Feliz Navidad

Merry Christmas Everyone !!

We're in Montanita, Ecuador for Christmas this year and want to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas !!  It's certainly different being so far from home, friends and family... but we still had a great day together with each other and some of the new friends we've met, both Ecuadorians and other travellers !! Last night we had a traditional turkey dinner and today after opening our presents and stockings (can you believe Santa found us in Ecuador?) we made our way to the beach and surfed up a storm! 

We wish we could have been home to spend this special holiday with each you all and miss you all very much !! Hope that you all enjoyed this special day together and that Santa spoiled you rotten!!!

Love,
   
      Dawne and David xoxox

Baños, Ecuador

Hola Amigos !!  Ok, ok, ok... It´s been about a week again since we last updated the blog.  We really need to get better at this and update much more regularily !!

We spent the last week in a small town by the name of Baños (yes, that´s correct, the translation is "Bathroom".  It´s a really cool Eco-Adventure based town at the base of VolcanoTungurahua, which became active again on December 4th. A bunch of people told us it was a bit dangerous, but as soon as we heard it was "erupting" we knew we had to get there ASAP.  Seriosly, how often are you that close to a volcano that may blow at any given moment...  Of course you have to get there to hopefully catch a glimpse !!

Upon arriving to Baños, we knew we´d be there for a few days.  All the streets are lined with tour agencies with shouting vendors "Amigos, rafting rafting, you need rafting?  Canyoning? Jumping? Jungle tour?  Amigos, what you need?"  It was pretty wild.  After debating what we should do, we narrowed down our selection to, "let´s do everything!"

Tuesday - Motor Bike Tour

Once the clouds parted in the morning, we realized that you can´t actually see the top of the volcano from the town because there is a sharp hill in the way, so we decided to rent a dirtbike to explore for a better view.  We hit the open highway and drove for several km´s down a stretch of road that surrounded by several waterfalls, it was very beatiful.  We eventually ended up taking a road up towards the peak of the volcano for a better look.  Our best view came once we arrived at the volcano siesmic and data observation house.  We were amazed at the thick black smoke pouring out of the volcano.  Really an amazing site !! At the observation station is also a treehouse, with a swing that extends over the edge of a hill.  It was thrilling to swing out, past the edge of the hill many many meters above the ground.

Wednesday - Canoyoning (repelling down water falls)

We met up in the morning with our guide, who we were promised was extremely competent and also great at speaking English, which we thought might be important seeing as the guide would be helping us repell down waterfalls and needing to give us carefull instructions. Turns out, the guide didn´t speak any English, and at times it appeared like this may have been his first time repelling.  He was a fairly nice guy, except for when anything went wrong.  We would let him know that there was an issue, and he would always get mad and blame the problem on us, even though we never touched anything.  It was really quite funny.  We decided we needed to be extra cautious seeing as we weren´t sure if the guide knew what he was doing.  Good thing we were paying attention, especially the time Dawne started going down the waterfall and noticed that the secondary safety rope wasn´t attached... But hey, who needs a saftey rope when you have a primary rope that is severly frayed and taped together?? We ended up descending down 4 waterfalls, of which the last was definately the most intense.  It was nearly 50 meters high, and we were only against the cliff face for a few meters and the last 40 meters or so was a free descent with us just hanging in the harness.  It was terrifying, but amazing to be suspended in the middle of a giant waterfall with water spilling over the edge onto you as you descended.  Dawne screamed the entire way after telling me what a baby I was being for being so scared to go first...  We finished off the day with a warm dip in the local hotsprings at the base of the volcano.

Thursday - Whitewater Rafting

After the canyoning, we were certain that there was no possible way that we could get a worse guide for any of the rest of the tours.  We were right!  The guide wasn´t worse, but it was the exact same guide as the day before, but today he was an expert at whitewater rafting.  Haha, I bet it would have been great to see the looks on our faces when we saw the same guide and the shady looking raft (of course we were again told that all the equipment would be brand new). Still no English, first time rafting?  Perhaps !

In the end he turned out to be not a bad raft master after all.  He gave us an instructional saftey talk which explained how to paddle and what to do if someone fell out of the boat.  The presentation was 5 minutes, and he was dripped sweat and out of breathe by the time it was over.  Still not really sure why, but you would think that he would be in a little better shape seeing as he "does tours like these everyday".  Once we were on the river things went pretty well.  The water level was rather low, so the rapids were fairly calm and no one fell out of the boat.  It was a lot of fun and the river offered some great views of the jungle that surrounded it.

