Panama City, Panama

I arrived in Panama City in the early morning. The moment I stepped out of the air-conditioned airport hall I was hit by the intense, humid heat. It was a lot warmer here than in Bucaramanga. I took off all my extra layers and hurriedly put some sunscreen on my face.

Entering a new, unfamiliar country is one of the most vulnerable moments when you travel, so as usual I was being very cautious. And I still got scammed out of $3 when trying to buy the metro card! In the grand scheme of things this was a fairly cheap life lesson, but an annoying introduction to Panama. I decided not to let this ruin my first day, and luckily all my follow up interactions were a lot kinder than this. I found people in Panama to be very friendly and helpful. They’d volunteer to give me directions when I looked lost or confused, and a lot of them even approached me in English when trying to do so, which has been a fairly uncommon experience during this trip.

Medellín, Colombia

Medellín again! I was quite excited to be coming back to this bustling city. My initial plan was to spend two weeks here and do an intensive Spanish course. I ended up really enjoying it and extending an extra week. I liked the feeling of progress and I also found myself appreciating a daily routine, something resembling “regular life”. I made breakfast every morning. I had my usual places for coffee and dinner. I knew my “commute” well enough to be able to zone out.

Ipiales & Pasto, Colombia

Once we finally crossed the Ecuadorian-Colombian border, we took a quick taxi to the bus station in Ipiales. We left our bags at the luggage storage, and jumped into a collectivo heading for the famous Las Lajas Sanctuary. It was a little break between all the buses, taxis and waiting at the border, a chance to stretch our legs whilst enjoying the stunning and unusual neo-gothic architecture of the cliffside basilica. We were pleased to find that it was as beautiful as the pictures make it seem to be.

Baños, Ecuador

The bus ride from Cuyabeno to Baños was very long and very bumpy. I’d say it was quite generous to call what we were driving on a road. We arrived in the middle of the night feeling exhausted to the point where it was difficult to even go to sleep.

Quito, Ecuador

We arrived in Quito in the early afternoon and had about two and a half days of time before we were going to head to the Galápagos. We spent the afternoon mostly lazily wandering around a park, the artisanal market and getting some hot chocolate. We knew that Ecuador produces some of the highest quality chocolate, and we were determined to find some of it whilst here.

Cusco, Peru

My first real stop after leaving Bolivia and arriving in Peru was Cusco which I mostly saw as the base for visiting Machu Picchu. And I was going to do just that, and more than once. My friend Maťo and I booked the five night Salkantay trek together a few months ago, and we were meeting up here. And once our trek was done, I was also meeting Nathan in Cusco.

As I mentioned in my last post, my journey from Copacabana involved multiple long bus rides. Whilst the night bus I took was genuinely excellent, I still got very little to no sleep, which I ended up compensating for by falling asleep on the reception sofa in the very early morning. By the time Maťo arrived at the hotel a few hours later, I was curled up in a ball, wrapped in both a blanket and my puffy jacket, and basically unresponsive. I didn’t even wake up. Once we were able to go to our room, we both just crashed for multiple hours. We only properly said hi and started chatting later that day.

San Pedro de Atacama & Atacama Desert, Chile

I got to San Pedro by flying from Santiago to Calama. Whilst waiting for my transfer between Calama and San Pedro, I’ve made friends with Tian. We quickly realized that our itineraries align perfectly for the following five or six days, and we spent them together.

Atacama is the world’s driest non-polar desert. And it turns out there’s loads to do in it! San Pedro is not much of a town in itself. The main street, Caracoles, is full of tour operators, money exchanges and other various tourist related businesses. It’s so dry around there that I tasted the dust every time a car passed me by.

Prologue

In 2016 I packed a big backpack (too big, if anything) and took a one way flight to Bangkok. I spent about 6 months traveling around Southeast Asia, and I’ve had the most amazing time. It was challenging, eye opening, magical, sometimes lonely or stressful, but never boring. I was enamored. Travel didn’t have to be glamorous, but there was so much to see and so much to do! And it was all at my fingertips. 

Since then I always knew I had to go backpacking again. A lot of fellow travelers I met in Asia raved about Latin America. Before I even finished my first big trip, the idea of the second one was already born. 

Nine years later, and I’m finally doing it!