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After a jam packed morning and afternoon, we arrived at a town called Colcha K and checked into our hotel around 4 pm. Our hotel, Hotel PadreSal de Coach K, was was made entirely of salt! Quite literally everything, walls and all, were made from a sort of hardened salt paste. We had a big room with a private bathroom which felt like such a luxury after the past few days, and we got to have a relaxing evening to recharge before our pre-sunrise wakeup for the salt flats the next morning.

As we were killing time waiting for dinner, I checked my email got some unexpected news: The Head of School from Kaohsiung American School had emailed me asking if I would be coming back to Taiwan anytime soon, as the position of HR Manager had recently opened up at the school. It was an exciting opportunity but it would’ve meant putting our current plan of going to Australia to do a working holiday visa on hold, so we decided to think about it and discuss it more in the next few days.

We enjoyed a Bolivian specialty dish for dinner that included fries, beef, tomatoes, onions, and sausage. The meal was delicious, and they even served us a bottle of Chilean red wine. We shared a glass with Elvis and finished the rest with the group. Dana and Steffi also brought a bottle from San Pedro, so we had a fun little wine night together, wrapping it up around 9:30 p.m. in preparation for our early start the next day.

We had climbed quite high up the mountain and were almost at 4000 metres, so it was COLD! I quickly put some hot water on to boil for some tea, and then cooked some spaghetti bolognese and garlic bread for dinner. We also each tried to have a glass of Chilean wine we had bought, but the wine was freezing, and we were freezing, so it just simply did not hit. We ate as fast as we could, and were about to go to bed when we noticed the unreal display of stars up ahead. It was a full moon, but we were up at such high elevation that the sky was still incredibly clear. We saw the southern cross, Orion’s belt, and tons of other constellations. It was a magical way to end our first night in the van.

We got woken up the next morning with a 4:50 am hot coca tea delivery to our doorstep from Vidal. It was much appreciated, as it had been a COLD night. We quickly got changed in the freezing cold hut, and packed up our bags.

We ate a quick breakfast with bread, pancakes, coffee and tea, and then got mentally prepared for our big trek. The beginning of the trek was a gradual incline, and we could see the towering mountains of Salktantay pass in the distance. It took about 1.5 hours to reach the beginning of the steep incline up Salkantay Pass.

We got to the entrance of MP around 2:30, and our tickets were for 3. We told the guard that we had an early train back to Cusco (Vidal’s cheeky piece of advice) and he graciously let us in early. It was completely empty when we first got in, and the clouds were parting more and more. We were so in awe of the gorgeous surroundings. Because the guard had let us in before the usual time, we had at least half an hour exploring the beauty of Machu Picchu completely to ourselves, it was magical! We followed the paths down the different terraces, and took hundreds of photos of the beautiful scenery. There were chinchillas and llamas all over the grounds, and even a newborn 1 day old llama with his mom!

We had a quick breakfast and started on our next activity for the day… nature walk #2. We were remembering yesterday’s horrible experience all too well, so we were majorly dreading the next nature walk. We asked Patrick how long the hike would be so that we could mentally prepare. He said the whole walk would be 2 hours, and we reluctantly set off on our next jungle walk. It was less muddy than the day before because we were in a different section of the jungle, but there were debatably more mosquitos.

We returned to the towels and spent some time reading, eating sandwiches, and floating in the shallow water while baby hammerheads swam nearby. Around 3 PM, after several hours under the sun, we decided to head home. We had very quickly realized that we were absolutely not ready to leave the Galapagos after just 5 days as originally planned. I messaged Jennifer about any last-minute cruise deals, and Jennifer suggested we check with a local travel agency, FDS Travel. 

After showering off our beach day, we headed out and met Alejandro, who showed us a 4-day, 3-night cruise itinerary. We decided to go for it! After signing up and giving our information, we realized the credit card fee was ridiculously high (12%!), so we opted to get cash from the ATM to pay for the cruise instead.

Our ATM adventure was a bit frustrating — the machine wasn’t letting us take out enough cash and saying we had hit our daily limit, but I took out enough to make a down payment. Jennifer kindly offered to make a bank transfer to Alejandro on behalf of us for the rest of the payment, and I could Zelle her the money directly into her US account.

After our cruise was booked and we committed to staying longer in the Galapagos, I rescheduled our flights back to the mainland. We must’ve caught LATAM at a good time because the fee to change our flights was only $45 USD! We had an early night ahead of our 6:10 AM start the next day, so we packed our bags for our overnight trip to Isabela Island and headed to bed.

