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In 1992 Mark Eveleigh (www.markeveleigh.com) spent six hours reviewing his life while swinging from the end of a fraying cable in the world's highest cable-car, in Venezuela. The psychological shock of this experience was enough to send him plummeting down the slippery slope into the shadowy world of freelance travel-writing. As a photojournalist he has since contributed to 60 magazines and newspapers on 6 continents. Mark specialises in adventure travel and exploration but has written on conservation and cultural aspects of more than 50 different countries. In 1996 he led the first expedition by foreigners into Central Borneo's 'valley of the spirit world,' collecting material for Fever Trees of Borneo.

He grew up in Africa, and returned in 1999 to trek through northern Madagascar with a zebu pack-bull. The full story was told in Maverick in Madagascar. He continues to spend most of each year travelling on assignments in remote parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America but between trips is based in Pamplona, Spain. Hemingway once described Mark's adopted hometown as 'the hell-raising capital of the world' but the man who Maxim called 'a borderline insane modern-day explorer' admits to finding it increasingly difficult to shake off the effects of the world's greatest fiesta. Now Mark is off on a fabulous 7 Stop Discoverer RTW - see his full itinerary here

Ten Thousand Miles – on a wing and a prayer.
‘It’s a small world.’ How often do you hear that?

When you begin looking at all the possibilities for a year-long journey that will take in 16 countries though you start to get a real inkling of just how big it is. Planning a trip though the incredible variety of all those countries, cultures and cities can be bewildering to say the least. I will be flying almost 30,000 miles in the next year but the part of the journey that really counts will, of course, be done by bus, train, car, boat, bike or on foot. I have been working as a freelance travel writer for well over a decade now and have usually specialised in getting off the beaten track and have sometimes led expeditions in extremely remote (and sometimes entirely uncharted) country. In the course of those 10,000 or so overland miles there are sure to be a fair few jungles, deserts, mountains, wild coastlines…and more than a few un-surfed waves..more

 

Panama City – Bien Pretty

The first thing you notice when you leave the airport in Panama is the tropical heat. Sometimes the heat is also the second and third things you notice. But very quickly you are certain to notice the buses. Panama has the most outrageously pimped buses in the world. In an earlier incarnation they were staid and respectable boxlike Bluebirds shuttling North American high school kids around. When they were retired off they promptly swapped their boring mustard-yellow livery for a riot of lurid paintwork and hypnotising day-glo graffiti. There are garish pink buses that look like monstrous wedding cakes on wheels, emblazoned with Looney Tunes characters or fairytale castles; there are other hellish ‘death squad vehicles’ bearing hosts of vampires, ghouls and tormented spirits and with giant fibre glass shark-fins rearing from the roof. And of course many of the rest fall into three categories: busty pouting blondes, football players and the Virgin Mary...more

Panama City – Rain in the Concrete Jungle

The early morning mist rises through the jungle canopy and sets the howler monkeys off. The locals say that they only set up this incredible Godzilla-esque roar when it is going to rain. My eye flickers to a flash of blue in the shadows and I catch sight of a better omen: a giant blue morpho butterfly flutters past, looking like the patch of fallen heaven that the ancient Mayans thought it to be. Farther along the trail a toucan sets up its strange, froglike croaking call as a troop of tiny squirrel monkeys swoop past. Within a few minutes we have also added agouti (like a cross between a deer and a giant rat) and coati to our sightings....more

 

Panama City – Melting Pot of the Americas

I’m eating a four-dollar plate of rice, refried beans and ropa vieja beef (literally ‘old rags’) in Café Coca Cola. This is apparently the oldest café in Panama. Of course it wasn’t always called the Coca Cola: the most elderly clients still know it as La Apuñalada (The Stabbing). This can be a pretty gritty neighbourhood and nobody seems to think that was an unreasonable name for a café. Just a block down the road there is the supermarket called El Machetazo (The Machete Attack).....more

Panama to Costa Rica

Headlamp…warm, long-sleeved shirt…wool socks…earplugs…I am running through my checklist of things that I need to keep handy for a nocturnal road trip on the Pan-Am Highway. There are few times when you feel the cold in the coastal lowlands of Panama. At this time of year the mercury is frequently nudging at 30°C even in the middle of the night. But experience has taught me that – unless you are lucky enough to find a bus in which the air-con has finally been burned out – Latin American buses are almost always kept chilled to almost arctic temperatures.....more

 

Charlie Papas Day

The first time I arrived in Costa Rica I flew to San Jose from Miami. As
the plane banked over the Caribbean and began its descent I remember
hearing the pilot's voice crackling out of the speakers: "Those of you
sitting on the right side of the plane will now be able look down to the
Caribbean atolls of Costa Rica...those of you on the left have a view of
a female humpback whale and a calf."...more

