Last week in Venezuela!
Door: Marianna
06 December 2005 | Venezuela, Caracas
Hope everyone in Holland had a good Sinterklaas, Irene and I didn`t unfortunately! More on that later...
First of all, I`ll tell you about the rest of our weekend. We half-planned to hit the town on Saturday night, but our feet hurt so much we ended up staying in and going to bed embarrassingly early. But ther next day we were a bit more active. We visited the zoo here, which supposedly featured all local species, except that it also had a couple of lions (??) which I can assure you don`t live in the Andes. It wasn`t a bad zoo, although some of the big cats had enclosures that were really small, and some animals were kept on their own with no companions, which was sad. And some of the cats were living next to the parrots! We were keen to see a nice big anaconda to make up for the one we didn`t see in Los Llanos, but they only had a little one. Boo! After that we went to the botanical gardens nearby, but they were shut unfortunately.
In the afternoon we went paragliding!! Which is being attached to a big parachute, flying off a cliff and floating about in the air for a while. We went to Los Gonzalez, about an hour from Mérida for it, along with a lot of other tourists from different agencies. It was very high, about 800 or 900 metres, but I was more excited than scared! Which was a good thing because I was the first one to go. I had to wear a ridiculous helmet and was strapped into a harness with my instructor behind me, and was told that when the wind got under the parachute, I had to start running. So I did, and before I knew it I was swept off my feet and was up in the air! It was a fantastic feeling, gently flying around in the air on the currents, and we did a few dips and swoops, although after a few too many I started to feel a bit dodgy, but I kept my eyes on the horizon and took a few deep breaths and felt better! Irene took some great photos of me, and I took a few photos from the air of my feet dangling over the valley!
After about 30 minutes of flying we touched down where we took off, and I managed not to fall on my bum. By that time lots of other people had taken to the air too, which was a great sight. After that it was Irene´s turn, although we had to wait a while because our instructor suddenly got into a fight with one of the other instructors :( Something about the prices they charged, I don`t know, but they even tried to hit each other a few times before finally our instructor calmed down a bit :s Anyway Irene set off, and as she was landing further down in the valley, I headed off back down in the ancient Beetle we arrived in together with some of the other people there. Unfortunately I didn`t get any pictures of Irene`s landing as the guy driving went very slowly, but it turned out she had landed early anyway as she had felt worse than me in the air and had filled our instructor´s sick bag! Poor thing!
After that our instructor (who drove like a maniac, we were glad to get out of the car) dropped us off at the bus terminal so we could buy tickets for the night bus to Coro on Monday evening, and then we had some Italian food and went back to the hotel to watch Grease in Spanish (although the songs were in English) - annoyingly it was constantly interrupted by election updates. There was a presidential election on Sunday, which was a complete farce because all the opposition parties withdrew earlier in the week, claiming that the election would be rigged anyway, and the president would win no matter what. Which of course he did - not a good thing in my opinion, and I think the situation in Venezuela wil continue to become worse, economically and safety-wise because of it. Anyway, there were no riots or anything so it all took place quite peacefully.
Yesterday as I said we were going to leave Mérida for Coro, but Irene woke up very ill - vomiting a lot and feeling bad. It can`t have been the paragliding still, so I think she got a food intoxication from the pizza (I was fine but I had pasta...) Anyway I phoned the bus terminal to see if we could use our tickets for the next day, and as usual I was jabbered at in Spanish that was far too quick for me to understand. And as usual, when I asked for them to speak more slowly, they repeated the same thing at the same speed :( I more or less understood that we could use our tickets for the next day, but under what conditions, I didn´t know. The woman then had enough of me, and actually hung up the phone, after which I tried twice more with no answer. ARGH!!!!!!!!!
Luckily on the way home I met Manuel, our tour guide from Los Llanos, who phoned the bus terminal for me. I could change the tickets if I went to the bus terminal that afternoon, so I did. I also had to pay 100 bolivars per ticket, which is such a ridiculously small amount of money (something like 0,03 eurocents) I don`t know why they bothered. Anyway the important thing is we could change our tickets!
Today Irene`s feeling better, and we went to a couple of shopping centres. The first one was a market for food, arts and crafts (hoped to get some nice presents but the amount of crap they sell is unbelievable) and then we came to another more modern one, except most of the shops are closed for lunch until at least 3pm. So we´re spending a bit of time on the internet until the CD store we want to visit opens. Then tonight hopefully we can finally get to Coro, and arrange a flight to Aruba for Friday!