Friday - Jungle tour and Monkey Sanctuary

Another day, another tour.... another guide right ???   We were pretty relieved that it was someone different to pick us up for this tour, as were weren´t sure how much more we could handle of the previous hombre.  We took the tour with another couple, which fortunately were very good in both Spanish and English.  We started at a monkey sanctuary where volunteers work with injured or lost monkeys to help get them back in the wild.  They told us before entering that we needed to stay calm and to not panic if the monkeys jump on us.  They also made us leave wallets, jewelry, hats, sunglasses and anything else loose in the car because apparently they are great little thieves.   Within secong of getting inside the area there were monkeys everwhere !!  ... On your head, in your arms, on your back, climbing your legs !!!   It was crazy !! It was so much fun to watch them play and use you like a tree to swing and chase each other around.  It´s hard to explain how much fun it was to play with them !!

After the monkeys, we went to visit native tribal village.  We got there while they were having one of their Christmas ceremonies, which they graciously allowed us to view, so as long as we took part and drank their special ceremonial drink "Chicha de Yuca" (or something like that).  It was awful, but we couldn´t say no because it would be unhonorable to the tribe.  It didn´t do much for David, seeing as his stomach was already not doing well that day.  It actually makes me kind of ill just thinking back on it...

After lunch we went on a short canoe trip down the river, much like the local natives do, and also went on a short hike to another waterfall where we were able to go swimming.  Again, a pretty refreshing experience! On the hike there was also another swing similar to the one we we on at the volcano monitoring station, except this one was about 3 times as high.  Dawne went first and swung of the ledge, at the heigt of the swing you are nearly 100 meters above the ground looking out on an astounding view of the jungle and river below.  We went a few times each, and later found out that there have been a few bad accidents on that swing... Funny how these things never come up before you go on them.

Saturday - Bridge Jumping

We saved the scariest experience in Baños for last.  The death defying free fall swing off the San Franciso bridge just outside of town.  The river below the bridge is well over 100 meters down and I´m not sure how long the falls is, but I think it was about 65-70 meters .  You strap into several harnesses, much the same way as if you were going to do a body harness bungee jump.  Then, they hook you up to the ropes which are tied to the bottom of the opposite side of the bridge, you climb the guardrail to a platform and  3-2-1 JUMP !!!!  You dive away from the platform and after a freefall you swing under the bridge to the other side, and then continue like a pendulum until they lower you down to ground!

Good grief !! It was terrifying !  Partially because of the height, but also because of the seemingly lack of saftey standards in Ecuador.  The best part of all the activities in when you barter for the price in the street !!  Really??  Dawne was really good at it, we got the price of the bridge jump down from $20.00 per person to $10.00 per person.  That´s a good thing, Right??  Either way we made it through it all in tip top shape and overcame some fears in the meantime... Next stop, the small party / surf town of Montanita after a 10 hour busride !!!   Can´t wait !!

ps our camera is being a pain in the butt so we'll upload more photos later on! They are pretty crazy!!!

Cali to Quito

We were excited to go out in Cali and teach the locals how the hip moving was really done as it it the Salsa City of South America. We stayed in a hostel which was apparently really close to all of the fun salsa bars. We also heard that there was another light festival at the river down the road so we were really excited. We got all done up and decided to head out to explore the city. We opened the door and found the streets lined with candles. On the eve of December 7, Dia de las Velitas (Immaculate Conception) is celebrated all over Colombia. It marks the start of the Christmas season and every house lights candles with images of the Virgen Mary and sits on the streets while listening to loud music!  It was really beautiful. The journey to the river ended up being a cab ride to the other side of the city as the location had changed. Upon listening to the strict orders of the cabbie to stay near police and not leave the festival and wander in the neighborhood we took off on our evening adventure. The lights were a tad different than we had anticipated, instead of Christmas lights, there were extinct animals of Colombia... odd but interesting non the less. We walked down the 2km stretch and watched light shows and carnies until we came to a barb wired fence.. the lights continued but we couldn´t see anymore police, the music was louder and the people a bit sketchier, we decided to turn around and make it back to the start to catch a cab to a club. On our walk we noticed some commotion at the intersection ahead of us. Suddenly there were swarms of people sprinting across the street, 40 police and military officials swinging clubs! We took that as our exit point as we were sure the tear gas was about to come out! and apparently without a map or an address cabbies in Cali don´t know any salsa clubs so we just went back to our hostel and watched Fight Club to prepare ourselves for future raids!

Although the decision was very difficult, we decided to get the hell out of Cali as soon as we woke up and found that nothing was open on the holiday and that we were in an unsafe neighborhood. We made our way to Popayan, a beautiful white washed colonial city. This town was a great break from the crazy hustle and bustle of the big scary cities! We went out at night to watch performers and see more REAL Christmas lights!

