Random Rambling: 6 Months 5 continents

Guess where !

In January 2010 I blogged about the previous 12 months travels where I'd ended up visiting 5 continents with my trip to Egypt on the way home from an Irish wedding. Little did I know that 18 months later I'd be visiting my fifth continent of the year mid-July - on the start of our USA trip. I now have 4 months to get to South America - not likely, but never say never :)

Early January, work took me to Qatar for 4 hours of meetings. By chance I was staying in the same hotel as the Socceroos; unfortunately the unexpected call up to replace injured stars never came. I did however manage to score tickets to the Asian Cup Final match between North Korea and Iran (playing for the Axis of Evil cup) which was quite an experience.

Axis of Evil Cup

From Qatar we jumped via Kuwait to Cairo for some customer meetings. Despite their proximity, Cairo is very much in Africa whereas Qatar is considered part of Asia. I stopped the taxi on the way back from the meeting to take the photo below of the Pyramids in the rain - a far cry from the beautiful weather I had a year earlier. A couple of weeks later, all hell broke lose in Cairo, of course.

Wet Cairo

By May I'd been not once but twice to Europe; managing to visit countries as varied as England, Ireland, Bulgaria and Sweden. On the way home from Sweden I stopped in on Mumbai - from 4 degrees to 44, which made for interesting packing. A few days after the first trip I was up in Jakarta - meaning I'd covered West Asia, South Asia and South East Asia by April.