes for a boys own adventure... At least we had a plan (of...

Slum dog Millionaires Finally, after 60hrs of travelling we'd made it! BA was practically bucolic as we drove in from the airport - lush meadows, conifers and oaks. We all squinted in the bright sunshine and absorbed the warmth of the day - already beyond 30 degrees and tropically humid, a wonderful contrast to where we had just come from. We quickly found our pensione only to be turned back at the door by a doe-eyed adolescent security guard that we couldn't ...

If history speaks volumes the London sings in a wonderful chorus - or so it seemed today. Perhaps it was the unexpected blue skies and crisp early morning sun that cast a warm golden light over the vestiges of Empire and grand Victorian architecture; along the Mall and then Mayfair, past the apartments and embassies of Belgravia and Government offices of Whitehall. All of this I observed huddled under the small canopy of our open-air red double-decker London tou...