Peak bagging

Cerro Manquehue, 1638m - Santiago, Chile - 01/2016

El Misti, 5822m - Arequipa, Peru - 11/2015

Lingmell, 907m - Cumbria, England - 08/2015

Skafell Pike (2nd), 978m - Cumbria, England - 08/2015

Great End, 910m - Cumbria, England - 08/2015

Núi (Mount) LangBiang, 2167m - De Lat, Vietnam - 05/2015

Bạch Mã Mountain, 1450m - Bạch Mã National Park, Vietnam - 09/05/2015

Núi (Mount) U Bò, 1009m - Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, Vietnam - 05/05/2015

Ngu lam, 225m - Cat Ba, Vietnam - 29/04/2015

Gunung Fansipan, 3143m - Sapa, Vietnam - 26/04/2015

Mount Luxmore, 1472m - Kepler Track, New Zealand - 02/2015

Key Summit, 918m - Fyordland National Park, New Zealand - 02/2015

Mount Iron, 548m - Wanaka, New Zealand - 02/2015

Mount Tongariro, 1978m - Tongariro National Park, New Zealand - 01/2015

Mount Ngauruhoe (Mount Doom), 2291m - Tongariro National Park, New Zealand - 01/2015

Mount Taranaki, 2581m - Taranaki, New Zealand - 01/2015

Mount Maunganui, 232m - Tauranga, New Zealand - 01/2015

The Pinnacles, 759m - Corromandel, New Zealand - 01/2015

Mount Manaia, 419m - Whangarei Heads, New Zealand - 01/2015

Cradle Mountain, 1545m - Tasmania, Australia - 12/2014

Mount Field East, 1286m - Tasmania, Australia - 12/2014

Mount Graham, 579m - Tasmania, Australia - 12/2014

Mount Freycinet, 620m - Tasmania, Australia - 12/2014

Mount Amos, 454m - Tasmania, Australia - 12/2014

Mount Kosciuszko, 2228m - Kosciuszko National Park, Australia - 12/2014

Gunung Rinjani, 3726m - Lombok, Indonesia - 11/2014

Gunung Batur, 1717m - Bali, Indonesia - 11/2014

Gunung Kinabalu, 4095 - Sabah, Malaysia (Borneo) - Failed attempt, weather - 10/2014

Gunung Santubong, 810m - Sarawak, Malaysia (Borneo) - 09/2014

Penang Hill, 833m - Penang, Malaysia - 09/2014

Gunung Berembun, 1840m - Cameron Highlands, Malaysia - 09/2014

Ben Nevis, 1344m - Fort William, Scotland - Failed attempt, weather - 04/2014

Pen y Fan, 866m - Brecon Beacons National Park, Wales - 03/2014

Corn Du, 873m - Brecon Beacons National Park, Wales - 03/2014

Mount Sanai, 2285m - Sinai Peninsula, Egypt - 11/2013

Glyder Fawr, 1001m - Snowdonia National Park, Wales - 09/2013

Snowdon, 1085m - Snowdonia National Park, Wales - 09/2013

Moel Siabod, 872m - Snowdonia National Park, Wales - 09/2013

Ouanoukrim, 4089m  - Toubkal National Park, Morocco - 07/2013

Toubkal, 4167m - Toubkal National Park, Morocco - 07/2013

Scafell Pike, 978m - Cumbria, England - 03/2013

Man-made oasis in the desert

We didn't hang about in Arica. It had some potential to be an inviting beach destination, were it not for scathing winds and a propensity for the locals to pollute the beaches with litter and mind boggling amounts of broken glass.

We forfeited the final night in our hostel and jumped on our first truly epic night bus journey. Our destination, San Pedro de Atacama.

San Pedro lies on the periphery of the great Atacama desert, the driest desert of earth. Within no time at all it has been elevated to Chile's #1 tourist destination (eclipsing even Torres del Paine national park, far to the south in Patagonia).

