South America - Venezuela

Woke up refreshed and raring to go. After 30 minutes of walking aimlessly around the royal dump that is San Cristobal bus terminal (most of my time was spent trying to avoid the fake blind and crippled beggars that roam these parts) looking for a bus to Merida I finally got myself a seat on the right bus (really hope Venezuelan bus terminals aren't all like this..Colombia's bus service is so organised and user friendly) (sigh).

As predicted the bus left an hour late but we finally chugged off at 1pm (I got to the bus terminal at 11am). Everything went smoothly (apart from the driver announcing an hour into the journey that the air con doesn't work...followed by a lot of sighs and boos from the passengers. The bus wasn't stopped a single time and thankfully any potential strip searches for which I would have used my ace card of calling the British Embassy (wouldn't have helped anyway but it works sometimes) was thus avoided.

Arrived in Merida at night and at the time of 7pm. Caught a taxi ($2) to the town centre and following a few failed attempts at getting a hostel dorm bed I found a nugget of a hotel close to the local cable car (in fact its the highest cable car in the world which winds its way up into the Andes mountains) for $8 a night. Had a little walk around in the foggy and chilly streets of Merida (this is a real mountain resort) and settled for a cheap and cheerful burger dinner and then to my room for some blog updates and travel planning.

I have now booked my hostel bed for the Rio Carnival at the ridiculous and extortionate price of $70 a night? (am I mad?). Sneaky buggers, you have to stay a minimum of 7 nights. But, its always been a dream of mine to go to the carnival and it runs from 31st Jan to 5th of Feb so falls nicely for my birthday on the 4th and the hostel is right near Copacobana beach. I somehow have to get to the Angel Falls (Venezuela) for the 3 day trip, then see as much of northern Brazil (including an Amazon trip) within 2 weeks (highly unlikely) then fly to Rio for the festivities. Something's going to have to sacrificed along the line somewhere.

(Sigh) been feeling a bit tired and illin lately and waking up this morning I realised I had a cold (really bad timing). To compound this, the main reason I came to Merida was to go up in the highest cable car in the world. I tried in vain to get a ticket but this is a seriously popular ride (loads of Venezuelans and Colombians come here especially). Queued for hours left and came back again but no joy. Time to move on I think so catching the local bus to the main bus terminal I booked my bus ticket outa here. It leaves tomorrow night at 9.30pm and goes straight to Ciudad Bolivar (the main town to organise trips to the Angel Falls).

I'm bypassing Caracas because I've got no reason to go there and and even the locals say its a Shinto. Tomorrow's bus trip will be the longest non stop journey so far at a shocking 22 hours (with a cold and an MP3 player that only has 4 hours battery life this will be a toughy..if I'm lucky I might get to watch Rambo 1 for the 6th time). When I was buying the bus ticket a dodgy local fellah started chatting to me (the usual, asking where I was going, did I have enough Dollars? (aha ha) etc). He was a bit coked up and started telling me he was studying classical music at the local Uni. As a test I asked him who his favourite composer was and after 5 years of apparent study all he could come up with was Mozart.

Bought myself a load of fruit, water and a DVD with the Simpson's movie, Die Hard 4 and the Illusionist and sweated it out in my tiny cell of a room. It seems I haven't brought enough Dollars with me into Venezuela. The official exchange rate is 2,450 Bolivars to the Dollar and on the black market its 4,600 to the Dollar. I only brought $200 with me (was a bit nervous about a strip search during the bus trip so didn't bring more with me). The Angel Falls trip is roughly $250 but will be nearly an extra $50-$100 because I have to use the official bank exchange (damnit).

Woohoo, after 2 more hours of queuing this morning and pestering the staff at the cable car I managed to get a ticket for the 10am ride. Preparing myself for some altitude (5,000 metres) I bought a bottle of water, took some deep breaths and hopped on the car. Built by the French in 1954 the car was sturdy but old looking so I wasn't worried. To get to the amazing height of 5,000 metres it goes in 4 stages (10 minute breaks in between..I guess so people can adjust to the altitude slowly).

At the start of the journey the trees and plants were big and green and as the car crept upwards the plant life became small, alpine and scarce. Then at the peak of 'Pisco Espejo' there was only rock and some scatterings of snow. Had a bit of trouble breathing at the top and a slight headache. Some people suffered worse and were lying down or sleeping at the top. Sadly there wasn't much of a view from the Andes as it was a cloudy day but it was still amazing to be sitting on the Andes looking out over a cloudy horizon (and it was bloody freezing up there).

