Venezuela. Santa Fé - Playa Medina - Santa Fé

bwenos!
We are back in Santa Fé after a few days away on an eastern beach called Playa medina. Its noted to be the most beautiful beach in Venezuela, and true it is, absolutely spotless white sand, cool water, and around 400 meters of coconut tree lined beach. We were staying in a hotel 2 kms away up a mountain, so it was a bit of a walk in the sun, after a hard day on the beach, but I guess somebody has to do it hey?. It was disappointing though. The day trippers coming to the beach were messy (just throwing litter everywhere), quite drunk and playing RAGATON music out the back of their cars (Ronald's brother in Merida was into big fancy car stereo systems and other car gadgets but hes 19 that's OK these guys were in their 40s!). Ragaton is a mix of Salsa (lovely, hip swaying, sensual music) and reggae (the style that's heavy beat, bouncy etc) so the combination of the two was terrible and played really loud.
Oh well, their country their beach their ways I guess.

We are back in Santa Fé now, and since being away, we really appreciate it more. Its a small fishing village, the fishermen go out early in the morning, and come back with so many fish that they have a lot to spare for the hungry pelicans that hang around. Round the corner is the swimming beach, a lovely local beach, with a few posadas(hotels), great restaurants right on the beach selling fresh fish, juices and wonderful salads. And no Ragaton (well, not much). The tourists that come here are usually here for a few nights, so its great to stay here and meet different people every night and not get bored with them! Also the amount of tourists is great as its never crowded but there generally always someone to talk to. For example last night we met a few great girls (two swedes on UK and on US - you know who you are!) and I sat on the roof of our hotel with them looking out over the Caribbean drinking rum, opening our hearts and talked way into the early hours. Wonderful.
Our hotel is pretty basic, it looks half completed, but its a great place to chill. Ive taken to taking my siesta on the roof in a hammock hearing the sound of the waves and gently swaying in the breeze.


Next stop is seeing Rokil and Gaudy in Checneneveiche (or somewhere) to the west of Caracas.YES! Its true! (lets see what happens:) !).

arrriiiibe! aarrrrriiibe! ondalay! ondalay!
hastalavista .... baby

Venezuela. Santa Fé

We've had two wonderful days of doing NOTHING on the beach. NOTHING. Sun, sun, dinner of fish, sun, siesta, sun, sleep, fish, siesta........
BLISS.

Venezuela. Puerto Ayacocho - Santa Fé

We had 2 blissful day in PA, recovering from the trip and using the hotel next doors swimming pool. On our last night we left in the early evening, and started our long journey up the country. It took us around a 10 hour journey (on the lower class bus - smaller, bad seats, no air conditioning)to Ciudad Bolivar. There are plenty of trips from Ciudad Bolivar, but for one thing, we wanted to get away from the bugs,

had completely enough, and for a second thing, we´d heard some bad things about the place so thought it would be a good place to avoid. From there, we got straight onto another bus for a 4 hour journey (on a upper class bus - bigger, good adjustable seats, non stop movies, but totally freezing as its cheaper to use the engine from a freezer, rather than buy an expensive air conditioner!)To a place called Puerto La Cruz on the coast. Straight onto an even smaller bus than the first, and 45 minutes later here we are in a place called Santa Fé.
Its a small fishing village, with a few hotels and restaurants. We got here on Sunday 4th and as Sundays are the big day off in the week it was packed with locals, so not really what we were expecting. Monday came though, the beach was deserted, save for other travellers and the fishers, and much more suited to us.
Monday, we ad decided that we really were NOT doing a tour , just relaxing and taking the sun in...until Maurice met some people that were leaving on a boat tour in ten minutes and would we like to join them?.
Why not?.
In the end it turned out that there were too many of us for one boat so we got split up with the people and ended up with 3 Italians.
Our first stop was a peaceful small deserted beach where we jumped off the bat and swan to shore. The waves were strong here, so I had fun playing in the waves for a few minutes catching the waves and arriving on the shore on top of one ( I felt like a kid again!).
Once I´d settled down, we lay in the sun. Drenched ourselves in the suns rays and listened to the waves crashing on the shore. Birds were prominent in this area, especially pelicans, so hearing them screeching above us and the waves crashing next to us was total bliss. Our own desert island!

Our second beach was quiet disappointing, so much litter, I wondered why we were there, then he pulled out the snorkeling gear and it all became clear, all around the sides of the beach was great snorkeling. Amazing coal, beautiful fish but really cold water compared to the first beach!

Our next beach was even further out on the Caribbean coast, and it was time for lunch. I loved our spontaneity on this tour (OK lets go, but have no idea of the itinerary) but because we were so unprepared, we didn't have enough money with us for lunch (so it was lucky that I had bought a melon in the morning so we sat in the bat and ate that while the others gorged themselves on fresh fish in the restaurant)
We sunbathed, swam, relaxed on the beach for a while and back onto the boat.