This may seem at odds with many of its attributes; high altitude, outrageous dry heat and terrible access to name a few. The thing is someone, somewhere, has/is totally dialled into typical backpacker tourism and marketing.

San Pedro is a gateway to the Bolivian saltflats in one direction and a convenient(ish) stopover en route to Santiago in another. Its cemented itself on this grand backpacker thoroughfare by exploiting every possible asset available to it. To top this off it has then modelled and marketed itself specifically for the gap year masses.

It's a chilled, laid back bohemian oasis in the desert, while also hub of intrepid adventure and extreme activities.

Equally, its a horrific tourism construct, built on greed and profit. So false you'd expect the trees and indigenous flamingos to be made from plastic and fibre glass.

The worst thing is, it works. They've totally nailed it. They know the gap year masses and know them well.

Many of the most popular backpacker hostels in the world are basically all the same. There is an irony that you travel the world to experience new lands, people and culture, but you end up spending a hell of a lot of time playing fussball/darts/jenga while drinking Heineken with your identikit buddies in your purpose designed identikit hostels.

This is San Pedro de Atacama - you wouldn't have been surprised if the whole town was a single well planned endeavour, each and every local an employee; their bonuses linked to rinsing each and every backpacker dry and forcing an early, bankrupt flight home from Santiago.

So, nothing for it I suppose; "when in Rome" - sell me your tours!

We'd booked 4 nights in our hostel so were in no rush to go crazy. We settled, for now, with booking a trip that would take us right up along the valley, taking in various lagoons and lakes, before heading into the salty, but not-so-flat, centre to see some flamingos. It was one of the most popular trips, highly recommended and regarded.

In fact, It was a 10 hour minibus ride with average views and a couple of passable meals thrown in. I was thankful it hadn't lasted the scheduled 12 hours. We didn't rush into anymore trips after that. In fact we didn't do much else at all for a few days.

 Salt 'not so flats' 

 Flamingos; check.

...and in flight too; cool. 

Bird-nerd studying small wading birds. Check.

Avoiding, reportedly poor, star gazing tours, we took a couple of late night strolls out of town to see the stars by naked eye - this didn't pan out too well either, the light pollution from town is pretty bad (no doubt part of the reason the tours don't rate too well).

The only remaining attraction we were really interested in was the Valle de la Luna (Valley of the moon). There was a 4pm procession of minibuses which would take you out to the viewpoints along the route. This sounded less than appealing so we decided to make our way by bike.

To avoid the heat, and the minibuses, we picked up our rental bikes (surprising good make and condition) at 8:30am, grabbed a LOT of water and some empanadas (in Chile these are essentially enormous pasties) and we were set to go.

It was about a 15min ride to the valley proper, and we saw not another soul aside from staff at the park entrance. From there on in, the place is pretty awesome.

The whole landscape really is quite unearthly, it's name apt indeed. Aside from a neat little cave walk/clamber near the start, the valley is heavily salted, white, and like nothing I'd ever seen before. There are lookouts which we visited for better views along the way, but before long you reach the end, eat an empanada, and then ride back to town again.

 Cavern clamber (shadow of Golum?!) 

  

Offroading like a pro(?) 

It was great, we finally felt that San Pedro de Atacama had shown some real worth. It seems a shame to me, therefore, that those herded through via minivan would most likely have a quite different opinion. The theory is that the 4pm brigade get to witness sunset in the valley, but at the cost of everyone being there at the same time?! Who makes these assumptions? Supplying what you "think" tourists want almost inevitably leads to the genuine being replaced with the false. Again, this is San Pedro de Atacama in a nutshell.

Maybe I missed the whole point of it all. Maybe (very likely) I hate the commercialisation of tourism, certainly to this extent at least.

I've, for some time now, inwardly questioned the impact and results of uncontrolled tourism once it has emerged  in area or town - I'm not sure I like this "controlled" variety either.