I´ve added some photos to my album (see the ´Photos´ entry for the link), still have a load more to add but there are some from Laguna La Restinga and Santa Fe for you to see.
Bye for now! :)
First of all, I`ll tell you about the rest of our weekend. We half-planned to hit the town on Saturday night, but our feet hurt so much we ended up staying in and going to bed embarrassingly early. But ther next day we were a bit more active. We visited the zoo here, which supposedly featured all local species, except that it also had a couple of lions (??) which I can assure you don`t live in the Andes. It wasn`t a bad zoo, although some of the big cats had enclosures that were really small, and some animals were kept on their own with no companions, which was sad. And some of the cats were living next to the parrots! We were keen to see a nice big anaconda to make up for the one we didn`t see in Los Llanos, but they only had a little one. Boo! After that we went to the botanical gardens nearby, but they were shut unfortunately.
In the afternoon we went paragliding!! Which is being attached to a big parachute, flying off a cliff and floating about in the air for a while. We went to Los Gonzalez, about an hour from Mérida for it, along with a lot of other tourists from different agencies. It was very high, about 800 or 900 metres, but I was more excited than scared! Which was a good thing because I was the first one to go. I had to wear a ridiculous helmet and was strapped into a harness with my instructor behind me, and was told that when the wind got under the parachute, I had to start running. So I did, and before I knew it I was swept off my feet and was up in the air! It was a fantastic feeling, gently flying around in the air on the currents, and we did a few dips and swoops, although after a few too many I started to feel a bit dodgy, but I kept my eyes on the horizon and took a few deep breaths and felt better! Irene took some great photos of me, and I took a few photos from the air of my feet dangling over the valley!
After about 30 minutes of flying we touched down where we took off, and I managed not to fall on my bum. By that time lots of other people had taken to the air too, which was a great sight. After that it was Irene´s turn, although we had to wait a while because our instructor suddenly got into a fight with one of the other instructors :( Something about the prices they charged, I don`t know, but they even tried to hit each other a few times before finally our instructor calmed down a bit :s Anyway Irene set off, and as she was landing further down in the valley, I headed off back down in the ancient Beetle we arrived in together with some of the other people there. Unfortunately I didn`t get any pictures of Irene`s landing as the guy driving went very slowly, but it turned out she had landed early anyway as she had felt worse than me in the air and had filled our instructor´s sick bag! Poor thing!
After that our instructor (who drove like a maniac, we were glad to get out of the car) dropped us off at the bus terminal so we could buy tickets for the night bus to Coro on Monday evening, and then we had some Italian food and went back to the hotel to watch Grease in Spanish (although the songs were in English) - annoyingly it was constantly interrupted by election updates. There was a presidential election on Sunday, which was a complete farce because all the opposition parties withdrew earlier in the week, claiming that the election would be rigged anyway, and the president would win no matter what. Which of course he did - not a good thing in my opinion, and I think the situation in Venezuela wil continue to become worse, economically and safety-wise because of it. Anyway, there were no riots or anything so it all took place quite peacefully.
Yesterday as I said we were going to leave Mérida for Coro, but Irene woke up very ill - vomiting a lot and feeling bad. It can`t have been the paragliding still, so I think she got a food intoxication from the pizza (I was fine but I had pasta...) Anyway I phoned the bus terminal to see if we could use our tickets for the next day, and as usual I was jabbered at in Spanish that was far too quick for me to understand. And as usual, when I asked for them to speak more slowly, they repeated the same thing at the same speed :( I more or less understood that we could use our tickets for the next day, but under what conditions, I didn´t know. The woman then had enough of me, and actually hung up the phone, after which I tried twice more with no answer. ARGH!!!!!!!!!
Luckily on the way home I met Manuel, our tour guide from Los Llanos, who phoned the bus terminal for me. I could change the tickets if I went to the bus terminal that afternoon, so I did. I also had to pay 100 bolivars per ticket, which is such a ridiculously small amount of money (something like 0,03 eurocents) I don`t know why they bothered. Anyway the important thing is we could change our tickets!
Today Irene`s feeling better, and we went to a couple of shopping centres. The first one was a market for food, arts and crafts (hoped to get some nice presents but the amount of crap they sell is unbelievable) and then we came to another more modern one, except most of the shops are closed for lunch until at least 3pm. So we´re spending a bit of time on the internet until the CD store we want to visit opens. Then tonight hopefully we can finally get to Coro, and arrange a flight to Aruba for Friday!
I´ve added some photos to my album (see the ´Photos´ entry for the link), still have a load more to add but there are some from Laguna La Restinga and Santa Fe for you to see.
Bye for now! :)
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