It was fun to climb mountains, visit glaciers and slide down volcanoes, until the thought of a house and kids began to seem more exciting Just before Christmas 2002, we were having drinks on the terrace of the Hilton in Mendoza. Thanks to the Argentinian peso crash, the Hilton bar was our local, even though we were cheapskate backpackers. It was a sunny 30C and an Argentinian skated past in hot pants and a Santa hat. Jane, my then girlfriend, now wife, looked at me and said: “It’s too warm. This is all wrong.” We’d been planning to meet friends anyway, so we brought our flights forward. A few ..read more

As it sped off, I was euphoric. I had fashioned a complex sentence and hit a nerve with my pointed words. Or had I? Follow the My bad trip series Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email It was 2007 and I was weeks into a solo backpacking trip in South America. By the time I reached Bolivia, my Spanish had improved markedly and so had my resolve not to continue being swindled by local taxi drivers and their ilk who dared exploit my first-worldliness. So when, late one afternoon, I boarded a bus in the town of Samaipata for the 15-hour journey to Sucre, I had done my research and knew the ..read more

I was naive and underprepared when I agreed to go backpacking around South America with my boyfriend Follow the My bad trip series When I was 21, my older boyfriend suggested it might be “cool” to backpack around South America. I naively jumped at the chance of a romantic trip. Getting kidnapped, robbed and dumped wasn’t exactly what I envisioned. In my youthful arrogance, I hadn’t done much planning, nor learned the language. I figured we’d just work out the details together as we went. Then he decided that, as the higher earner, he could afford a longer trip. He headed off and I was to fol ..read more

A man wearing budgie smugglers finally got the tyre loose, made an offensive remark we couldn’t understand and drove off As 2013 turned to 2014, I was a fresh escapee from a regretful, youthful and short-lived marriage and was ready to rebound into life. I had an undergraduate degree in a very niche area of the arts that “won’t put food on the table” – My dad (2010-forever). I had passion and the opportunity to work with mentors across the world and I would not at all be basing any of my decisions on a Kiwi backpacker I had picked up one night dancing on a table in Byron Bay. I was not despera ..read more

‘This is it,’ I thought as I started to roll down the canyon, rapidly picking up speed I ended up in South America quite by chance. Having left school in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, in 1993, thinking I might like to go into teaching, I took a gap year under the stewardship of an educational charity called Project Trust, which organises international volunteering. As far as I’m aware, Chile was selected for me at random – I had no real knowledge of the area and didn’t speak Spanish. I arrived in the capital, Santiago, with two other students, where we taught English at local schools. It was ..read more

Tour operators welcome lifting of Covid restrictions on 47 countries and urge government to simplify testing protocols – and resist U-turns Travel industry insiders predicted a surge in bookings for October half-term as ministers cut England’s travel red list to just seven countries, all in Latin America: Peru, Columbia, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Venezuela. Travellers from other destinations will no longer have to quarantine in a hotel on their return to the country. The decision to reduce the red list from 54 countries to seven was taken at a meeting on Thursday morning, after ..read more

This week marks the centenary of Astor Piazzolla, tango’s revolutionary – and the city is filled with the sights and sounds of his music Listen to Chris Moss’s Piazzolla 100 selection on Spotify On a central reservation in Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires’ youngest and least atmospheric neighbourhood, stands a strange-looking monument. It’s a twisted, abstract sculpture, in steel, that looks at first glance like the cooling fins from a motorbike engine. It is, in fact, an unfurled bandoneón (button accordion), the fiendishly difficult instrument of German origin that produces the unmistakeable soun ..read more

The world’s biggest party should have started today. Enjoy the virtual version through livestream shows, music and online tours of Rio’s spectacular sights For millions of people around the world, this Friday evening should be the most joyous of the year – the first night of carnival. In a normal year, brass and steel pan bands in New Orleans and Trinidad would be polishing their instruments after months of rehearsals, and mardi gras paraders pulling on spangled costumes before hitting the streets. And Cariocas, residents of Rio de Janeiro, would be limbering up for what they proudly call “the ..read more

Can a virtual four-day art class come anywhere close to visiting the famous archipelago? Maybe not, but for our writer it turns out to offer something far more valuable The creature comes into view quite slowly. It’s like staring into the bushes, realising there is something there, then picking out its parts, assembling the whole that, suddenly, magically, comes alive and steps gently forward. A giant tortoise. Mary-Anne, our guide, laughs: “A tortoise’s mouth always remind me of my grandmother.” As if hearing this, the animal’s wrinkled lip curls slightly, into a sad old grin. The panels on i ..read more

We may not be able to travel at the moment, but our new series of virtual guides brings the world to you – starting with a cultural tour of Peru There’s something fitting about a virtual guide to Peru. For would-be conquistadores, it was a land of fantasy and imagination. The very name of the country would have conjured up illusions of untold treasures, Inca emperors, wild beasts and heathen practices. Lima was the seat of Spain’s South American imperial territories for 300 years; it was where you had to be if you wanted to acquire booty, land, or influence. But it was traversed by impassable ..read more