[ Read more on San Pedro de Atacama's diminishing night sky here - http://features.weather.com/stargaze/ ]

Chile - different country or a new world?

We left Peru behind us and Chile smashed us straight in the face. I'd challenge anyone to describe a 20min taxi journey during which so much would change.

We stepped out into a world with a lot more cars. Modern cars at that, on big roads. This was odd. Also, all the cars stopped for us, all the time, even when attempting to cross the mammoth roads at random points.

It was around midday, we were in Arica, Chile's northernmost town and land border to Peru. We were also not at outrageous altitude, in fact we were on the coast at no altitude at all. Everything was, to us at least, very new. And very odd.

Carrying our own little worlds on our backs, as usual, we staggered, in stifling heat, halfway across the town to our hostel.

Upon arrival we (ok, Bex) began in Spanish with our standard opening gambit: "Hello! We have a reservation. Booking.com. The name is Stuart".

The hostel owners response came back in a whole new language. Or it certainly seemed that way.

Back in Peru other travellers had constantly told us two things about Chile. Firstly, they speak a slightly different form or Spanish "quicker, miss bits off of words occasionally". No big deal we thought. Until now.

We hadn't got a word of it. We ended up being led to our room and left, sitting therein, feeling a bit confused.

This was very odd.

After another complete failure to communicate we left our things in our unlocked room (there was a conversation about the key; all smiles, no comprehension) and went of to find an ATM, some lunch and to generally nose around town.

The first thing we found was Basildon high street.

Well, you certainly could have mistaken it for that, or almost any British town, albeit on the hottest day of the English summer. There were leagues of phones shops, clothes shops, department stores and chain fast food outlets. The only one of these you'd really come across in Peru were the mobile phone shops.

And then there were the people.

Back in Peru, men always wore long trousers, most of the time jumpers and jackets (even in substantial heat). Hats are worn all seasons whereas sunglasses, we'd now just realised, hadn't existed. Women much the same, skirts below the knees, practical, all simple.

Here in Arica the western world has arrived, full force. But worse.

You know those fancy dress parties which were the rage a few years ago, where you'd go dressed as chavs?  It was something like that. A parody of western fashion but no one was getting the joke. It was really odd.

We sat down outside a Weatherspoons (or so it certainly seemed) to eat, grab a beer and attempt to take stock of our new world.

Second thing we were told to prepare for; Chile was going to be a lot more expensive. We drank our beers reeeaaaalllly slowly before heading off in search of much cheaper food elsewhere.

This was going to take some getting used to.

 Apt?

...Ditto

Attempt at a beach

Failed attempt at a mall (epic Casio action though!) 

The Peruvian parodox

Forgotten photos, final thoughts and reflection on Peru, before leaving, heading onward and ever southward.

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When we begun this leg of our travels, I'd expected that we were going to pass through Peru in just a few weeks, any delay being for our Spanish lessons. Time was on our side however, so we dug a little deeper, took a look just beneath the surface, and as is often the case, there was so much more to see and do than we first suspected.

We spent a whole month in and around Cusco, the ancient Inca capital has charms a plenty and I'd head back in the blink of an eye. Close by Machu Picchu, however, is a paradox that defines this remote historical town, if not all of Peru. Its global appeal is almost immeasurable - the economical importance to Peru, one of the poorer South American countries, therefore equally staggering.

Peru's culture is one that is still vibrant and rich, authentic and intriguing, it's people genuine and warm. The villages and towns are unique, welcoming and, in most cases, seemingly frozen in a forgotten, simpler time - a sentiment that often seems to encapsulate the whole country.




In large part to this (as I perceive it), Peru has a very healthy and wholesome attitude to almost everything - the Peruvians are often labelled as 'highly conservative', but I think this is wholly unjust. They have their fun and enjoy themselves just as much as every other soul on earth, they just manage it without the ridiculous need to mimic western cultures or their more 'developed' neighbours.