We started our day at 6:30 and had a simple breakfast of bread, bacon, and eggs before getting ready for the day’s adventure. Our first stop was Green Sand beach at Floreana Island — a bit of an exaggeration. There was some type of slightly green microorganism that lived in the sand that gave it the slightest green tint, but I would’t describe the beach as green by any means. We walked along the beach, saw turtle nesting areas, and got up close and personal with the blue-footed boobies. The highlight of the morning was definitely the salt water lagoon, where we spotted around 50 flamingos—such a cool sight! We even got to see one fly! I don’t know why I’ve never put two and two together that flamingos could fly, but it was odd to see one in action.

We hopped back into the car and started driving up the utility road through the park. Along the way, we pulled over many times to check out the different animals and plants, including wild horses, deer, birds, and lots of different flowers.

Eduardo told us that the Wax Palm Forest was super unique because this type of tree only grows in Colombia, nowhere else in the world! The tree also had a symbiotic relationship with the yellow eared parrot. The parrot was thought to be extinct, but a group of scientists found a family of 13 remaining parrots in 1993. The parrot can only survive and nest in the hollow centre of dead wax palm tree, and the seeds of the wax palm tree can only be germinated if it has been eaten and pooped out by the parrot. Each wax palm tree grows only a few centimetres for the first 56 years of its life. It is only a few feet tall until 56 years later, when it then starts to grow 15 cm every year. Neat!

Eduardo gave us some free time to explore the area, while he set up a little picnic with sandwiches and chips. It was so peaceful and beautiful, we were truly living our best Sound of Music lives.

We had a couple more days in Capurgana left, so we wanted to check out some of the local hikes. JoHa had recommended a nice trail that led to the neighbouring town, Sapzurro. Saz was feeling a bit sick, so Adam and I set off in the late afternoon to catch the golden hour light. The hike was short but sweet, with a huge view tower at the top with panoramic views of both Capurgana and Sapzurro. We hung out on the view tower wating for sunset, and spotted two beautifully bright and green toucans flying! 

The lookout tower had absolutely insane 360 views of the coast, towns, and Darien Gap jungle far ahead in the distance. 

We caught a sweet sunset and headed back the mountain, to check on Sazzie.

After eating, we re-packed our bags, loaded them onto the boat, and set off for our next destination. The boat ride was absolutely gruelling – the sea was rough, and we spent the entire 2+ hour ride being assaulted by big swells and tsunamis of water hitting our faces. The boat was so loud and the ride so uncomfortable that it was impossible to even chat to kill the time, we all just locked in, put our snorkels on, and suffered through the journey in silence.

It was our boat mate Joe’s birthday, and the Kuna were not about to let that slip by quietly – they plied him with vodka shots and an endless stream of wine while serenading him with a lively trilingual (English, Spanish, Kuna) rendition of “Happy Birthday.”

The whole scene flipped from reverent to absurd, and we couldn’t stop laughing at the wasted elders swaying and shouting encouragement as we drank. A whole group of 80+ year old women were in the corner of the hut drunk off their asses, throwing up all over the walls, barely able to stand. Adam dubbed the vomit corner the “penalty box”, and it was equal parts hilarious and gross. They were relentless with the wine, and one particularly persistent, gender-ambiguous local kept hunting us down to refill our bowls, no matter how many times we said “no gracias.” Eventually, we just started faking it, pretending to sip the wine so we wouldn’t be on the floor like the elders. We found out from others that this ceremony apparently happens every nine days and lasts for two whole days – so much for never drinking, lol. Luckily the 3 of us had worn our shoes, but many of our friends had gotten used to the shoe-less island lifestyle, and had to navigate the very questionable and puke-y dirt floor barefoot. 

The elders were so lovely and tried to strike up many a conversation, but our very limited Spanish restricted us to repeating “muy bueno, muchas gracias, muy bonito” over and over again. The Chicha Fuerte was so absurd and so not what we expected, but it felt very special to be able to witness the local community partake in their traditional celebrations.

Eventually, we were told it was time to leave the Chicha Fuerte and explore the rest of the village, and even got the chance to challenge the local middle school girls volleyball team to a match. They absolutely destroyed our group. It legitimately wasn’t even close. Those girls were crazy good at volleyball, and even the tall, athletic men on our trip were having trouble blocking their insane spikes.