 The following day we made our way to Ipiales en route to the boarder crossing. This time we stayed in an even nicer neighborhood, right next to the hooker hotel. Unfortunately I don´t have any good stories about the hookers, although when I went to bed Dave said he had to go to the store to get some gel and it took him 3 hrs.... hmmm Either way it was a nice night. The following day we went to visit a church which was built where a Colombian had claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary on a cliff face. The following centuries 3 versions of churches were built and the final result was a beautiful structure on a bridge. We were blown away and even more so when we walked in and there disco flashing lights and tacky fake Christmas trees and the loud pounding pop catholic songs... Totally what we would have expected! 

Later that day we made a trip to the post office to send some Christmas pressies back home, only to discover that this was a full day event and that we would never do it again as postage is equivalent to a full months vacation here! Somehow we figured it out though and were able to catch a taxi to the boarder. We still don´t know how we got into Ecuador as the driver drove right through the boarder and dropped us off on the other side. When we got out of the car we were surrounded by black market money exchangers with handfuls of cash in their hands. There were also a bunch of drivers trying to bring us into town but we thought we should probably get some kind of stamp or acknowledgement that we were in a new country so we proceeded to walk a couple kms back to the Colombian customs. We got the paper work all sorted out easily enough and made our way to a bus station to get to Otavalo, a small city known all around Ecuador as the best Saturday market in the country. The journey passed by relatively quickly except David ALWAYS jumps on the bus first and gets the window seat, he then proceeds to fall asleep 10 seconds into our road trip and leaves me leaning over him to see the views! We arrived around 9pm and were starved! The decision was made to try out our first street market food, it was the best ever!!! There were about 9 kiosks set up with little ladies inside cooking up storms and inviting you in for a meal. I was soooo excited that I made David try out one meal at each place! I was in love! Ecuadorian food is amazing! Our favorite was these potato pancake type things and David liked the random street meat!  

The following day we were awoken by random animals yelping out our window, so we got up at about 6:30 and wondered over to the animal market. Our first view was of a massive pig being dragged across the hwy, I have NEVER heard such a horrible scream in my life! The following panoramic views of squealing cats, dogs, genie pigs, ducklings, pigs, cows and bulls was pretty amazing! David felt right at home walking through the droppings slapping the cows as he walked by.  

After we had our fill at the animal market we walked across the street to find that the whole city had turned into an artisan market. It was incredible! Wish that it was at the end of our trip because we both wanted to buy up the town! It was a pretty neat experience and we were able to also try out a bunch more random food! 

Later that day we decided to head to Quito. The bus ride there was much like all our previous rides, me bored, David sleeping... but we got there!  We grabbed a cab with an Aussie girl we had met earlier and drove to our hostel. We were really fortunate and were recommended to stay at a hostel in the old town called, ¨The Secret Garden¨ this has been our favorite place that we´ve stayed so far. The terrace on the 5th floor was unbelievable. It was a great view of the city and made up for Dave running all my country side touring! The rooms were also very clean and felt like home. We met tons of really fun people too and had some good nights on the town!!

Buzzed in Manizales

This morning we woke up bright and early to check out a coffee farm 20mins outside the city of Manizales, Hacienda Venecia. The drive out and really beautiful and we are located right in the Andes. We started our tour off with a shot of fresh Colombian espresso. It was delicious. Our guide described to us the different aromas and assortment of beans, as well as giving a demonstration of the assortments of qualities of beans. It was interesting to learn about Colombia´s growing regulations and export requirements in order to guarantee a high quality product to the rest of the world. We then drank another cup of espresso.

 Our guide took us on a trek around the farm to view the plants and the processes involved. Here`s a few things we learned;

• Coffee farms look much like a wine vineyard with coffee "berries" growing on bushes.
• Each bush stays in production for 30 years (but only produces 80% of the time due to pruning every 4 years, meaing no production in year 5)
• There are 2 major harvests each year.
• The berries have to be picked manually as there are no machines that can function on the steep slopes.
• To collect enough coffee produce 1 bag of processed coffee it takes 2 full days per picker, who are paid baised on the amount they gather.
• One bag (40kg) is sold for roughly $100.00 USD.

When we finished walking around the factory and back to the guest house we ate lunch and had an iced coffee and the weather was so nice so we decided to take advantage of the pool at the guesthouse, lounging around, drinking coffee all day long and there was lots of brids, so we watched them and we swam laps in the pool, drank more coffee and then we had to get in a jeep and go back to town and it was really really cool.... Did I mention we drank espresso all day?  It was a fantastic day! It´s getting pretty late and we have a full day of travelling to Cali tomorrow but for some reason we´re not tired...