For the adventurous, this corner of the Andes has plenty to offer - I found the trekking opportunities to be diverse and accommodating to all, with mountains, valleys and passes all staggeringly beautiful, all the while also easily accessible [The latter not often attributed as you head south through the continent]. In the north of the country rumours persist of trekking, climbing and mountaineering that truly rival the best in the world (I hope to be back in the coming months to fully attest to this!).




The thing is, not many visitors are aware of any of this - Peru, by virtue of Machu Picchu, has become a flyby tourist destination. Even the 'typical modern backpacker' (during a typical backpacker exchange) will simply ask of me "Peru huh? Did you go to Machu Picchu?"

It makes me want to scream! Guess what folks? Machu Picchu wasn't my highlight. In fact it wasn't even close.

But what then, you may ask, would Peru be if not for Machu Picchu? Would it have promoted its many unflaunted assets, thus becoming a diverse and desirable tourist destination in its own right? Would it have faltered, not even aware of what it had to offer?

This speculation, I must admit, is all for nought - the stark reality for me (though somewhat absurdly you may think) is that all this focus, this reliance on one thing to the neglect of all others, fits me just fine!

Let the tourists flow into Cusco and Machu Picchu - In doing so, those who are willing to delve deeper, try a little harder and travel a little rougher will be more richly rewarded.

We get to trek in solitude, wild camping below the clearest of skies. We get to travel to remote villages and towns; here we can discover that tradition and culture can exist, does exist(!), alive and well in this world - not simply some front, a gimmick for the tourism trade.

Back in the tourism epicentre, Peru, and Cusco in particular, actually deserve huge credit. With all this focus and pressure being leveled firmly on Cusco and Machu Picchu, it still does an amazing job (for the most part) in retaining its heritage and authenticity while keeping needless and invasive commercialisation at bay.

This must be a hell of a tall order to maintain; but, in doing so, Peru has managed something that many tourism dependent nations have not - it's remained true to itself, and in doing so not twisted itself into an awful characture of itself. Bravo.

The Mother of all volcanoes

 

'The majestic El Misti volcano is Peru's most known and one of
its most active volcanoes. It is an andesitic symmetrical stratovolcano that dominates the town of Arequipa, only 16 km to the SW, and its proximity to Peru's second largest city as well its history of explosive eruptions make it one of the world's most dangerous volcanoes.'

--------------------------

So, as you may have gathered, we'd been larking around at substantial altitude for a fair while now, but if a chance presents itself to push your limits then it would be rude to abstain, right?

El Misti ("The Mother") 5822m, really does dominate the northerly views from the centre of Arequipa (2380m) - We had previously heard that it was a "reasonably non-technical ascent" and (un)usually clear of snow and ice all year round. This all sounded promising for a final bit of adventure in Peru, but guided two day trips were being quoted at crazy prices and, essentially, included nothing aside from the 4x4 trips to and from the trailhead and the guide (2 days, 1 night camping). Ridiculous.

Lukily, we'd bumped into an American girl, Adri, in Colca Canyon. She had made our trekking adventures seem as intrepid as heading to the supermarket - a quick frame of reference here; she was solo cycle-trekking the whole of Peru for a few months. We'd actually first seen her from a bus window while heading to the canyon, we overtook her as she cycled over a 5200m pass...

Sharing the bus back to Arequipa with her (what a slacker, right?) she proposed a simple solution to our dilemma - why not just go unguided? It was supposed to be pretty simple, we could all buddy up!

Errrrrm...ok(?)

Meeting at a tour agency in Arequipa the next morning we reconfirmed the ludicrous cost of the guided trip, then fired of the question:

"how about just for the 4x4 and we'll self-guide?"

In a commendably professional and thorough manner, the tour agent inquired on our experience and recent exposure to altitude, and then basically said "sure, that's no problem" followed by quoting us a perfectly reasonable price for drop off and pick-up.

