I took this shot whilst standing on a manmade, floating island, on Lake Titicaca, close to Puno in Bolivia. The locals, descended from the Spanish and the Incas, built the Uros Floating Islands from reeds, as well as the shelter you can see in this image. In the background, you can see one of the locals rowing her boat with her baby strapped to her back.
If you look closely enough, you can see the traditional engine…
I was standing on the edge of Lake Titicaca, the world’s highest navigable lake at a dizzy altitude of 3,811 m, when the girl in this photograph approached me and asked if I would take a picture of her. This was in 2003, so this shot was on 120 film, certainly well before the widespread usage of digital cameras. I doubt she will ever see this image, unless she somehow managed to find my blog.
If you ever decide to see South America, I strongly recommend that you visit Lake Titicaca, on the border of Peru and Bolivia. The lake is beautiful, with the Andes scraping the sky behind them in the distance.
Scene from coast in Iceland, where sheep roam free and like to nibble your bicycle tyres. Where is your favourite place in Iceland?
Still in the Canadian Rockies, I tried to shoot the famous Moraine Lake, situated close to Lake Louise, a few times but to no avail. In the end, it took me three attempts to capture this dawn scene. First time, I wondered into the forest jutting out into the lake on the right. I was spooked by a bear and decided a shot was not worth a mauling. The second attempt was marred by terrible weather. Third time lucky. The light lasted about 5 minutes before clouding over.
The solitude of the morning was somewhat dispensed with when I was interviewed by a Japanese film crew, who turned up too late to capture the dawn and wanted to use my photographs.
I was staying in a small motel in Banff and had scouted this location out the previous day. The light was falling to my right on the lakeside but I loved the dawn vanilla skies above the mountain on the other side of the lake.
A few years ago, I was in the Canadian Rockies, travelling around Banff and Jasper National Parks. The shot for today was taken from an observation platform above Peyto Lake. It was not a great time of day to be shooting as it was close to midday but this really made the turquoise colour of the lake stand out all the more against the lush green of the surround forest, greyness of the mountain face and deep blue of the sky.
This was taken a few miles away, along the river bank above a raging torrent below. You can make out a young girl relaxing by the river, wearing red, to give you a size perspective of the scene.
Just prior to the Frankfurt motorshow in September, I went out to Canada for a two week photoshoot. Starting off in Calgary, I headed west to Banff National Park. From here, I drove through all the surrounding national parks including Kootenay, Yoho and Jasper. Over the first ten days, I covered almost 2000 miles.
After returning to Calgary, I then flew further west to Victoria, capital of Vancouver Island. My good friend Justene Miller, a Canadian from Vancouver, gave me some excellent advice, to visit Tofino and Ucluelet, on the Pacific coast of the island. I was treated to a cloud rainbow, something I have never seen before.
I loved Canada, with its spectacular landscape and friendly locals. My only reservation is that the food is much like the US is pretty awful most of the time.
Hoped for the rain to stop at the hostel so waited and waited but it didn’t so we set off at 11. Cycled north inland first and at about 10kms out of town the weather improved but it was still wet and gloomy. Julien feels the cold a lot more than Dave so went ahead a bit quicker. He found a lovely place for lunch and wrote Dave’s name on the road hoping he would see it and stop as he caught up. Unfortunately he didn’t see it and called from several miles down the road to find out where Julien was! Luckily Dave found another great place for a hot lunch so the boys dined in separate towns.
Now cycling towards Jokulsarlon which is renowned for it’s glacial lake. There were loads of icebergs floating around. Dave a bit behind so Julien snapped away. A Swiss couple made us a hot drink in their caravan which was lovely. We looked on the map for a campsite, the nearest of which was 35kms. So, we decided to stop where we were for the night and set up on top of a hill that lay next to the stunning lake. With the permanent light, we were afforded the most beautiful of views until the sky finally clouded over after supper.
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Blogging from a beautiful spot just ten metres from the waters edge. It has been very sunny in Iceland today but a big black cloud is approaching over the lake so tomorrow I may not be so lucky.
Started this morning in Akureyri, waved goodbye to Angelique and cycled on. Akureyri is at the bottom of a watery inlet with lots of up hills and down downs all around the water, very hard and into the headwinds again. After leaving this area I cycled up another climbing road for a grueling 4km. The road was covered in very loose gravel which was tough to pedal through and hurt when it flicked up and hit my legs, there were also an awful lot of lorries which added to the pressure. It was very hard and you would normally work up quite a bit of body heat but it felt cold. Cycling at a fairly slow speed and into the wind chill meant that the air temperature felt about 9 degrees.
Crossed into the next valley fighting headwinds and again felt demoralised. Got to a spot at the bottom of a great big hill and decided to stop for a break to gather my thoughts before the next climb. The area just happened to be a local beauty spot and sported a stunning waterfall so it was a lovely place to rest and take in the scenery. The next enormous climb took an hour but when I reached the top I had a reward! The wind direction had finally changed and for the first time on this trip I had the wind behind me AND I was going downhill. It was lovely, a real bonus but I had to step on the brakes for safety reasons as it was easy to get carried away!
After lunch the winds were still being kind and for 25 miles I enjoyed the tail wind. I soon arrived at Myvatn. Lake Myvatn is supposed to be one of the places locals go for their holidays. It is an absolutely beautiful lake with mountains set back topped with snow. The ground is full of installations of lava and some would say it looks ‘other wordly’. I cycled through the lava fields to Reykjahlio and have now settled just 10 metres from the lake’s edge. The sun is laying low over the water and I have even met three other Brits who are also cycling for charity. We have had a good chat and shared our experiences so far but I am guessing that they are here for a good time as they have now headed off to the shop for some booze 🙂
Dave is flying in very late tonight, he will head first to Akureyri and then on to Egilsstadir where I hope to meet up with him some time on Thursday. Keen followers will be pleased to hear that as Angelique left Iceland she was reunited with her cycling gear which had in fact been there since about two hours after we had reported it missing upon landing (!)
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