Pablo Escobar and Medellin (December 1st - 5th)

After our returning from Ciudad Perdida we boarded a bus from Santa Marta to Medellin (for all those "Entourage " fans, the same place referenced for Vincent Chase´s first movie).  It was a 16 hour bus ride that we started at 11am.  We originally thought it would be horrendous, but it wasn´t too bad.  It was actually pretty interesting to see the rural areas of Columbia.  As you may or may not know, there is currently some major flooding going on in Columbia due to "La Niña".  Half of the road was underwater most of the way, towns were completely underwater, and there are many landslides in the area (luckily none of them on our road).  We got into the city of Medellin around 5 am and grabbed some well deserved sleep.  Dawne wasn´t feeling well on Thursday, so we took it really easy.  Friday we went sightseeing around the city.  The highlite had to have been when we found a guy to take us on a guided horseback tour of a huge mountain park.  He helped us climb aboard the horses, took our cash, and said to be back in 1 hour.  Apparently it was an unguided tour, and neither of us know anything about riding horses, so it was pretty interesting to say the least.

We went out on the town Friday nightwith a group from the hostel.  It was a very authentic Columbia experience.  Apparently everyone from Columbia is white, speaks either English or German, and loves rock and grunge music like Marlyn Manson and NIN.  Very Columbian ! 

Saturday we went on a Pablo Escobar tour.  For those of you who don´t know Pablo you should really check out his WikiPedia page or something, cause this was one crazy fella.  He was the lord of Columbia´s drug market and the head of the Medellin Cartel.  In a sense, he is one of the main reason for much of Columbia´s past violence and helped to give Columbia such a bad name.  Pablo was at war with everyone... other cartels, police, government... He would pay poor people to kill police officers.  Anytime members of his cartel were about to stand trial witnesses and judges were killed, and evidence rooms torched.  Really terrrible things, but also known as a "Robinhood" type figure to the poor, as he built homes and soccer fields for those living in desperitely poor neighborhoods.  But I´ll leave the reseach up to you.  Our tour was really interesting.   We went to many of the buildings which Pablo owned or lived in, usually as we were looking at the building, the guide would hand us photos taken of the exact same spot were a major car bomb had gone off in the past in an attempt to destroy the Medellin Cartel and kill Pablo.  We also went to that check out his old drug smuggling planes at the airport, the home and roof top where he was finally gunned down, as well as his gravesite.  A few people at our hostel went a few days before us (on December 2nd) which was the anniversary of his death.  They said there were tons of people there, including several family members when they were there. Too bad we Dawne had to go and get sick that day!

Later that day we made our way to the first day of Medellin´s Christmas festival. The city prepares all year, designing the parade of lights and 3km stretch of wonder! Ít´s incredible! We walked for hours and I got a little camera crazy! We´re finally getting into the Christmas spirit!

Ciudad Perdida

Ciudad Perdida (The Lost City) is an ancient ruined city, the largest pre-Colombian towns discovered in the Americas. It is approximately 650 years older than Machu Picchu, built  between the 11th- 14th century.  It´s located in the middle of the Colombian jungle, on the northern slopes of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. Probably the Tayronas biggest urban center. The spaniards wiped out the Tayronas along with every other tribe in Latin America and their settlements disapeared under the lush vegetation. It was only rediscovered in the 70s and there are still only two ways to reach it - by helicopter or by a three hour jeep ride from Santa Marta followed by a three day hike through the mountains, forests and rivers of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. Hiking tours restarted in 2005, following the kidnapping for three months of eight foreign tourists by the ELN in 2003. As soon as we read that story, we knew it was the place for us!

Day 1: Woke up at 7:00am to prepare for our Jeep ride to the base camp which departed at 9:00am, we wanted to give ourselves plenty of time to get there in order to have a nice big breaky and a morning cuppa. We had to run to the bank before hand as well as they didn´t accept credit cards for the trek. 7:30am- all packed up, we put our bags by our room door and made our way to the bank which was 8 blocks away. 7:45am Dave´s bank card doesn´t work, I realize I had left mine in the room. 8:00am- We arrive back at the room to retrieve my bank card. 8:15am- get money out with my card. 8:30am- Realize that I had forgotten my our room key at the bank machine. 8:40am run back to the bank machine to find it not there... try to explain without success to the bank tellers and a few customers of our delema. No success. 8:50am- try and find a cleaning lady to let us back into our room when Dave finds the key in his pocket... 8:51am- Dave OWES ME BIG TIME!

We finally made it to our Jeep with a quick enchillada breaky from a street vendor. When we got into the Jeep we shared our morning story. They were all really pleased that they had been so fortunate to be put in our group since we had such good luck! We went on the tour with 3 Aussies, a Swedish guy who I still cannot (Chacult?) pronounce his name and our guide Jose Garcia. We started our drive out of the city in our 1989 Land Cruiser. We were both just so happy to be in the car and actually starting our adventure, until the car broke down the first time.... We all got out of the vehicle and watched the driver pull plugs and switch gadgets and blow on tubes... sure Dave could give a better explanation but I´m pretty certain none of us knew what he was doing anyways. Miraculously he got the Jeep working and we all jumped back in! We made it another couple of kms before it sputted and trembled and broke down again... We watched him work his magic and did this a few more times and even tried ¨Little Miss Sunshining¨ it and getting the boys to push to vehicle to get it going and then jump in.. Didn´t work :( We had to call for another vehicle. We waited as our group glared at Dave and I for adding our special touch of luck to the drive in! 