The three of us mulled it over for all of 5 seconds before booking the transport for the suggested 8:30am start the next day. Result.

At around 10am the next day the 4x4 dropped us at the trailhead (3400m), turned tail and disappeared in a cloud of dust. The day was clear and bright, we happily shouldered our rucksacks and trudged almost directly forward and straight up toward the peak.

It was great to have Adri along for extra company, and she fully indulged us as we quizzed her (rather relentlessly) on her outrageous list of adventures. This helped to pass the time, which was most welcome in a landscape that was mainly just rocky, dusty and dry - so dry, in fact, that we were having to carry all our water for two days with us.

The ascent is a touch too crazy for a single day hike (~2500m), so our task was a 1310m climb to base camp, Campo Pirámides at 4610m. Arriving far earlier than seemed necessary at 3pm, we wondered why we hadn't started after a nice lunch in town? Unsurprisingly, there isn't much to do on the rocky, dusty and sometimes extremely windy side of a volcano.

We sat around the camp area putting the world to rights, all the while watching mice and small birds play amongst the rocks. The sun was starting to set as we erected tents and gorged ourselves on cold pot noodles (dreamy meal option to save carrying gas and stove). As it sank further still, we grabbed our cameras and stepped away from camp to enjoy to the views.

It soon occurred to us that perhaps we shouldn't have left the camp unattended with so many mice about - this epiphany did little to diminish Adri's surprise (and reaction) when she then found a mouse in her food bag! Oops!

Oddly, and unassumingly, that might have been the biggest event of the day. We'd all, in differing ways, spent a hell of a long time acclimatising and the climb had been pretty simple thus far. Our only real challenge had been adequately securing tent pegs in loose gravel and dust.

We rose early the next morning. Really early, 02:30 in fact.

Almost immediately we thought back to the previous day's early finish, wondering why on earth we were following a schedule based on drop off and pickup times suggested by the tour agency?!? We weren't attempting a sunrise summit (we'd miss that by hours), nor were high temperatures an issue at this altitude. We were simply working towards a 13:00 pickup. Idiots!

I digress, afterall, the die was now cast. We emptied our rucksacks of all but drinks and snacks, left the rest in the tents and started climbing in the near dark.

The climb was immediately trickier than the previous day, mainly consisting of scrabbling our way up sections of old lava flow. Our alternative, sections of scree, dust and scoria, being virtually impossible to gain a footing upon. The going was very slow, a lack of obvious path not helping matters at all.

We pushed on happily enough however. The early morning was eerily light due to both clear skies and a full moon - glancing outwards often, we watched Arequipa slowly coming to life far, far below us.

As morning unfolded we climbed further and further,  altitude inevitably starting to take its toll upon us. Breathlessness kept our pace down, ensured we take plenty of rest stops and manifested itself, upon myself, as a cracking full frontal headache!

Undeterred, we all breathed a (slow ragged) sigh of relief as the lava flows finally ended and we plateaued on an open dusty area a few hundred metres shy of the summit. The summit push was a simple one. We walked a well worn path, up and around the caldera's western side, to reach to top at about 11:00am.

5822m. High fives and photos. Check. Time to go down again, but before that, reflection...

Not quite ever knowing what to expect is one reason, perhaps, that I keep doing these treks and climbs. Two conflicting things stood out at the culmination of this climb, both, I guess unsurprisingly, involved the height.

Taking on board the scale was the first - The volcanos in this region are very dispersed and disparate, forming singularly or in short chains. Add the enormous prominence over the intervening lands and the resulting views from the top are both utterly bewildering and staggering. Let me elaborate a little...

Normally, at many summits, you'd be surrounded by other peaks, valleys and general highlands - you are fully aware you are high up but only via a variety of visual and elemental clues; cloud level, temperature, plant life, wind etc.

