Our Island Home

La Paz, Bolivia. Or, the 'bowl city', as I like to call it. They have people dressed as zebras to help you at the pedestrian crossings, people dressed as donkeys to jump on the windscreen´s of bad drivers, a jail where the inmates rule themselves, Cholita wrestling and the best sticky date pudding with banana custard you'll find in South America. What more could you ask for?! La Paz, Bolivia. The ¨bowl city¨ Llama Fetus´ in the witches´ market of La Paz Guards at the Presidential House in La Paz. Much easier to distract than those at Buckingham Palace! Zebra crossing in La Paz From there we visited the beautiful town of Sucre, which was a lovely surprise with its plethora of white washed colonial buildings. It was labour day when we were there and the streets were lined with beautifully dressed cholitas with a beer in their hand. We were more than happy to join in the celebrations; it seemed only appropriate to grab a beer ourselves while we wat...

Brad's favourite part of our whole entire world trip has been our Amazon tour in Brazil. As it turns out, Brad has secretly been carrying around a little 'souvenir' from his time in the Amazon. You see, he had a little sore on his shoulder that looked quite red and inflamed. It just wouldn't heal! So we went to see the pharmacist and bought some anti biotics to treat the infection. 4 weeks later, the wound still hadn't healed and we were beginning to worry about it.  We decided to see a doctor the next day and enjoy the rest of the day relaxing at our hostel. There we were, sipping on a beer, relaxing in the sun... I could see Brad scratching his shoulder and told him to stop playing with it. "That's probably how it got infected in the first place," I added for good measure. I continued to read my book until I heard Brad's most alarmed voice yelling,  "Kath! Get over here! Something weird is happening!" Indeed...

Two years ago, the day after summiting Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Brad turned to me and said. ¨I never want to go to this altitude again, I felt like my head was going to explode on the top¨......   A few weeks ago, as we strapped our crampons onto our boots with frozen fingers at 1 am in the morning, surrounded by snow, I thought of that conversation in Tanzania. It´s amazing how time can change your mind. Contemplating the climb We embarked on a three day hike up Huayna Potosi, a mountain just outside of La Paz in Bolivia. We hiked from 4700m to 6088m in this time; the summit day in crampons with an ice pick and a harness. We were placed in groups of two, each group harnessed to an experienced guide. There was team Australia, team New Zealand, team UK and team Europe. As far as I could get on the vertical wall (practice day) Look at that technique! Brad makes it to the top... Final Camp The hike to the summit commence...

An old man once said to us, ¨I see a hill and I want to climb it.¨ - Peter Ryan, 2014 The Inca Trail was just the beginning of our reunion with the blessed Andes. As soon as we laid eyes on those jagged, snow-capped peaks and felt that familiar Andean wind through our hair, we tucked away the bikini and dug out the hiking boots from the bottom of our bags. Let me introduce you to the main players in this story (and please feel free to hum the "Rocky" theme song as you read along for dramatic effect). Sexy legs, Bradley Resident photographer and emergency model, Kathryn Boobie, the wonder dog. Macca the Mule First Stop: Colca Canyon, just outside of Arequipa in Southern Peru. We took the, "we don't need no guide!!" approach to this one and organised it ourselves. This canyon is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon and about 4100m at the deepest point (I just wikipedia ' d it, so it must be true). Stop looking at the le...