Christina's tale

Cristina tells the story of a typical rural family moving to old San Jose -
“We left Montezuma because I was unwell as a little girl. I’ve got too many veins. You can see them in my hands. I swelled up in the heat and itched and was always tired. The doctor said that so many veins were preventing the blood from reaching my brain and unless we moved to a cooler climate I wouldn’t survive. The village was all I knew. We always went to sleep when the monkeys passed on their way down the mountain – monos congos would howl at us and carablancas would go past one by one. “Adios,” we yelled..... more

Nicaraguan bottle-shopping

Carrying rum into Nicaragua is like taking tea to China. By a stroke of luck though I decided to buy a bottle of Ron del Abuelo at the Costa Rican border with my last banknotes. It’s not that this Panamanian rum is any better than the excellent Nicaraguan Flor de Caña (‘Flower of the Cane’), but there is a widespread boycott on Flor de Caña at the moment. You are not supposed to buy it due to some ongoing dispute about how this massive family-owned conglomerate (which also controls most of the coffee…and all of the Toyotas) has been treating its cane-field labourers....more

Down in the dumps’ in Managua

Surprisingly, Managua probably boasts what must be one of the most efficient recycling systems anywhere in the world. Every day as many as 1,200 tonnes of trash are added to the mountain of garbage on the shore of Lake Managua that is known as La Chureca...more

‘Fire and Brimstone’:

A journey through Central America is a trip along the spine of one of the world’s most dramatic and spectacular volcanic ranges. I was already in El Salvador when I got an email from a friend back in Panama City. They had just gone through two big earthquakes she told me. The whole city had shuddered and seemed to drop a couple of feet – like the first sickening fall in a roller-coaster. Then all was quiet again. There were a few more cracks in the crumbling colonial plasterwork but even among the rickety shacks in the old town there was no major damage. This whole region has been quivering and shuddering since time immemorial....more

 

 

"Chichi" in Guatemala

For many of the travellers who are drawn along the tortuous, swooping road for the famous market days Chichicastenango becomes one of the greatest landmarks in any trip around Guatemala. More than that: a few days in this unique highland town is likely to be one of the most enduring memories from an Central American trip....more

The Teachings of Don Ignacio

The church of Santo Tomás was built shortly after the Spanish Conquest on the site of a Mayan temple-pyramid and perhaps more than any other monument in Central America it illustrates the confusion that Catholicism fostered in the New World. The Spanish padres directed their religious zeal into delivering the greatest number of souls from purgatory rather than wasting valuable time in instructing them accurately in the new doctrine....more

Latin American food

Latin America is not generally renowned for its great cuisine. There are exceptions: fantastic steaks in Argentina for example, and the excellent chilli dishes that make travel in Mexico such a pleasure. But, throughout much of Latin American, people eat because it is necessary. Only the privileged can afford to eat for enjoyment....more

Mexican Jungle

I am now en-route to the Lacandon Rainforest. Even the best maps available show very little detail of the ‘Selva Lacandones’ and, apart from a couple of the most famous Mayan ruins, the guidebooks give only the barest clues of what to expect....more

The Lord of the Jungle

A cry rang out through the jungle night, piercing even through the shattering roars of the howler monkeys. It sounded like a cry for help. A human voice yelling out in fear or agony. “Es el señor de la selva,” came the quiet explanation of my guide....more

Me and Shakira - surreal

Los Angeles style culture-shock struck within moments of takeoff from Mexico City. After a summer spent in Central America I was expecting some changes on the other side of the Rio Grande. But I was totally unprepared when Shakira herself parted curtains from the first class section and came back – all flowing golden mane and hypnotically tanned boobs – to ask me in her lilting Colombian Spanish if it would be possible for her to sleep at my place!...more

The ancient Hawaiians believed that the sacred waters of Waikiki bay had great ‘mana’ - spiritual healing powers. With a head that still thumped – from a combination of Longboard beer, gin and tequila – I was hoping that there might still be some truth in this. I had been at a party in a house full of students from University of Hawaii. Even apart from a fairly raucous round of the student drinking game known as King’s Cup it had been a strange evening. The puritanical 21 year-old age-limit on alcohol had led to a couple of unusual (mis-)adventures. Early in the evening the excessively law-abiding staff of a 7-11 refused to sell me beer because I didn’t have ‘the correct ID.’ I pointed to the ample signs of 41 years of hardship and toil in the lines around my eyes ....more

