After a few minutes more of taking additional photos of the scene (trying to bring home tangible memories of this rarest of places on the planet), I finally took up on Robert’s suggestion…

…back into the familiar toilet I was hovered over and before I could do any more thinking, I threw up into the toilet bowl. The barf was a nasty blend of papaya from breakfast…

“Honey. What happened to your eyes? They’re red?” said Julie. I was incredulous as I wasn’t aware of anything that could’ve made my eyes red. Immediately, I thought…

Someone kept yelling “Johnny!” in the distance. Then, as the yell got louder and I looked up, I was shocked to see who was standing before me. “Oh, what?!?” I said in disbelief…

It didn’t take long before the “trail” revealed the climb that was before us. “Oh my god,” said Julie incredulously. “We have to climb that?!?”

The taxi driver left us and so here we were at the start of our trip in the outskirts of a town unfamiliar to us with our luggage, no rental car, a foul mood, and our trip in serious jeopardy…

It wasn’t long after when the small plane’s engine sputtered and then stopped. The plane then started to descend. Everyone in the plane except the pilot looked around wondering if this was it…

Screams were heard all around us as if we were in some rollercoaster ride. The Kiwi guy sitting behind me kept yelling to no one in particular, “To the extreme!”