Soon enough our next Jeep arrived and drove us down the highway to what will be known as, ¨the road of death¨ The new driver stoped at what he called a gas station to fill up before the road of death but it really turned out that it was just a man with a Jerry Can and a tube which he sucked to get the gas flowing into the Jeep. We then started our way up the road. At first it was really fun, bumbing from side to side over the dirt road but as we got further up the mountain each corner got a little bit scarier until you would look out the side and see no road at all and just a landslide cliff 600m high. We did a lot of praying that first part! Then we got over the crazy cliff parts and onto the horrific mud. Our driver was apparently pretty qualified as he did this drive twice a day every single day but I swear that he was choosing the most impossible routes. He got us incredibly stuck 3 times and we all had to get out and take turns shovelling and pushing the car. (and by turns I mean the boys!) So our drive in took a little bit longer than anticipated and we finally started treking 3 hrs later than intended. 

The first part of our trek was incredibly tough. We hiked uphill for a good two hours right off the get go in the blazing sun. Thankfully I had prepared myself for tons of hikes and what not and tried to get myself in reasonable shape before the trip. David saw things a little bit differently and figured he would eat as much pizza and drink as much beer and stop at as many McD´s as possible before he left Canada. Didn´t come on one run or do one sit up with me. So when I looked down at Dave after the first fifteen minutes and noticed that there were no dry spots on his shirt and that he was gasping for air with everystep I realized I had made the right choice! In his defence he carried the pack up the entire way. He was a pretty good mule that day! It started to flatten out afterwards and then we started decending to where our first camp would be. Unfortunately the sun goes down really early here, around 4:30pm and as we had been delayed so much the sun started to sneak away. Jose was trying to rush us but the mud was so deep and slippy and it was getting so steep that every step we made we had to be careful not to fall down a cliff or into the jungle. So we hiked the last hour in the pitch black dark! Boy was that fun! After a few falls and a mud covered bag we made it to our camp. Our group just loved being in our precence. The camp was awesome though, fully equipt with showers, running toilets, a ton of hammocks with mosquito nets, big tables and a kitchen.  Our guide made us a delicious meal and we slept pretty reasonably aside from the fact that you cannot move in a hammock and I was scared crapless of being attacked by Harry Potter spiders. 

Day 2: Woke up with the first sign of daylight as there was no possible way I sleep another wink without a toilet break! We were told that we could take a quick offramp from our trail to a cocaine factory to see how the opperation all went down but we would have to wake before the milatary because this was strickly forbidden. Naturally David was all over this. Unfortunately the milatary were onto us and woke just as early as we did. We spent the second day hiking with about 40 milatary troops. At one point I was hiking infront of the swedish guy and a soldier fell into him, gun first into his back! It was kind of scary when all you could see in front and behind you was camouflaged soldiers with AK47´s, bazooka´s and tear gas launchers. They were a little bit intimadating but I´m not gunna lie, I was a little more scared of what they were protecting us from... We had a few river crossings on the second day, the guides would all hold my hand and walk me across while standing behind Dave and watching him cross, until they lost confidence in him when he fell over in the 2nd river crossing filling his raincoat with river water, drenching our bag and taking out a guide! It was pretty funny, not gunna lie! Didn´t matter that much though because it poured down on us the entire day! The path was sooooo muddy which made for an extra slippery walk. Dave and I had a ¨who can get the muddiest¨competition while everyone else was trying to jump and skip across. We ended up getting to the second camp the fastest and thankfully there was also a shower there! 

The second camp is the busiest since you stay there on your second night in and then your last night out. For some reason the tour groups don´t realize this and it is the smallest camp. There were bunkbeds at this camp and Dave and I were forced to share a single bottom bunk as there was no other space. I reconned it was Ok since he would appeal tastier to the big spiders. Slept really well here to the croacking toads, buzzing insects and river down below. 


Day 3: We finally had a clear morning! This day was my favorite hiking day. We went throw tons of river crossings and under lots of waterfalls and actually climbed up them in parts of the trek. We were covered by the jungle all day so really it wouldn´t have mattered if it had rained. It was so beautiful in the jungle with massive trees and pretty flowers. We also passed through a few indiduous tribe villages of the Cogi people.  The Cogi´s still live in similar style houses as their Tayrona ancestors did, follow the same rituals and customs, the only difference is that now Santa Clause- Jose Garcia, comes to visit them every few weeks to bring them lollipops and chocolates! We reached our camp just before the rain began to fall and then it poured and then the soldiers wandered into our camp. Apparently they hadn´t planned for this either and then soldiers didn´t have anywhere else to stay other than our camp. We all just kinda watched as they unloaded their 60pound bags off their backs and put their guns on the ground.  Later on they sat down at the table next to us and eventually everyone started to go to bed, apart from Dave and I and a few soldiers. We spent the next two hours learning spanish swear words and slang through charades. It was hilarious! Got some pretty awesome photos as well!!! 