I had a smoke up there to test my altitude endurance and immediately regretted it (boy was that a bad idea). I'm writing this days blog just before catching the long bus trip (on a double decker bus apparently) because I don't know when the next chance to upload it will be. Until the 16th I will be somewhere in the jungle wow'ing at the Angel Falls.

The plan after the falls is to head south through the Amazonian jungle and into Brazil where I'll be doing some jungle trips and a boat ride north on the Amazon. After that its going to be a mad dash to get to Rio for 30th January.

Really not liking these long bus rides. Daytime its ok because you can peer out the window and marvel at the landscape but at night you can't see shit and you're leaving your life in the hands of the driver. The bus was fairly empty and me grabbing the front left seat I tried the oldest trick in the book. Around midnight I curled up across all 2 seats pretending to sleep. Of course this was foiled at 4am when a load of people got on and a girl shook me awake (or so she thought).

Durin the numerous stops I chatted to a solo traveling Japanese fellah who's been cycling from Alaska down to Argentina for 4 years! (fair play). He had to catch a bus to Merida because two English guys had nicked his money and passport in Canaima (thieving toe rags...I actually apologised in defense of the English). He's now got another 4 years to cycle back via the west of South America and the East coast of the US.

Apart from sore bum cheeks and a dodgy back the 22 hour bus ride went fairly quickly and at 7pm I arrived in Ciudad Bolivar. This is the main place to book tours to the famous Angel Falls. Even the cab driver tried to sell me a tour to the falls. Got a fairly cheap hotel (Hotel Tachira at 75,000 Bolivars) close to the airport so I could go straight on a tour tomorrow morning. I immediately collapsed on the bed in a sleep induced coma.

I was supposed to get to the airport at 7am as all the tours leave at 8am but instead woke up really annoyed with myself at 9.30am. I went to the airport anyway and booked the tour for tomorrow instead. Because I didn't bring enough Dollars the tour will cost me the sickening $450 instead of $200 (Bejesus!). Had the whole day to waste in Ciudad so walked around the town (absolutely nothing to do here) and the only meaningful thing I did today was walk along the Orinoco (too filthy to swim). About 50 years ago my Dad in his youth and serving in the Norwegian Merchant Navy had also sailed on this river.

Had a bit of bad news today..ok, well it was really shitty news actually. The online company I use and pay to store all my high resolution travel photos, videos and copies of my travel documents had decided to go bust and disappear without telling anyone. In a panicked rage and despair at the loss of 6 months of photos from New York To Venezuela I spent all night trying to get them back again. I hit the jackpot late at night and managed to get everything back, all 4 gigabytes (bypasses the main site which was down) and uploaded most to a new company (reliable apparently...phew).

Sweet Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Woke up late again this morning at 7.30 and with no time for any morning ablutions I dashed to the airport just as the plane was about to leave. I say plane in the broadest sense. Not your everyday plane but a 4 seater plane that looked like it had just been glued together from a boxed kit. Sitting in the back seat it felt like there was only a thin layer of cushion between me and the ground and take off was a wobbly affair of bouncing a few times and finally with a sigh from everyone it took off. The pilot obviously being an expert decided to start texting his girlfriend using his hands and piloted with his knees. This was at the precise moment that the plane bounced into a huge black cloud...visibility was zero. Of course everyone was thinking the same as me...why can't you bloody wait til we touch down in an hour you pleb. The plane wobbled allot so he saw sense and stopped.

The hour and seven minute flight was both frightening for me but at the same time exciting and the views were amazing (rain forest, rivers lagoons, waterfalls...). Everyone's prayers were answered and our text happy pilot took us down with a judder and a hop.

After a 30 minute wait me and a group of about 7 people were whisked off to the Canaima base camp (a big house with no walls and a lot of hammocks). After waterproofing our luggage with black bin liners we all hopped into a dug out canoe with outboard motor. The 5 hour boat ride up the Rio Churun was bum cheek crunching but the views were astonishing. Rain forest either side and in the distance flat topped mountains with waterfalls flowing. Some mountains had about 6 waterfalls flowing from one side.

Eventually arrived at the sleeping bas for Angel Falls (a hut with more hammocks) and as it was getting dark there was no time to see the falls properly so we hung about, chatted and had some dinner (included). Had a really nice group of people on this tour (An old Venetian fellah who has a stall in ST Marks square selling souvenirs, a funny Lithuanian couple, 2 mean and moody Italians who didn't speak English, a middle aged Peruvian couple and an old couple from Argentina (got on really well with them and have been promised a tour and somewhere to stay in Buenes Aires when I get there...same goes for Venice and Lithuania). Now, me having a brown belt in hammock sleeping and having notched up 38 hours of hammock time it was my duty to show everyone the angle sleeping trick which I was taught by the hammock master in Tayrona National Park. The Italians didn't have faith in my advice so ended up getting no sleep durin the night (I'm not going to say anything). Still, it was quite chilly and everyone had a bit of trouble sleeping.