Here, however, the full extent of altitude is right there in your visual frame of reference. You can simply see the world laid out directly in front of you, 3500m below. The only comparable views I can suggest would be from a airliner window 5 minutes into flight. On foot it seems insane (and incredible!).

The second thought was all in the numbers. Glancing west, and slightly to the north, you can see a small chain who's cental peak is Chachani at 6075m...

Maybe we still haven't gone quite high enough. Yet.

A long way down... 

The end. 

The canyon of fire, despair... and dog chaperones

We left Puno behind us and headed by bus to Arequipa. We'd heard that there might be some big volcanos to climb close to the city, and adventures to be had slightly further a field at Colca Canyon.

Annoyingly, we soon found out that we could (should) have travelled directly to Colca Canyon from Puno, and from there on to Arequipa [sigh].

It wasn't all bad though, Arequipa is Peru's second largest city and very nice with it too. We relaxed, enjoyed the sights, treated ourselves to a few nice meals and generally enjoyed the vastly improving climate that steadily moving south was affording us.

We eyed up the aforementioned volcanos dominating the northern skyline, but price enquiries at a few agencies soon knocked us back a bit. We decided to head to Colca Canyon and resolved to look into the volcanos again on our return.

Colca Canyon is vast and very, very, deep, 3270m in fact. The second deepest in the world by only 84m to sister canyon, Cotahuasi (3354m) only a little further on in the region. For perspective, that's over two times the depth of the Grand Canyon in the USA...

There is a network of walking trails criss-crossing it and hostels, of a sort, lying within its depths. We planned and packed (lightly) for 3 nights traversing the many trails and enjoying the scenery.

Lonely Planet marked this as little travelled, but a must do, for hiking enthusiasts. A Danish gent we'd met in our final hostel in Cusco concurred with this description and urged us to visit. I was really looking forward to this!

The first day was a hike from the village of Cabanaconde down to the base of the canyon (~1250m decent), with bigger treks over the following days. Well, it should have been. The bus schedule and travel times were way off. We left an hour and a half later than expected and the journey time ate into the rest of the day.

Arriving late afternoon, we spent 5 times the cost we had budgeted for a room at the top of the canyon in Cabanaconde. The room and hostel were, however, lovely. We happily blew even more cash on woodfired pizza and wheat beer! Even better, our host was an ex-guide; he supplied us with a map and accurate trail and accommodation information... It turns out we'd have possibly walked a huge distance to a now abandoned village, phew!

New plans were set. Onward and... Erm downward!

In order to visit a waterfall beyond the abandoned village, and make up for lost time, we were advised to take a local bus down and across the valley. This was very unexpected. We had no idea there would be roads. As it happened, "road" would be a very loose term indeed...

The bus ride was crazy. It was steep, insanely loose under wheel, and barely suitable for a person on foot, let alone an ancient 30ish seater bus.

Bex had the canyonside window seat and was, for the most part, genuinely terrified. I was feeling only slightly better myself. At one point we traversed a huge section straight along the nearside of the canyon - simply 1000m of loose scree and sand above us, and exactly the same below... the entire section scarred by clear, and recent, landslides.

2 harrowing hours later we alighted half way up the far side and gladly began the adventure on foot. It was hot down there though, really, really hot.

A section of the "interesting" road we'd just travelled

Off we trot...

Andean Condors and small lizards were the only life to be seen

The skies were clear and blue, the landscape all dust and cacti; not much to look at to be honest, but we were on our way and had a little dip in a waterfall in our sights... I've neglected to mention the hot springs too, we'd also be able to dip in those at any of the hostels at the canyon's bottom!

But there was also, unfortunately, the heat I mentioned.

We plundered all our water in the first hour, and were plying on suncream like makeup on 'My big fat gypsy wedding'. A few hours in we filtered, drank and re-supplied water up near the abandoned village.