Day 4: We made our final crossing over a river in a cable car, which wasn´t a cable car at all. It was more like a wire with a steel rectangle with boards that were once screwed down hanging from it. It was way scarier than the spiders! We did end up making it across though and once we got to the other side we only had 12000 stairs to climb to get to Ciudad Perdida! I tried to get Dave to do the Calgary tower stairs a few yrs ago and he refused so imagine what he was thinking! 

The climb was well worth it when we got to the top! Jose Garcia had worked at restoring and uncovering the ruins so he was extra good at explaining everything to us and taking us to places other tour groups didn´t get to go. When we first arrive there was 2 other groups up top but as Jose took his time we were the only ones left at the top. It was pretty incredible being alone among this massive historical city. We then made our way back down to camp, grabbed our bag and decended to the camp we stayed at on day 2. The hike down was much easier and Dave and I ran the majority of the way.

Day 5: We woke up a 5:30am to get a good head start as we were covering 80% of the hike in one day! Again it was a nice day and we ended up running downhill through the mud! It was good fun! Pretty uneventful except for the swedish guy was running ahead of us and fell off what looked like a cliff but ended up having a muddy pool on the other side! We made it down in half the time and then waited around for our ride out. We had the same driver as the one on the way in and the bad part about this was that once he makes it up the hill he celebrates with a few shots of whisky... It made for an incredibly funny decent and he giggled at every bump we hit but when we got to the cliffs it wasn´t so funny! Oh I almost forgot that he was answering his cellphone and having 10 minute convos during this!!!  Dave and I kept our eyes closed most of the way down and we only had to get out once to get up a muddy bit so that was good, except when David opened to door to get out he hopped into what looked like a shallow pool of mud which was actually knee deep! The Aussie followed Dave and thought it would be better to jump further and he got it even worse! We finally made it down and the driver was so proud of himself that he stopped at the gas station to fill the Jeep up as well as the rest of his belly with beer! We sure felt safe for the 25km drive back to Santa Marta on the windy highway! We ended up arriving safely somehow though and enjoyed our cold showers and warm beds! I would for sure recommend this trek to anyone, it was the best hike I´ve ever done and for sure the most rewarding.

Not meant to be pirates...

Well after 6 days on the ocean we´ve finally made it Columbia.  Por Fin !!!  (at last !!)  The sailing trip was definately an experience.   It started off really great !  We sailed not far from the coast of Panama to the San Blas islands.  The islands are gorgeous and the Kuna people are pretty interesting.  They have maintained their own independance of the islands with their main currency and trade unit as the coconut !   They´re rather small people and come out in little canoes to all the boats and try to sell stuff to everyone.... Everything costs $5, except coconuts, they´re 2 for $1.00... Not really sure how they come up with it, but it seems to wrk for them.  The water on the way (and in) the San Blas were very calm, so sleeping an sea-sickness were not an issue.  It was also kinda nice that we didn´t move during the night, as our room was located right next to the engine compartment, but hey, we were the only one´s on the boat with a room, so being a couple really paid off this time !!

Anyways... after a couple of days of lounging around, swimming, and wandering around the Kuna islands it was time to set sail for Columbia.  I wasn´t really aware how slow sailboats move, particularily when there is no wind.  Well there actually was wind, but it was going directly against us.  We did a lot more ¨motoring¨ than actual sailing.  A few more horsepower would have been nice.  All in all it made for a pretty interesting trip.  The captain and his wife were a very nice couple from Venzuela. They didn´t speak much English, but we still very nice.  Also along with us was the crazy Jean-Claude from France (he rode his bike to panama from Quebec in under 2 months... he´s 56), the 2 girl Swiss cousins (who hated every second of the trip, but found solitude by chain smoking) and our American translator Brandon.   The engine ran non-stop for 3 days and the waves were quite large in the open waters.  Those little pink pills sure came in handy, both for the motion sickness and making you tired enough to sleep through the motor.  We finally made it here after an extra day at sea due to an average speed of 2 miles per hour for the last 2 days....

All that being said, it was really a great time.  Eileen (the captains wife) was an amazing cook and would make giant breakfasts, lunches and dinners.  It seemed like all we did was eat and relax.  We are now in Cartegenia, Columbia which is a gorgoeus place.  It is much nicer and a thousand times cleaner that Panama City.  We went on a city tour today.  It was great, 100% in Spanish.... the fastest spanish you´ve ever heard.  The only word I understand was ¨Cartegenia¨.   Oh well it was pretty cool anyways.  We are working on figuring out our next steps from here.