One more island and h asked us if we liked oysters, when we answered in the positive, he made a little detour on the way back home, by stopping of at yet another beach where he collected around 2 dozen oysters that were locked onto mangrove's next to the beach. They were the freshest oysters that Ive ever had, and the nicest, unexpected tour that we've done!

Venezuela. The Amazon Rain Forest Day four

Last nights dinner!


I finally made fiends with my hammock last night. Maybe it was because it was a little cooler in this camp, and that I had to use my sleeping bag, maybe it was because the sound of the rapids were relaxing me... whatever, I finally got the hang of sleeping in it comfortably.
early morning butterflies Indian children
We woke early and made our guide hurry up an get going faster as the Czechs needed to catch a bus from PA. That was fine with us, as by the time we left, the bugs were coming out again and starting their feeding frenzy yet again. The journey back was just as interesting and mesmerising as it was on the way up.
Despite being uncomfortable most of the time, I had a great trip.This was all our equipment before we left. Thats for4 days and for 7 people. Whe we came back, there was about 3 quarters the size of this!

Venezuela. The Amazon Rainforest day three

Packed up camp and took the boat further up the river, so we had travelled around 100kms by boat.

When we arrived at the new camp we started our hike up a mountain called Autana Tepoy. It started though rainforest and slowly got steeper and steeper.
I felt great. suprisingly, weve done a lot of sitting around the last few days and eating lots of really greasy fatty food. I had a good pace, quite slow but continuous and beacuse of this I passed everyone and was on my own for a while. I had found it frustrating at first, as there was only one path and space for just one person at a time, so I found people trying to over take me all the time, and it was only when it got steeper and steeper that people had to keep having lots of breaks, but my pace was nice and slow so I didnt need to as much.
When we got to the top before the top (Im sure theres a word for that!), Maurice and I had to wait for someone to come up as we had no water.

The views were amazing. The Amazon stretching out for miles and miles into mist. To be honest, I was a little dubious about how far away we had come. It would be so easy for the company to just take us down the river, round and round and only be 30 mins away from Puerto Ayacocho! but when I saw that view it suddenly dawned on me how far away wed come. What an overwhelming feeling to realise that so high up on a mountain!
The desent was fun, as Im always much faster going down (maybe thats from doing lots of walking in the Lake District, and the excitement about going back to the house for a hot bath and tea was what spurred me on!)so fast in fact that I lost everyone pretty early. About 30 mins down I was deep in thought and suddenly Id lost the path. No direction looked right, started retracing my steps, then down one route back again, just starting to panic (too many wierd animals in the rain forest) when Maurice came up behind me and fightend the life out of me! As soon as I saw him, the path was so clear I couldnt understand wy I was so confused!.

While wed been walikg our hammock had been put up for us which was such a relief because this new camp, despite being so beautiful, was FULL of mosquitos, so we were all able to hide away from them while our guide made us a late lunch. It started raining just after lunch, which made the mossies go away, then night fell at 1900 on the dot, which is mosquito bed time in these parts so we were saved. Maurice has been bitten so much that Im sure if they were there all night there would be nothing left of him. As the sun went down, I lay out on the rocks with the Czechs on the banks of the river, listening to the river run down the rapids.
Dinner was delicious fish that the local Indians had caught for us and traditionally smoked for us in their village, then brought it to us.

Venezuela. The Amazon Rainforest day two

Despite not being comfy last night I had some mad dreams!.
Guide cooked a good breakfast, and the Indian leader of this village took us on a walk into the rain forest. We had an interesting 2 hour walk where we tasted fruit that can only be found in the Amazons, watched the guide take a long thin stick, shove it in a hole in a tree and a bloody big tarantula came climbing out on the stick. Lordy.
AND NO. I didn't hold it. No one did.
Back to the camp and it was lunch time, then siesta.

When we woke up five of us took the boat out and went piranha fishing, it started raining heavily, a good thing for fishing apparently, but we didn't get many. I didn't get any, my technique is still useless and I can never seem to throw the hook out far enough. It always seems to just land at my feet.
Same routine as last night, he cooked dinner, we ate it and went to bed! I love been waited on hand and foot, it makes a difference to have someone doing things for you like this!.

Venezuela. The Amazon rainforest day one

We drove from Puerto Ayacocho (PA) and reached Rio Orinoco in about an hour. We unloaded all our equipment onto a boat that sped us down the river.