We were running a little late. The bus was a little late and took longer than expected (de ja vu?), but we still wanted to make it up to the falls; this was, after all, why we were on this particular walk. Estimates from all sources had the trip as 20-30 one way, so with a bite to eat and a dip we'd make it back to the abandoned village, and then down to a central canyon hostel before nightfall (at 6ish).

30mins along the river valley and we could neither see nor even hear the falls. GPS only showed us the trail end and not the location of the falls themselves. We were also out of water again. The heat was incessant, oppressive and exhausting and there wasn't a square inch of shade.

We considered turning around more than once until, after nearly an hour, we finally saw the falls in the distance. We had come too far and were way to stubborn to turn around now; besides we could drink and stock up on water again at the falls.

As we got closer, however, the terrain became much rougher. Nothing that would really cause a huge problem, but the extra time already taken, and now extra required to traverse it was now a problem. And frankly, the heat was taking its toll.

We'd both just had enough. It was no longer any fun. At all.

We cursed the falls and, moreover, the misinformation on timings - we should have turned around an hour before. Now, when we were finally forced to, we were way off schedule - we had to consider the real possibility of hiking past sunset. Ironic I suppose, as all we wanted at that moment was to find a way out of the sun's ravaging intensity.

I took some photos of the falls just a few hundred meters away and we turned around and started trudging back.

Waterfall of woe

Returning past the abandoned village, and now following the river down, water was not to be a problem - but we were wiped out and thoroughly unhappy; tiredness causing us to repeatedly trip, stumble and stub our toes.

The waning sun brought shade, but with it the spectre of night - not something we looked forward to with a steep a long descent to the hostel at the trails end.

Somehow, in foul mood and no small amount of discomfort, we stumbled into the hostel before dusk.

9 hours on the trail was killer. An addition 5min walk down to the hotsprings seemed cruel, but I hardly cared if I made I up again. Best bath ever.

Add to that a cheap and hearty dinner and cold lager and I was complete. Almost...

We had a chat and decided to sack off next day's hiking! We both slept, deep and long, with no alarm to wake us. When we did wake, we sat in and around the hot springs getting sunburnt.

A hard life.

Better still (for losers like me) a pair of rare torrent ducks swam, dove, and fed in the rapids and rocks in the river raging through the canyon's base beside us. I watched, filmed and photographed them for ages, perfectly content.

Duck joy

We slept through the stifling heat of the middle day (how had we walked in it previously?!) and chatted to other exhausted visitors when they arrived throughout the afternoon.

Oddly some visitors would arrive down in the canyon with dogs that were not theirs...

A scruffy looking, collie-ish, fellow had failed to leave with the human he'd chaperoned in that morning. He was odd, but likable for some reason, and possessed an odd tick where he would snap his mouth shut like he was catching flies.

He now adopted us.

He followed us around all day and then slept, soundly and without "snapping", in our room that night (we didn't have much choice, the rooms weren't actually secured against man or beast).

We woke on the final morning and, in an combined effort to avoid the worst of the heat and also catch an earlyish bus, started the 1250m ascent to the canyon top at 5am.

"Croc-a-dog" appeared totally cool with this schedule and bounded along just ahead of us. Completing our ragged band was another dog - sporting odd dog dreadlocks, he looked a lot like captain Jack Sparrow.

Dog buddies

Cap'n left us after the first hour or so but the dog chaperone phenomenon seemed to be spreading. We only passed a few groups of hikers coming the other way, but two of these had still managed to unwittingly collect their own dog friends. Brilliant!

Our plan to avoid the worst of the heat pretty much worked. We made it up to Cabanaconde by 11am, and therefore, in time for the bus we had hoped to catch.

Croc, who had climbed with us and kept us amused all the way, disappeared as we reached town... We searched the streets before finally boarding our bus and then, while pulling away, looked back despairingly from the bus windows in search of our travel companion. We never caught sight of him again and were never able to say our goodbyes.

Farewell Croc-o-dog, may you someday complete your calling and star in Punch and Judy shows.