We´ll catch up with y´all soon.

d&d

Waiting to sail...

We've made our way across Panama to the Carribean side where we will be daparting to Columbia.  The boat has been delayed a couple of days due to storms which are following the hurricane (near Cuba?)  I have no idea?  Apparently we're heading out on Tuesday morning, which is good because there is not much to do over here.  There are not much for grocery stores or anything.  We're staying at "Hostal Wunderbar" which is a bambo hut in the middle of nowhere.  The sailing trip will last 4 - 6 days and hopefully we will get some nice weather.  Panama's rainy season is 9 months of the year, and when it rains, it pours... much like today, yesterday and the day before that...

We'll catch up with you next week after the sailboat ride !

Adios.

Panamania!!!!

So today we explored the city of Panama, pretty busy place. We wanted to get up really early to make our way to the Canal but ended up sleeping in because of an all night punch party... oooopps! We met my hero last night though, rode up to the hostel on his BMW oldschool bike and inspired David and I to get some leathers and try out Route 40. He's been riding for two years now and had some pretty incredible stories. We're hoping we can line something up because I think it would be pretty nuts! Anyways, back to our day... we woke up a tad late and made our way down the street to catch the local bus to the canal. The buses are unreal, wish we had taken photos but we were pretty scared of taking the camera out today on the streets... anyways, the buses are just old yellow cheesewagons that aren't so yellow anymore. Pretty sure they have pimp out competitions! I honestly don't know how the drivers see out of the windows because there all painted up! So we took the bus to a HUGE terminal where we had to find another random bus that took us to the canal. The bus ride was great fun, aside from the fact that I thought it was going to fall apart as we hit any pump on the road and there sure were tons of those! We finally got to our stop when the Panamanian clouds decided to roll in and soak us from head to toe! It was a good thing we took our shampoo and were able to have our first warm shower though! We went to the canal with an Italian couple we met last night and we were lucky they came along because they were able to translate a whole lot better than either of us! We lost them somewhere in the canal and now that I think of it, we haven't seen them since we've been back... Sure hope we didn't pull another Dave move and left them waiting for 8hrs... So the Canal was pretty neat, really happy we checked that out. It's incredible how they built such a monstrosity in the early 1900's and they still use the same gates as the original transport in 1914!

After abandoning our friends we went to Casco Viejo which is the original Panama town center. The panamanians abandoned the city when pirates took over back in the day and they have recently went back in and tried restoring it. It's a really beautiful place. There's neighboring buildings where one is falling apart and the other is absolutly incredible! We ate dinner at one of the restaurants there out on the street and then decided to walk back to our hostel... if only we had a decent map or any sense at all of where we were it probably wouldn't have taken us 3hrs... The hostel had told us it was a 20min walk! We found the central street which was a big market type place, it was wicked, we were tempted to buy a few new pairs of shoes but decided we would hold off on adding an additional 10 pounds to our bags till at least we arrived in South America! We were told that Panamanians were incredible pick pocketers as well and I'm proud to say that even in the crowded ghetto streets we weren't stupid tourist and didn't lose a thing! Or at least that either of us are aware of! So we finally sucked it up and waved down a cab to take us back to our hostel. I'd have to say that it's a good thing we did because I don't think there was any hope at all that we could have navigated our way back.

 

 Tomorrow we are off to Puerto Lindo to a hostel called Wunderbar where we will get ready to go on our sailing trip to the San Blas islands for some snorkling and spear fishing. From there we head to Cartagena Columbia!

And it begins....

We've said good-bye to everyone now and are on our own.  We're leaving to Panama in a couple of hours after a pretty exciting night.   Our flight leaves at 7:30 am I decided it would be a good idea to get to the airport very early so we don't miss the flight.  The way I see it, you can never be too early ! 

We also decided that we need to start being cheap, so we thought we would save some $$ by not getting a hotel.  Instead we went to Senior Frogs with Heidi (from work) and had a few Margaritas until 3 am, then hopped in a cab and went to the airport to find a nice bench to sleep on...  It would have been great except there was no bench, and the floor temperature was about 2 degrees celcius.  Good thing we weren't wearing warm clothes !!  After freezing our butts off, we checked in and grabbed a couple of warm coffees.  Which also would have been great had they not tasted awful !!  Hopefully we can get some real coffee in Columbia !

We're excited to get on the plane so we can finally get some sleep !  See you later !!

D & D

What a stressful start....

Well 2 days of waiting around at Bad Boys in Playa finally paid off when David decided he would make his way to our meeting spot... What a smart guy! Really though, I´m pretty pumped that this happened because I´m gunna drag it out as long as I can! 


