After lots of stress and work during the pandemic, Katherine and her partner, Daniel, decided to get away from it all and have a much needed adventure!
We set off from London in October 2022, moving all of our possessions up to our family homes in Scotland to be stored for the next 8 months. We then flew to Thailand where we started a 2 1/2 month trip around South East Asia.
After Thailand we took a 2 day slow boat down the Mekong River into Laos, did a loop around the North of Vietnam, flew down to Bali and the nearby Nusa Islands, then made our way home via Singapore and Kuala Lumpur!
We spent about 2 weeks at home with our families over Christmas and New year before setting off again – this time taking a 16 hour flight to Santiago in Chile, South America!
Landing in Chile was an absolute culture shock – we didn’t speak a word of Spanish, Daniel’s wallet was stolen on the Santiago Metro on day 3, and it’s safe to say we had a lot to learn! After several weeks of Spanish lessons we were finding it much easier to get around and travelled for the next 3 months through Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia and Columbia.
One of our more adventurous, outdoorsy activities included climbing Huayna Potosi – a mountain in Bolivia over 6000m which required us to be roped together and use ice axes and crampons!
Some of the highlights: trekking over 4 days to the ‘Ciudad Perdida’/Lost City in Columbia, hiking to the base camp of Aconcagua (the highest mountain in South America) in Argentina, and visiting the incredible Uyuni Salt Flats in Bolivia.
After a couple of final weeks in Spain (we didn’t want to stop speaking Spanish yet!) Daniel had to go back to work, and Katherine continued the adventure by hiking the 772km Camino de Santiago. This trek began just inside France in the Pyrenees and crossed almost the entirety of northern Spain.
2 pairs of trail running shoes were completely destroyed in the process, an unhealthy amount of red wine and tortilla de patata was consumed, and a dream of a lifetime was completed!
After all the activity of the last 8 months, we are both excited to be back in London and catching up with friends and family! Katherine will be back at Clapham Runners (hopefully in a new pair of running shoes)!!
Clapham Runners 