Someone once said that strangers are just good friends you haven’t met yet. One of the great things about taking an extended trip through so many countries is that you end up with so many great friends…and so many more excuses to pass back through the same places yet again, sometime in the future....more

Up the Old Coathanger

The Sydney Harbour Bridgeclimb must be the most successful tour operation of its kind anywhere in the world. It is a complete human conveyor belt – an entire factory dedicated to elevating whole groups of people spiritually and physically skyward....more

Mark in the Australia Outback

You can count the miles down the Stuart Highway from Alice to Urldunda in dead kangaroos. There’s not a helluva lot else to look at though and my eyes began to glaze over somewhere after the thirtieth ‘roo road-kill....more

 

Mark on 5* hostels....

It’s now almost seven months since I left London for Panama and began this little jaunt around the world. Seven months living out of a backpack, eating in cafés and cheap restaurants. Seven months of working on magazine stories (more stories than I can remember now) in what must by now be a couple of dozen ‘hijacked offices’ in the corners of cafes, bars, airports, hotel lobbies, private sitting rooms and even railway carriages...more

Uluru - a plea

There are few things more hypnotic than watching a desert highway flicker out, like a shaken rope, as it stretches out into the limitless distance. Moreover you can be pretty sure that no cop in his right mind is going to be sitting out on this blood-boiling forty-five degree outback day. So you keep the needle hovering at a steady 130km/hr and listen to the wheel purr over the hot sticky tarmac....more

Aussie Vastness

“That’s the thing about Aus. It’s vast!” my fellow passenger was saying, as we shot across the desert at 100km an hour while gulping at frosted glasses of Victoria Beer. “People from outside just can’t grasp the sheer ‘vastity’ of it.” .....more

Bali

The old Suzuki was rattling badly as I battered at the last of the potholes on the descent down to Bali’s spectacular Batur Volcano. I’ve been coming to Bali for years and have rented this same vehicle on every visit. Over the course of the last decade it has threatened to explode or simply crumble under me on pretty much every volcano, beach road and jungle track on the island. I’m always surprised whenever I get back to Kuta and my friend Mr Putu tells me that the old Suzuki is still “kuat dan sehat” (strong and healthy).....more

Malaysia - thoughts on KL

Lai Foong

Lai Foong Coffee Shop has been a fixture of Chinatown’s Tun Tan Cheng Lock street for more than fifty years now. It is actually a collection of half a dozen frantically hectic eateries and is famous for Lai Foong Beef Noodles and for what must be the most tooth-rottingly sweet coffee in Malaysia....more

Bangkok - 2 brilliant new videos

Saigon - 2 brilliant new videos

Vietnam - it's addictive

Vietnam was a detour from my original schedule. I had been heading there many times. But the only thing that is 100% certain in Asia is that the unexpected is sure to happen. The gods of travel had for one reason or another always deemed that I should head off on another tangent (usually following assignments to other areas...in some cases much less appealing). And once again I missed out on Vietnam. I have been in Thailand perhaps a dozen times and this time I was determined not to get sidetracked so from the very beginning I had scheduled Vietnam as a 3-week side-trip from my RTW route.....more

Vietnam

Vietnam - in praise of buses

Vietnam could be described as ‘a tall country that is much more up and down than sideways.’ Go almost anywhere from Saigon and it seems that you are likely to be involved in a fairly long journey. Fortunately overland travel in ‘Nam is as comfortable as it is inexpensive. After a summer spent on air-con-frigid and salsa-blasted long-distance night buses up the length of Central America just the sight of a bus terminal waiting room was beginning to bring on a sudden urge to scramble for a thick woolly ‘chomper’ and a set of ear-plugs....more

Mark gets another Thai Massage

Thailand - land of smiles

A popular Thai refrain has it that he who sees Bangkok will always return to the City of Angels. This tenet could just as easily apply to the country as a whole. Thailand has long held an enviable place as one of the world�s favourite tourist destinations and its testament to the exoticism, fascination and pure Asian charm that the majority of visitors who come to the land of smiles are lured back time and again....more

Delhi

Delhi is not a city that should be tackled in a rush; the city’s streets are among the world’s most congested and the real soul of Old Delhi only betrays itself to those who take time to entangle themselves in its web. It has been said that if you stand long enough on one of the busy corners in the exotic labyrinth of Chandni Chowk bazaar the entire world will eventually pass before your eyes.....more

 

See Marks itinerary

Mark is travelling on a fantastic 7 stop Discoverer ticket - our number one best selling RTW. All in cost £1623 including taxes plus one extra flight in Australia - for more details click here