Getting away from the bad weather

I recently returned from a trip to South America. As a Spanish speaker and lover of Spanish culture, I always wanted to visit the continent mostly commonly called Latin America, as most countries speak either Spanish or Portugese (Brazil). Whilst over there I visited Colombia, Ecuador and Peru and spent time in various different climates and landscapes. The majority of capitals and cities of importance found themselves high up within the Andes mountains. An enormous mountain range that stretches about as far as the whole continent of Europe. 

Up in the mountains, the climate is much more temperate and you will often get rainy and cloudy days with temperatures ranging from around 13-23 and are usually around the 2-3 thousand meter range. This can make it a little hard to breath and many (including myself) find themselves ailing with altitude sickeness in the first week or so. This can cause headache, fatigue and cloudy headedness. Another thing i found hard to adapt to was the sunset. Being in the Southern hemisphere and near to the equator, the sun behaves very differently. Instead of the usual season we have here, over there they have wet, hot and dry seasons, and the sun instead of setting at different times throughout the year, will always rise around 6am and set around 6pm, the entire year round. 

I also spent time in the Amazon rainforest, here the climate is very hot and humid, which sounds pleasant but in the wrong season it's horrible. Roads can often become flooded and mosquitos can be constant annoyance, the heat of the day can also make you very sleepy. I enjoyed my time there, appreciated seeing all the different animals and plants, but life is hard and conditions make day to day life a pain. 

The same can be said for the desert coast of Peru, it's beautiful to see the sea and desert meet, but get caught in midday with no sunscreen, glasses, hat etc and you'll fry to crisp in 5 minutes. The UV is extreme and the heat fluctuations can be equally as formiddable. Daytime heat is nothing but nap enducing, which lasts until the sun set, upon which it can be very cold at the drop of a hat. There's almost no trees in the desert, and scant vegitation to mention, the only thing to slow the howling wind are the endless sand dunes. 

After a life changing experience, I'm now back in Penzance, doing the same old thing, but this time with a whole trilogy of beautiful memories to play in my head when im stuck in traffic. That's why I love travelling.