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It is hard to believe that we are nearing the end of our trip. The past six weeks have flown by... We are, however, looking forward to drinking copious amounts of clean, beautiful, canadian tap water! We met a Nova Scotian a few days ago who is currently living in Argentina and discussed this phenomenon at length. I hope we don´t take this for granted when we get home. The last few days have been fantastic. In Salento, we splurged a bit on a really nice hotel (a whopping 35.00). It had three lovable dogs: Figo, Josh (Yosh), and Yoko, a bunny, and various exotic birds. The had the most comfortable beds and a fantastic, hot, shower. At night the power went out in the entire town and we bought candles and snacks and sat on ... read more

We have entered the Huila region of Colombia and have spent the last few days in Pitalito and San Agustin. We ended up in Pitalito because we would have had to wait for 9 hours to take a bus to San Agustin, and arrived in Pitalito at 1 o´clock in the morning on a bus full of the most sketchy people I have ever seen. We woke a cab driver waiting at the bus terminal who was sleeping in a cab with his wife. They took us to a bright, clean, wonderful hotel in Pitalito. Our plan was to leave the next morning for San Agustin, but we woke to find a majestic little town, free of fellow gringas. We spent two days in Pitalito admiring the quaint beauty of the town and the friendly and ... read more

Hey Everybody, WE MADE IT!!! The last six days have been incredibly challenging mentally, physically, and emotionally. There are perhaps no words to encapsulate what we just went through, but the most important thing is that we made it through! The trek was the most difficult journey I have every experienced in my life. The terrain was extremely difficult, in many different ways. We encountered just about everything including sludging through mud for hours on end uphill (mountain), scaling the side of slippery wet rocks, trekking across huge open valleys where the sun beats down on you and there is no water to be found for hours on end, being charged by the crazy mountain donkeys that carry a ridiculous volume of supplies, climbing rock after rock along the rivers, crossing streams, and the true test ... read more

Hey Everyone, We are now in Santa Marta and staying at a fantastic hostel called Galeria de Colombia. The hostel itself is quite basic, but it is the hostel owner that makes it quite spectacular. He is a very knowledgeable Colombian mechanical engineer who used to teach cabinet making. Dani and Juan have a ridiculous number of things in common, including their passion for fine woodworking, boxers (the dogs), and, surprisingly, they both have their second-degree blackbelt in Tae Kwon Do. On Tuesday, he is going to take her to some of the local woodworking shops in Santa Marta. I think that her dream is to stay here and work in one of the shops. Santa Marta is beautiful place and is much quieter and cleaner than Cartagena. We spent the day at the beach again ... read more

Hey Everyone, We just got back to Bogota from an amazing trip to Villa de Leyva. It is a beautiful little village about 3 hours from Bogota where we rode horses, drank wine in the cobblestone plaza, and fell in love with all of the surprisingly robust homeless dogs. The highlight was, however, the tomato fight in Sutamarchan, a tiny village 20 minutes away from Villa de Leyva. It was a full-blown, no-mercy tomato war in the middle of a football field. The tomatoes were soft, smelly, and surprisingly warm. Everyone involved in the tomato massacre ended up completely covered from head to toe in tomato goop. After the fight, the local fire department hosed all of the participants down. However, even all of that hosing could not remove the bits of tomato from our ears, ... read more