The Odyssey began in the town of Punta Arenas Chile, 1st November 1998.  It's hard to explain what it's like to stand and look down a 36,000mile, 14year long road.  Needles to say, it’s a trip.  However at the time relief was the order of the day, as the dream became a reality.  With only a few hundred dollars in my pocket, no support, sponsors or back up, I began following the long road north, into arid Patagonia, Argentina. 

Tracing track systems through the wind battered Patagonian desert before eventually crossing the Andes Mountains and down into the green and fertile fields of Chile. Here I could sustain myself, having run out of money.  Chile has one central main highway, 'Route 5', and this would take me into and beyond my first major urban centre, the Chilean capital Santiago. 

Beyond Santiago, after a brief spell of the colour green, it was back onto the coast line and into the deserts that would last for the next 4,000kms until the very North of Peru.  At this point I would leave the coast behind to go inland through the high Andes with a donkey in tow, then would trek through Ecuador and troubled Colombia, before descending into the notorious Darien Gap, the first of the three controversial gaps between myself and home. 

The lead artwork depicts a memorable night in the middle of the Atacama desert, south of Antofagasta, Chile.  I watched mesmerized as the full moon rose from behind the Andes, lluminating the otherwise invisible mountain. .