We arrived here after a rather fraught and exhausting journey from Quito on the 20th January. We took a night flight out of Quito on the 19th which involved an initial one hour flight then an utterly tedious 5 hour stopover in Bogota, Columbia. The next flight was only around an hour and a half which meant we had only around an hour of sleep by the time we touched down in Caracus at 4.30am. Caracus is not the sort of place where you want to go venturing into town at that hour so we had to wait another 3 or so hours before it got light. Then we received the joyous news was that the bridge on the main freeway into Caracus had collapsed recently. This meant all traffic, including taxi's has to make a roundabout route via the hills into town which would take around 2 1/2 hours and cost over 40 quid. Not what you want when your exhausted and travelling on a budget. We finally got into Caracus around 10am to the grim bus terminal to take an equally grim and packed bus for the 2 hour journey to Maracay, still on one hours sleep remember. From Maracay we then had to take yet another bus to Puerto Columbia. This was a grand finale to the journey to say the least. The bus must have been around 40 years old and was a right bone shaker yet it was very brightley painted out and possessed an incredibly loud state of the art sound system which blasted us out with salsa music all the way on our 2 1/2 hour journey to Puerto Columbia. The journey was spectacular, through the mountainous jungle and cloud forest but when your hot, bothered, have had no sleep and your ear drums are taking that sort of pounding we really didn't enjoy it as we could have done - not surprisingly. Our mood wasn't helped when we finally arrived to find our desired hostel was full and so it seemed was every other bloody place in the town. We finally found a place on the waterfront which wasn`t terribly nice and was rather expensive. To complete our miserable day we found out that changing money (we had some dollars) into the local currency, Bolivars, was illegal here plus there were no ATM's (which we knew about already). Fortunately the tourist office ran by a very helpful German lady called Claudia saved our financial bacon with a black market money exchange so we could at least eat! Thereafter things started to improve. Despite the fact that Puerto Columbia is a well known place for Venezualans to come on holiday it's still fairly backward and not a resort as a European person would know. It was also very different in style and culture from anything we've experienced in South America so far. The atmosphere in very Caribbean and the people far more multi racial and few if any spoke English which didn't help us. The weather was pleasantly warm although it tended to cloud up in the afternoon and the local palm tree shaded beach was lovely although rather more littered than we would have liked, the Venezuelans are very lazy like this it seems. The waves were continually huge which meant you really couldn't go swimming very far. After a couple of days we got into our desired hostel which was nicer than the one on the waterfront and very cheap. This was just as well as the local youth congregated on the front in the evening playing their music and drums very loud untill all hours so we had trouble sleeping there. They love their music loud here I can tell you!. Additionally, Claudia our financial lifeline had dissapeared on tour for a few days. As we were running short of funds again the cheaper hotel saved us a 5 hour round trip to Maracay to get more money but we had to scrimp and save a bit untill she got back which made us a bit fed up. However, we were warming to the town somewhat and it's quirky, rustic charms. This was helped by an enjoyable jungle day trip run by Claudia which we went on when she got back. The jungle was truly beautiful and it was fascinating to see how the rural Venezualans live and work. The next day we took a boat trip out of town to see another beach and walk 4km to a local village called Chuao famed for it's cocoa plantation. The boat ride on a little fishing boat was a highlight in itself as the seas were pretty rough which made it rather exciting. The walk to the village was lovely and the village interesting.It was pretty basic but the people were happy with smiling, playing children everywhere. It made a contrast to similar, simple villages in places like Bolivia where everyone looked pretty miserable. We wrapped up our six day stint in Puerto Columbia with another kamikaze, ear drum pounding ride back to Maracay having enjoyed our stay despite not the best of starts. We just wish the Venezualans would appreciate what they've got a little more and take more care of it and as for those bloody mosquitos .....AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGH, we can`t stop itching!!!!! In Maracay we booked into a nice posada just outside of town as it was recommended by some friends who have been here before. The plan was several days R&R here before we head south to Merida, around an 11 hour drive from here.