So yesteday Aunty Dot & Uncle Tim spoiled us rotten and got us day passes to Dreams Tulum... Don´t know if any of you have been lucky enough to ever stay there but holy cow is it nice! I think I would probably be content in going back there tomorrow and then the next day and then perhaps just spend my next six months there! The only down side to that would be that when David and I would return back to Calgs we would be morbidely obese! Awww the food was delicious! Anyways, we all had a blast and it was probably one of the best ways to start off a 6 month backpacking trip! Not like our expectations will be set very high or anything! 


Tomorrow the fam is meeting in my little town and well hang out around here and then David and I are off to Cancun leaving for Panama on Wed morn! CAN´T WAIT!!!!! 

False Start ?

I've been sitting here for the past few moments pondering whether or not I should post this or not, but what the heck, I'll take the hit and lay it out there...

In case you weren't aware, it 9:10am on Friday which means I should be on a plane on route to Mexico, or so I may have thought.  The good news is I stayed up all night making sure everything was wrapped up at home and ready to go.  Left the house on time with everything I needed, good news as well.  Made it to the airport one hour and forty five minutes early for my flight, really good news !!!  Things were really looking up, until the ticketing agent informed me that my flight is on Saturday morning and not Friday as she pointed to the bold font SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2010 on the itinerary in my hand.  Oooops!  Maybe I should have checked that out.  Calgary is so complicated, I can't wait to get out of here and get to South America where things are straight forward and there's no chance of misinterpretation or confusion of trip plans...

Better early than late I guess.  I'll try again tomorrow.  Hopefully Dawne will still be waiting for me at the beach bar in Playa del Carmen. 

dS

Hola Mexico!!!

It´s been a crazy couple of days... Last night was one of the best sleeps of my life! I was sooo overtired and I think there was just a tad bit of stress involved in getting us all packed up and ready to go but man was it worth it! 

Mom was hilarious at the airport! We took her there and pretended to all be in a frantic mess and asked her to look over the boarding passes to make sure they were ok and when she read them and saw her name she didn´t believe it! I don´t think she started to believe it till today when she fell asleep, wide open mouthed on the beach!!!! 

I´m sooooo happy we´re here though! Doesn´t really fell like I am though and that I´m going away for 6 months... Yesterday when we got to my house in Chan Chemuyil there was a cockroach just hanging out, eating the candle wax on my counter.. I was pretty angry mainly because I loved that candle but it was huge (well not quite as big as the one Nik & Jon killed in my shower) but the thing was crazy! I don´t know if you´ve ever tried to kill a cockroach but they jump and fly and are incredibly fast!!! I think just picturing my mother, my sister and I running around the house screaming at the top of our lungs is enough of an explanation of how chaotic it was! I guess that´s kinda a lie... Nikki kept her cool and captured the crazy fool, still had nightmares about it all night though! What the heck am I going to do sleeping in a hammock in the jungle when we go on trecks in South America?!?! Dave will have to bring a very big shoe! 

David is coming and meeting up with us on Fri, we´re hopefully picking him up from the airport if the crazy nuts mexican drivers don´t run us down before then! Then we´re going to stay at Aunty Dot´s & Uncle T´s resort on Sun. We´re really excited about that! Then we´re hoping to meet up with Heidi and hopefully Joc too on the 9th... Party it up in Cancun! Can´t wait, this has been a pretty great start to our adventure! Cross your fingers that a scorpian doesn´t fall on me in my sleep tonight!!! MISS YOU ALL! xoxoxox

Bags are packed and we're ready to go

Sunday, September 26, 2010

37 days left to go in calgs!!! That's the first time I have counted that out and at the same time as being incredibly exciting it kinda just scared the crap out of me... I'm going to have to lie my 81 dresses out and start making important decisions... Meanwhile, in David's household he will be rolling out his South American map, getting all his red pens perfectly lined out, sift through the 15 travel books and continue to dot our soon to visit destinations... Thank goodness I'm going with him! 


We have a few very important things to accomplish before taking off... our Brazilian visas, our last rabies stab of love and the purchase of our many needed pills. I'm kinda nervous about the visa portion (it was the only job David assigned to me and I probably filled out the application wrong) I'm sure we can make it happen down there too though right??!?! 


Current Itinerary: 

• Step 1: Fly to Mexico on Nov 2
• Step 2: Hang at my house with my fam 
• Step 3: David flies to Mexico after he completes his basement
• Step 4: Fly to Panama on Nov 10
• Step 5: Sail to Columbia (http://www.suite101.com/content/sailing-from-panama-to-colombia-a52030)
• Step 6: I think we sail to Cartagena and then plan on traveling SW to Ecuador. 

From there we are pretty much winging it! We want to stay on the exterior but will travel wherever our little hearts take us! Can't wait!!!