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Tour Guides on Tour Part 3: Life and Death in the Desert

By Annette Drummond01 February, 2017James' Blog

Tour Guides on Tour Part 3: Life and Death in the Desert

We last heard from RTJ after his running tour of Cape Town, so where did he end up next?

The day after the running tour of Cape Town, I loaded my bag into an old converted Mercedes truck and headed north to the Namib desert, with the intention of camping out under the stars, finding some wildlife, and surviving in conditions of up to 40 degrees.

I never thought I’d get to see a desert, and it was an experience I’m not going to forget in a hurry. Those who know me know that I’m built for winter. That guy who’s always in shorts, regardless of conditions? Yeah, that’s me. Cold, wet, I understand, these things I can deal with, but the brutal, cloudless skies of the desert? A mystery. To me, the heat, the dryness, the seemingly endless dirt, sand, and the sheer vastness meant death.

In amongst the dust and the sand dunes, however, there were still signs of life- specially adapted and accustomed to its environment, the creatures of the desert have made the most out of their harsh abode. By trees that had stood dead for almost a millennium, I found scurrying bugs, lizards, there were birds soaring above and signs of the roaming herds of animals.

I learnt about the Bushman, the humans who lived in this wasteland long before colonists arrived and all but wiped them out. I learnt about the techniques developed to live in this environment, about the special adaptations that the animals had evolved for gathering and storing water, about just how well life has adapted out there.

It’s a fascinating place, and if you haven’t been to the desert I highly recommend experiencing it.

I get the feeling I’ll be back someday, for now though, onwards….

Tour Guides on Tour Part 2: Run Cape Town

By Annette Drummond15 December, 2016James' Blog

Tour Guides on Tour Part 2: Run Cape Town

SO, mere hours after wandering through the frozen forests and mountains of Norway, our intrepid RTJ finds himself in an entirely different climate….

Now, if you know or have met me, you’ll know I’m built for winter. Anyone who’s been out on one of the tours in the past few weeks, for example, may well have been wrapped up in as many layers as they can get on, in order to deal with the bitter Scottish weather. Not me though, I’m still in shorts and short sleeved t-shirt (although I have to confess, I do wear a hat if it gets below about 2 degrees!).

Imagine how I felt then, getting off a plane in Cape Town just as summer is kicking off! Yep, after an entire days worth of travelling, I went from -22 degrees to +25, and what’s the first thing I do? A running tour, of course!

I hooked up with the lovely Philippa from Run Cape Town who took me out on a wonderful run through the historical part of the town, filling my head with stories of pipe smoking pirates, key figures in the colonisation of Cape Town, and the history of life in South Africa. It was so much fun being a tourist for a change, and letting someone else take care of the chat, although I have to say I did find it a little hard to not tell stories as we ran along 😉

The city is beautiful, surrounded by a horseshoe of a mountain, with a really interesting (if somewhat troubled) history, and it was really great to see it from an insiders point of view. Next time I’ll be back for the run up table mountain, but the time is fleeting and I had to leave for the next part of the adventure….

RTJ

Tour Guides on Tour, Part 1: James goes to Norway

By Annette Drummond22 November, 2016James' Blog

Tour Guides on Tour Part 1: James goes to Norway

“November 1st? Sure, why not…” Well, I can actually think of one MAJOR reason why not, but the flights are almost £100 cheaper, so yeah, that sounds fine. The reason? Samhuinn. A fire festival in Edinburgh (at which two of our guides are volunteer performers) that finishes at about 5am, giving me approximately 4 hours to wash off all the body paint, pack, and get myself to the airport for the 10am flight to Oslo. But still, £100 is £100, and with Norway being famously expensive to foreign travellers, I book the cheaper flights, and use the saved £100 buy enough dehydrated camping food and whisky to last a week, and off I go.

As with every trip I take, I did a little research into where I was going, and learnt the importance of leaving a small pile of ammunition for the local trolls. If you leave them supplies, they will leave you alone; if you get chased by them, you have to run or hide until sunlight, when they will either flee the brightness or risk turning to stone in its glare, so when I found myself at the base of the highest waterfall in the country (Vettifossen), I thought it best to leave a little offering to the guardians of the pathways, just in case.

The searing beauty of the west of the country is hard to describe- using Laerdal as a base we explored the Sogneford as much as we were able to, seeing 12th century Viking churches, seemingly endless torrents of frozen water and snowy mountaintops, icicles forming structures that resembled magnificent church organs, and some of the most remarkable night skies imaginable.

I would love to claim that I went out running every day, but with temperatures dropping to -22 degrees at one point, I decided that a week off was alright. I supplemented the running regime with a healthy dose of walks in the fjords, scrambling through frozen mountain passages to get to forgotten areas in the snow, the only company the wolves who’s pawprints I had spent the past few hours tracking…

After a week in the wilderness, I pack up my things, head to the airport, and get on the plane home. You would think that after a week in the winter wilderness I would be prepped and ready for the Winter Warmer running tour to get underway, but 18 hours after landing I’m on another plane, bound for a very different climate; that story you’ll have to wait to hear about in part 2…

RTJ

Cultural Tour Operator of the Year

By Annette Drummond06 October, 2016James' Blog

Cultural Tour Operator of the Year

Excited to be able to announce that we’ve just won the “cultural tour operator of the year” for Edinburgh by the Luxury Travel Guide! Big thanks to the guides and everyone at EMF for a great year so far, looking forward to what comes next!

My Accidental Marathon

By Annette Drummond06 October, 2016James' Blog

My Accidental Marathon

We had a fantastic weekend over the Edinburgh Marathon Festival, and welcomed loads of folk onto the running tours. It was amazing to get the opportunity to share our beautiful city with so many people, and I had a bit of a funny accident…

I’ve never really been a fan of long distance running. My preferred distance is somewhere between 10-20K, and I’d never really had a desire to go further than that. On the Friday of the EMF weekend, we had four tours go out back to back, and at the end of the day, I looked at my watch to discover that I had done 22 miles. “22 miles?” I thought, “well, what’s another 4.2?”

So, despite never having the urge to do so, I ran a marathon that weekend! Whilst my pace was very gentle, and I stopped for lunch half way, I’m still really pleased that I made the distance, and have a new found respect for those who run 26.2 at race pace!”