This is Venezuela...
- that is what they say in response to:
- is it safe to walk at night? (I asked this the first night when I arrived late in C. Bolivar and asked about getting some dinner - he told me a restaurant to go to, and silly me asked whether it was safe enough for me to go out alone... The restaurant was about 50m away in the end so i was fine... it was a little old lady and her sausage dog - both of them looked clean, the building delapidated... after she gives me my set meal and i am munching away i look up towards the rafters as i hear a loud bang... - not to worry, just the HUGEST rat i have ever seen - actually not just one but about 10... oh well if the food is good enough for them.... - + who knows i could have been eating one of them!)
- complaints about hoardes of cockroaches in your room. (I didnt mind the odd cocky, but apparently their had been some complaints, and the owner was like ´what did you expect...´- altho I did start minding when the creepie crawlies starting biting me when i was sleeping.)
- charge twice as much if you pay in bolivars compared to US. I didnt realise how hard it was to get money in Venezuela... and how much they preferred US (which of course you cant get int he country unless you pay top$ ) Anyway so diving - I had to pay twice as muhc as i only had bolivars (twice as much compared to the exchange rate) - their argument was the black market elevates the rate and the bolivar is sinking...?!
- not having a bilingual guide (depsite promises being made) in Angel Falls - luckily 2 of the passengers were fluent in both languages so could translate... The tour organises did apologise tho...
Amazing Angel Falls
One of the things of my trip that I was most looking forward to was Angel Falls (the hgihest single drop waterfall in the world - one of the natural wonders) - and it lived up to my expectations... Got a little 6-seater plane to Canaima. There were 5 South American ladies (chile, peru, uruguay and venezuela) doing the tour ranging from 65 - 74! They were such gigglers - had been friends since school... they were pretty funny. One of the spoke english... then there was the 2 girls form the same posada as me - from UK (originally from Spain and Greece) - all were very nice... The guide wasonly 18yo and spoke pemon and spanish so had to rely on translations.. but all worked ok... the rainforest was beautiful and had a great time sleeping in the hammocks and canoe-ing (motorised) down the river (thru some little rapids even) despite the rain - drizled a lot fo the time - altho it did clear up for the walk up to angel falls.
Walked behind Sapo Waterfall which was great fun too - it was gushing water...
I went in a separate plane to the others on the way back- worked out very well as i scored a free fly-by past the falls! - was gorgeous! (usually have to pay extra $200 for it!)
Then had to rush to the airport to catch my flight back to Caracas - turns out bad weather so was delayed 3hrs - so got in very late... Had fun at the ariport organising a hotel when noone spoke english and me trying to say i wanted something cheap (apparently they dont understand my accent humph! :) )
Got there oK and then had an early flight to Los Roques the following day...
Lovely Los Roques
Moi bonito! It was such an island paradise... I was lucky enough to go in low season (didnt realise!) - so when i got there i wandered around to find a ´cheap´posada... Went into a few and in the end settled for Los Corales which was near the dive shop... he offered free use of the kitchen to make it cheaper for me (as the boss was away) and only 100Bs/night - not incl. any food... (Had been to a posada before that was 120/night incl breakfast and dinner... but was sharing with a lot of cockroaches and lots of old men - and when all the other posadas were 240+/night you get an idea about the place - and you had to wonder what you were going to be fed for that...) Anyway worked out super well (solo traveldefinitely has advantages) - I got a free trip to a nearby island that afternoon (the other guests had to pay hehe) and a free lunch too! :) Also ended up scoring dinner every night (he had to cook for some guests the first night, so said i oculd join them, the second night the brazilian couple said I could share their meal, third night Willie, the posada guy didntwant to eat alone so cooked fresh tuna for me!). Ended up just buying breakfast and snack from the nearby backery (the backery guy thought it was hilarious that i would go in and just get one of all the stuff).
Was mainly south americans on holidays there. Apparently 40% of the islands population is italian...
The day diving was good (coral, lots of fish)... the night dive was one of the best dives I have ever done... They had heaps of bioluminescence (= sparkles in the water from plankton) - it was amazing - they just sparkled on and off for no reason... and there was like bubbles of sparkes - it was lik they were tlaking to each other like underwater fireflies! - so spent most of the dive with my torch off and most of the gang thinking that they had lost me!
So had a super relaxing time... Altho was kind of glad was leaving when i did as the brazilian couple hadleft the posada the night before and willie was starting to creep me out... incl telling me how he wanted to be a gigalo - oh i cant spell it can i? - he wanted sympathy as he thought it was his beer gut that was preventing him from persuing his dream occupation - blugh! Wish i could put photos up - but his computer wont let me...
Anyway got back to caracas, oragnised for the taxi driver to actually drive me thru caracas and give me a mini tour (as the hotel was near the airport, and caracas itself is about 40mins away) so that was pretty good. Didnt look to bad...
Was frustrating at miami airport (had to go thru there to get to Costa Rica) - had to go thru immigration and customs good thing had 3hrs between flights.
Am now in San Jose about to meet the tour group in 40mins... think there is about 12 of us... go La Fortuna/Arenal or somewhere tomorrow... and then is 2 days Monteverde cloud forest - cant wait!!!!
And - a flying fish beat the world record - stayed flying for 45seconds (someone videoed it) - was on CNN - cool stuff huh!?
Dont feel like i really did venezuela... only really saw 2 places that were pretty touristy... altho did get to make friends with a few south americans... But if that was venezuela got to say I liked it (depsite all the scary stories) - I think it was pretty good!
Later!
That is all for now...
