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Well we decided to do a little splurging in Merida after 3 days of coach journeys to get there. I say splurge, in British terms it would still be considered a bargain at 25 pounds a night! All I know is we enjoyed the luxury of a feather duvet for the first time in months!
Merida holds two record breakers; The world´s longest, highest cable car and an ice cream shop that has the greatest number of flavours in the world (over 900). We tackled the ice cream shop first and although all 900 weren´t on offer that day we managed to choose a good selection - sambuca, jurassic park, pepsi-cola and onion. Onion as it turns out should never be used as a sweet flavouring!
We did have plans to go paragliding in Merida (nestled in amongst the Venezuelan Andes we thought it would be the perfect spot) but fate took a turn for the better. We bumped into Chris and Gabrielle(who we climbed Roraima with) and they put in a convincing argument for us to join them on a 2 day tour up to Los Nevados in the Andes. The next day we set off in a jeep with more space than we anticipated after watching another jeep load up with bags of produce and about 7 locals. The road (really more of an enlarged mule track) climbed 10000ft over quite rough terrain - people in a jeep behind look distinctly car sick. About a mile from Los Nevados we discovered the road was still being paved and were told by the amused driver that we had to walk the rest of the way. Still a picnic by the side of the road restored our energy adn we slowly and breathlessly made our way to the small village.
It was very pretty perched on the side of a mountain with views all around. Francisca (our host) arrived at the village a couple of hours behind us and much aggrieved. Our driver had driven off with our breakfast and the money he was supposed to have used to pay for a further jeep to take us up to Francisca´s (another long climb out of the village). Russ ever gallant heaved the bag of shopping onto his back (which included a large frozen chicken) and set off for our posada.
We arrived at Francisca´s over an hour later gasping for breath and some of us smelling of chicken! Hot ,sweet, black coffee didn´t really hit the mark for Russ! Another short steep climb and we arrived at our bed for the night, a rustic house with great views. With the sun setting it was getting cold, luckliy five blankets per bed sorted us out.
Up early the next morning to greet the mules, we had a quick breakfast and set off. Gabrielle put us to shame by walking, but Chris, Russ and I had no qualms about riding - surely a tradition in the Andes. The track climbed another 3000ft up winding its way through the Andes to bring us out at the 4th stage of the cable car. We couldn´t come all this way and not go to the top of the Teleferiq - however it turns out I could, as I arrived at the final stage I nearly collapsed at the altitude (15500ft) and had to be given smelling salts and a chair to recover. Russ took the obligatory photos outside!
Colombia beckons next.
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