Tregaron author, Ian Tillotson, has released another book chronicling his travels. Any Bus in a Storm is his latest release. Here he speaks to Maes about his travels…

“During early travelling years, our intrepid group had enjoyed many of the wonders of the African continent. We had trod the uplands of Malawi’s Nyika Plateau, and had wallowed in the wetlands of the Okavango swamps. We had ascended unimaginable dunes in Namibia, and had saturated in the maelstrom of ‘The Smoke that Thunders’. We had wandered the forests of Zambia, had been arrested in Khartoum, and had been pinned down by the crossfire of warfare in Juba.

“The time had come for review, revision and perhaps a change of direction. The South American continent would surely provide difference and diversity in every conceivable characteristic. Peru would be the chosen destination, providing as it would, soaring mountains, sweltering jungle, coastal desert, culture, history, and a new and unknown extravagance of wildlife.

“Peru would provide a platform of boundless diversity. From the breathless and frigid altitudes of the High Andes, to the sweltering and perspirant forests and waterways of the Upper Amazon Basin. We would prospect the parched and waterless aridity of the coastal Atacama Desert, where rainfall is an unknown phenomenon, and we would find our way to the world’s highest navigable lake where it is much more abundant.

“We would wander among the surviving remnants of civilisations past, and marvel at the mysteries of their engineering skills, recoil at details of some of their sinister rituals, and puzzle over the mysteries that they left behind. In passing we would inadvertently stumble upon some of the conflict and discord of their modern successors, and would find the need for bold and ingenious means to escape their clutches.

“Binoculars, cameras, and notebooks would be our most constant companions, and by the time that we had made our return, they would all be filled to capacity with the stuff of memories.

“This was surely to become a journey that would encompass experience far in excess of mere personal discovery. Its potential was lodged in the realm of ’wildest dreams’. Our wildlife encounters would abruptly emerge from the pages avidly absorbed during preparatory moments. This was not simply a new country, but a new continent. It was an unknown of inestimable proportions that awaited our landfall. The green light was shining, the motor was ticking over, ‘go’ had been engaged, and speculation had finally been abandoned in succession to anticipation.

“We were not to be disappointed.”