On our last trip around Asia, disaster followed closely behind us: Chechen separatists caused a massacre in a Moscow theatre just after we visited, SARS broke out in southern China as we sailed unsuspectingly through, a major terrorist attack hit Bali just as we planned to go there and a bus of tourists were murdered on the Lao road we had passed through a week before. We were lucky, but the message seemed to be don't follow us around!

This time around, troubles have been milder, yet closer to home. There seems to be some kind of "foot curse" following us on this journey.

Our pal Space joined us for a 4 day trek up the Inca Trail in Peru. Literally on his first step out of the bus, he landed down on a big rock, badly twisting his ankle. Being a ridiculously hyper-fit individual he managed to drag his gimpy leg up and over the mountains to Machu Picchu but in some serious discomfort.

Then Cheryl's parents came to visit us in Rio. On our first night out at a Carnaval street party, Mum Tourney was attacked by a fiendishly normal looking gutter (though some question the role a caiparinha or two might have had to play), causing her leg to swell up painfully and sending her family on a fruitless search for a wheelchair in the samba-mad city.

Then today, Robert flew in from London for a healthy dose of safari, trekking and beach time. Except that he had been bitten on the foot by some unidentified insect. As a result, his right foot had ballooned into a freakish mass of brown and purple. Children ran screaming to their mothers as he lumbered ever-so-slowly past.

Considering that our chance meeting with seafaring friends, Gary and Kirstin, in Argentina almost led to the incineration of their boat in a diesel-fueling mishap, perhaps it's just better if we take these trips on our own!

Check our Latest Adventures section below for pictures and stories from Malawi & Western Tanzania or Rwanda or Uganda.