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I’m sure everyone knows this feeling. You wake up first thing in the morning feeling pretty happy, but it only lasts for a few seconds and then reality comes swarming back in and suddenly getting out of bed seems hard, as then rest of the day going to start and it's not something you really want to deal with. But you don’t have any choice. So you get up, have a lot of caffeine, and get on with it. For a few seconds, I remained blissfully unaware of all of the broken things we

It was the 28th of April. Two days to the visa deadline, and finally we were driving. As much as I would have preferred to be heading south towards the border, we were heading north once again. We had paid an $80 deposit on a new roof rack and we needed to go and get it. The welder needed to test fit it to Ruby before it could be finished, so it wasn’t ideal to be leaving this late and at the weekend too but we really hadn’t had much choice in the matter. As it was towards th

Despite the fact that they’d had 6 weeks so far to do it, the bodywork still wasn’t done. And so in between us doing mechanical work on the ramp, the body guys were still respraying the parts, polishing and trying to make all the doors fit in. The latter being somewhat of a challenge. When we had arrived at the garage the passenger door wouldn’t shut without an enthusiastic slam. The bottom of the door hitting the cab. Now the guys had spent some time with a large hydraulic p

This coincides nicely with an update about the gearbox. It had now been with the shop for a while, despite the fact the guy had stripped it apart the day after we brought it in. Unfortunately, it wasn’t good news. The bearings were completely trashed, as suspected, but because they had allowed everything to go out of line, we had also broken a tooth on the diff. This was a far bigger problem. We told the mechanic we’d source the new diff and get it to him as soon as we could.

While we started off being on the ramp, a week or so in, we were relegated onto the garage floor. I had hoped to drop the front suspension, but now we were back on four wheels, our focus instead turned to the electrics. The welders focused on the front panel we had just bought, first chopping off Ruby's old acne covered face in preparation for the new young one. Ruby could at least seek some comfort in knowing she wasn’t the first middle aged woman to head to South Americas f

It probably wasn’t the ideal timing to roll into the garage on a Friday afternoon, but we had postponed for so long that we went with it anyway. We parked up outside on the main road as there wasn’t space to actually get inside. The place was packed. We wondered if this was a good idea after all, they were so busy we weren’t sure we’d get inside. We had messaged to say we were arriving, but nevertheless… It took a while to even speak to the owner Mauricio, as he dealt with hi

For our first new camping spot of 2023, Ruby reluctantly dragged us up the hills that rise behind the town of Otavalo. We opted to stay in the nice garden of a hostel for the night, where we could park on their nicely kept lawn and enjoy the view out over the town.  I was glad It was a lovely afternoon, we could sit outside watching the chickens scratching around the flower borders and try and get used to camping again. Although we had been living in the camper all along, we

We kept moving our deadline. Perhaps because leaving felt so final and staying was easier. We had said that once we went to renew our visas we wouldn’t return. Part of me certainly didnt want to and it seemed like Ruby shared that sentiment as she howled of the hilly landscape on the way back again. To her credit, she kept going and before we knew it we were back in our old spot. We had moved camp to the shelter as it had rained so much we though we could use the extra dry sp

It had been over a month since Lizzy had initially disappeared, and today was the day we would be getting some trail cameras. Kindly bought for us by a lady in the town, we headed into to collect them from a cafe and get them set up as soon as possible. The lad behind the till handed us a huge bag, and we caught a return taxi back to the park. There wasn’t too much point in doing a big shop, as soon enough we’d have to leave and go to the capital anyway. But more on that late

After what had been a huge high the day before. The next morning was the ultimate low. To hear that Liz was alive and had been seen close, was such fantastic news. I thought, maybe naively, that we’d have her back that afternoon. After a day of traipsing around the park with no luck, we weren’t disheartened because it was a noisy busy day. It seemed much more likely she’d reappear in the evening. We had got permission to move our camper inside the park gates and stay there, s

This was the blog I never want to write and the video Lee never wanted to edit. It's probably one of the reasons the blog is so far behind, I never wanted to revisit this or publish it. Our story has always been a true account, including the highs and lows of this trip, and so here it it. Perhaps I thought if I left it long enough I could write a positive story but that is not going to be the case here. This new and unwanted chapter begins on the 28th of December at a free pa

After finally leaving our beautiful river spot, Lee was in charge of the drive north. I was busy dying in the passenger seat from the rather horrid virus I had got. We decided to stay at a jungle lodge that that was right on the edge of the Amazon, to the east of the village of Tena. I love the jungle and despite feeling disgusting I was excited to visit again. Hopefully this time we could do some trips down the huge river that we now drove along next too. Arriving at the lod

After nearly three and a half years on the road we have become picky. I used to be satisfied with any old waterfall, any ruins, any lake view. I’d probably pay for it too. Now, after travelling through ten countries and seeing countless beautiful sights, I’m less easily impressed. If you want me to pay for it then it’d better be good. This next waterfall looked like it might just be worth it though. The town of Rio Verde looks like it only came in existence to charge people t

After the cold nights in Cotopaxi, the town of Baños is back at a more reasonable altitude. We headed for a campsite on the outskirts, called Abby’s Hideaway. It looked like a nice spot to stop and as it happened to be another England game in the World Cup, we would be needing Wi-Fi. A few people had noted that the entrance was quite steep and so I walked down to make sure that if we went in, we could come back out again. It was indeed a rough, and also steep, track but nothi

With only three weeks to go before our Christmas meet up, we finally headed out on untraveled roads to the south of the capital. Quito is the second highest capital city in the world, sitting around 9,000 feet and surpassed only by La Paz, the capital of Bolivia. Despite the fact that we were well acclimatised to this altitude, it still wasn’t going to be enough for our next stop, Cotopaxi Volcano. The other day, I stood on the roof of Alex’s house enjoying a 360 degree panor

Now that we had had our ‘holiday’, we headed to Quito with the intention to spend some time in a garage working on Ruby. We needed to finish the suspension raise as well as tackle some more of the serious rust issues. Alex had offered to go with us to the garage, so we could get a quote and we said we would meet him there the next morning. By the time we arrived in the city, we headed to our old faithful car park for the night. Despite being a Friday night, it was mostly dese

We had hoped for a peaceful night here on the side of the river, like we had enjoyed last time. Now though it was a Saturday night and at 3am the local teenagers turned up to turn on all their special aftermarket LEDs and speaker systems right next to us. At the same time, as if this wasn’t enough they went swimming in freezing cold stream too, with much screaming. They did this for about 20 minutes before the police came and kicked them out, we were delighted, especially whe

The only downside to this cute little town was that there really wasn’t anywhere free to park. The rugged little seafront ended in a small cark park which I guess you could have stayed in but no doubt you would get woken in the very early hours as all of the fishing boats which were lined up down the beach went out. We ended up going to Hostel Gabeal which offered camping for $3 a person and was in very easy walking distance of everything. It was after all, a pretty small pla

Despite the fact that Ecuador is a much smaller country then Colombia, it would still have been over a 7 hour drive to the coast. We decided to break things up with a trip to the village of Mindo on the way. We spent the morning sorting out a sim card for Lee which seemed to be a complicated process, before heading north out of the capital and into the countryside. The last time we had passed the Equator had been a bit of a non-event, but it was a pretty big achievement for o

We had arrived in Ecuador, country number 10. It was around 7pm and dark. Despite the fact that we had read that the Ecuadorian border closed two hours ago, there was a steady stream of traffic passing by. I had resigned to a night spent sleeping in the small parking lot right by the main road, but now that we had managed to get our paperwork processed there was no need for that. The real question was where should we drive too? There was the nearby town of Tulcan, where we co