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merida, Venezuela
after leaving the luxury of Jumby bay we waited at the airport for our flight which was delayed by an hour and half! We then flew to trinidad. It was only a 3 hour flight but we still stopped twice! We were on a tiny little plane which was so noisy & rattley! You could see the propellers spinning from the window & feel every little movement or ascent or descent of the plane & taking off & landing 3 times was not the pleasant! We then arrived at trinidad found the 3 comfiest seats we could find, which werent comfy & curled up & attempted tp sleep for 6 hours until check in! We then checked in at 4am & when through to departures where we found the comfort of some more airport seats which we again attempted to sleep on until our flight at 7am! Our next flight was on an equally terrifying plane but at least this flight was direct! The costal scenery entering venezuela was incredible!
Upon arrival in venezuela & trying to translate our need to withdraw funds using our none existent spanish, we managed to find & eventually use an atm & take a taxi to the bus station! We booked our ticket for a 7 hour bus ride to our destination santa fe! After a 3 hour wait in a busy, dirty & relatively intimidating bus station, we boarded our delayed bus, feeling great as you can imagine! Our bus dropped us off at the side of the road in santa fe as it was not a scheduled stop! It was night & santa fe is a fairly rough & tumble poor little fishing town! we had a reservation & waited our pick up! Our heightened sense of paranoia was not helped by our tiredness upon arriving in this unknown destination! We sat on the street corner next to a burger stand clutching our bags with many inquisitive eyes staring upon the arrival of the blonde gringos! eventually a pick arrived to take us to our guest house! 28 hours after leaving voile dor we arrived at our polar opposite basic guest house & relief & calm set in!
Santa fe was ok, it was a little fishing town by the beach! I imagine usually it is quite nice, still nothing in comparison to where we had arrived from! Unfortunately it is the school holidays & what is usually a quiet little beach was crammed with loud drunk venezuelan holiday makers drinking & partying & littering right outside our room, day & night! We enquired about our angel falls trip immediately, keen to leave & aware of our tight time schedule! UNfortunately it is the wrong season & the river is dry making the trip impossible! We knew it was the dry season but no where had we read that the falls would be completely dry! It was the only reason we had travelled in that direction! So far not so good! We organised a boat trip to some near by islands in the national park to do some snorkelling! It was quiet picturesque & the snorkelling was great, better than the caribbean. Clear water, coral & plenty of fish! UNfortunately because of the holidays the island quickly became overcrowded with boats from small wooden fishing boats to massive white gin palaces of the rich & shameless blasting out loud music of many terrible styles from every direction! We picked a path through the tangle of bodies which easily beats that of the algarve & took our boat trip back to our guest house!
The next morning we took a hot busy & crammed local bus to puerto la cruz where we booked our bus to merida in the andes! We had a 3 hour wait which we used sweating our way around the various banks & there adjoining queues to attempt to withdraw money from the many empty ATMs. Eventually we got our funds, ate a quick lunch & downed a well deserved cold beer before boarding our 19 hour bus journey to merida! I have never been so relieved to board a long bus journey!
The journey was actually great, cool & comfortable! We arrived in merida yesterday morning & made our way to our very basic but clean & calm guesthouse! Just what we needed! Merida is a city in the andes at 2500m surrounded by mountains going up into the clouds to 5000m! We planned to go on the worlds longest & highest cable car yesterday, travelling 12km up to 5500m. BUt it is closed for maintenance! We´re not having much luck! & to top it off Kristy now has an upset stomah, but she´s in bed & getting better! We are however booked on to a 4 day tour of los Llanos (the lost world) We´re going exploring for all kinds of crazy creatures including, cayman crocodiles, ant eaters & anacondas!!! we´re also going, horse riding & fishing for piranhas!!! Very exciting! After that, we leave for colombia on monday!
Things our fine now. Meridas great & much more like what we hoped south america would be like! I do think at first though we were both contemplating turning around & going straight back home!
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