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…

Julie somehow didn’t buy his explanation. But after we surrendered the tip and went back to our hotel room did we look into our guidebook and learned that we had been scammed all along…

The next two hours or so of driving was torture for me. That was because my nausea returned and I knew that I was going to throw up again the next place…

Unfortunately, Julie started to feel fever and chills. It made her night sleepless, and the fear that she might be stricken with malaria also kept me awake all night…

…we just sat there and watched the lions – seeing what they’re doing next; hopefully getting in better more photographable positions. What ensued was a bit more than we bargained for…

Suddenly, Chester’s car made a loud bang and the entire backside of the car sank to the ground… when we all left the car, the severity of the situation became immediately known…

Julie alerted me to a rather unusual scene in front of us. Two giant baboons were frantically running across the bridge towards us and it seemed like we were in the way…

Now my head was really hurting at this point. I didn’t want to get out of the water because the scenery down here was as close to the Discovery Channel as I had ever seen…

Unfortunately, JC Slaughter Falls was bone dry! I knew it was a bad sign when we didn’t hear any water in the neighboring creeks. I guess it wasn’t meant to be despite there being…

Julie and I were nervous. Clearly darkness had fallen by now. The kangaroos and wallabies (who knows what else was out there?) seemingly conspired to jump right in front of our vehicle…

…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…

Knowing that the weather wouldn’t be as much of an issue as the last four failed attempts at helicoptering, there was a part of me that couldn’t believe that today’s tour was actually…

It was still rainy and chilly, but Julie and I were quite relieved as the only snow left was on our car. Both of us were also relieved about finally going to the restroom…

I kept trying to tell myself that this rain must be good for waterfalling, but if there ever was a such thing as having way too much rain to go waterfalling, this was it!

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!”