Just as everyone seemed to drop off in unison at around 2.30am there was an almighty scream and everyone jumped out of their hammocks asking what the noise was. It seems the Lithuanian fellah was acting the goat and decided to tickle his sleeping girlfriend with some grass on the way to the toilet. She thought it was a spider or snake crawling on her face. Nobody thought it was funny at the time but in the morning we all laughed about it.

At the un godly hour of 5.30am Isabelle (our tour guide) woke us up and without time for a swift coffee or wash we all marched for an hour to see the falls. As I beheld the mighty Angel Falls I couldn't help being a bit disappointed in them. It was more of a thin sliver of water rather than gushing. The fact that its dry season at the moment doesn't help, apparently in July it's almost 14 times wider. Ah well, it was still amazing to see it.

200 photos later and back to the camp for a slap up breakfast and then straight onto the bum breaking boat. As we were going down river it was a much more exciting ride, sometimes dropping into some whitewater rapids (small ones) but always going fast. A few times we nearly tipped the boat but were saved by the skills of the paddle man. Maybe not a good idea to fall in here as there are stories of tourist hungry piranha and alligators. As always near tropical rivers a debate was started regarding the truth of the existence of cringe worthy Penis Hook Worm. The same one that if a fellah pisses in the water this thing, following the trail of Ammonia swims up your jap's eye, hooks itself onto the inside and starts eating away from the inside out (shiver). Needless to say we had no volunteers to prove or disprove the theory.

Back at Canaima base camp and after a hearty lunch it was time for some more waterfall action. We walked for about an hour and saw some stunning falls (more impressive than Angel Falls in my eyes). Some of them were classics where you could walk behind and see a wall of crashing water (couldn't hear anything but the falls behind there). Got totally soaked running around behind them (the 3 falls were Salto Sapito, Salto El Sapo and Salto Hacha).

Just talking about politics for a second. The current president, socialist, tourist hater and American hater Mr Chavez decided in all his wisdom that instead of putting the national time back or forward by 1 hour he would try something different...hmmm, why not just put it back 30 minutes, yeah that'll make people think we're different. Still don't know why, but that's what was done. I think its the only country that has a half hour time difference (I might be wrong?).

Last day at Canaima today and the morning was spent lounging around in hammocks, swapping addresses and going for a swim in the lagoon nearby (Jigger infested sand apparently but I still went for it). At 11am when the flight was due to leave and after all going to the airport one of us had to stay behind until 2pm (no space). Everyone else was in pairs so I decided to stay (there was also a free lunch in it for me so no biggie). At 2pm the dreaded flight time arrived. I studied the pilot and realised he had a broken finger with a brace on it. Asking him if he was ok to fly like that he just laughed and said yes. "But how are you going to text whilst flying?" I asked him (he didn't get that one..my Spanish wasn't good enough).

Back at Ciudad Bolivar and after nearly kissing the runway when I scrambled out of the plane the realisation that I had no money dawned on me. Ok, no biggie I thought, I'll just get the minimum needed for the night bus I was planning to catch tonight using a cash machine. Hopping into a taxi and after trying 5 different machines it was looking hopeless. Asking the cab driver how much the fare was he said 40,000 Bolivars (stupid amount). My last hope was the bus terminal. So I went there and asked all the ticket sellers if I can pay by credit card. Of course they all laughed at me. This was the first time I've nearly lost it and felt like lamping someone durin this trip. To make things worse the cab driver was following me and kept asking for the money and a stupid bloke was also following me trying to sell me a tour to the Angel Falls. I nearly went Postal with my Swiss Army Knife. Thankfully a kind woman at a desk gave me a cash advance on my card and all was well. I bought her a big bottle of Coke for her troubles. At 6pm I caught the night bus to the Venezuelan border town of Santa Elena, close to Brazil.

The journey was pretty dire, being woken up every 2 hours of trying to sleep by military searches on the bus. The soldiers would come on the bus, stand in front of me and click their fingers at me (well irritating..especialy after just trying to get some kip). There were 5 searches in all (one where everyone had to walk off the bus with all our luggage I had to unpack my whole pack and re pack it..took 20 minutes). Eventually I arrived in Santa Elena.