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.