The Rio Orinoco, what we saw of it, is a busy river. As PA is at the end of the Rio Orinoco, we were soon off and onto one of the tributaries winding down and down further into the jungle. The river was beautiful, wide, lush with wildlife, calm and peaceful. After leaving the Orinoco, we only saw one other boat, and that was a tourist boat with just 2 Spanish tourists. After a hour or three we stopped off on a beautiful beach, deserted or course with beautiful clear water, fish and unfortunately bugs. Back onto our boat again and we ended up in our camp just before sun set. our guide cooked dinner and we ate by candle light as there is no electricity in this small little Indian village.
The Camp is very basic. All we had was a hut where we hung our hammocks, a table and a toilet a few metres away. The toilet was interesting, a western style with no water, just a huge whole in the ground underneath. In a lovely little hut of its own, but no doorway. The view from the loo was gorgeous in the daytime, looking straight out into the bush, but terrifying at night!.
My first night in a hammock, and very stressful. Trying to keep inside the mosquito net that's attached to the hammock and be comfy and stay still so as not to wake anyone (they are all attached to the same pole, so any movement swings your fellow hammockers)....then you need the toilet, lie there ages trying to forget as you don't want to wake anyone AGAIN and its too scary going to the toilet in the bush. Then go to the toilet, back again, then it starts all over again.

Venezuela. Puerto Ayacucho

We had a long journey from Los Llanos to get to here, via a place called San Fernando.
Here we are then, we came with 3 Czech that were on the Los Llanos tour and have already booked our next trip leaving tomorrow. We didn't really want to leave sop soon, but once we had got a cheap price with the 5 of us, it was unfair to back down as they would've had to pay the full price. They are limited for time, so want to leave tomorrow.

Venezuela. Los Llanos.

A Boa Constrictor bit me on the finger yesterday afternoon and I feel terrible. It hurts a lot and its really ugly.
We went for a drive after our siesta, and when we stopped, three locals and our guide went with big sticks looking for the Anacondas. The first one they found was only about a year old. We all took photos of it around each others necks, it was quite small and easy to handle.

Then they found another one. This was bigger and older, about 3 yrs old, and much much angrier.

Pedro, the guide was holding it and asked if anyone wanted to hold it. We all said no, kind of 'held one, held them all' feeling, but a few seconds later I went to scratch a mosquito bite on my leg and as I started to stand up he was putting it round my neck without telling me. I freaked out briefly, but let him put it there, and I held onto it. To hold a snake like this (its a Boa, which is the same family as an Anaconda apparently) you have to have a very tight grip just under its neck, so that you are restricting its head movements, and a firm grip at its tail end. Then they cant curl up. All good. Until when Pedro went to get the Boa off me. People tell me that he didn't hold the neck properly when he was taking it off me, it was able to move its Head and suddenly my middle finger of my left hand was in its mouth, and its teeth crunching through my nail and holding on so so so tight. For a good few minutes, I'm not exaggerating, he was holding onto me. Ive never screamed so much.
An Aussie guy was standing next to me and once he told me that it was not poisonous he calmed me down a little ( I didn't even know that!).
One of the french men came up with a big knife to kill the snake with but Pedro brushed him away and told everyone to look for sticks to wedge open its mouth with.

When it was off me the driver, two German girls and Maurice went back to the Jeep with me, dripping blood all the way. The others stayed and carried on playing with the snake. I am lucky that my brain shut off as soon as I felt the pain. I didn't know how it happened, didn't hear the terrific "Tom and Jerry" style crunch that it made, I don't remember them getting it off me, I just remember the pain. It makes me feel sick thinking about how much it hurt.
We had beer in the Jeep, and once the driver had cleaned me a little, I had a beer to calm my nerves, then when everyone came back, I was on show for them all ( I think I was in shock a little!).

All cleaned up and disinfected when we got back, a German girl, 2 Czech and I started and finished the Rum. Well deserved I think.

This morning 4 of us got into the van again and went back to the river where we went Piranha fishing. I was useless at it but Maurice did well and we had fun!. Then the others joined us, they had been horse riding, and so we swapped. I had great fun riding back and wish it lasted a little longer.
Boring Safari this afternoon, didn't see anything, apart from this bigger anaconda. Yeah thanks, really need to see this. I stayed in the van, very unimpressed and feeling sick.





Ive been eaten by a Boa Constrictor,
A Boa Constrictor.
Ive been eaten by a Boa Constrictor
And I dont like it one bit.
Oh no! its up to my toe.
Oh gee! its up to my knee.

OH FIDGIT! ITS EATEN MY DIGIT. (NICE ONE DAD!)
Oh heck! its up to my neck.
Oh iuu! hdy yfjjd isn aiolxxzzzzzzz

Venezuela. Los Llanos.

The journey here was terrible yesterday. Hot hot temperatures, sideways seating, bashing knees with the person opposite did nothing for the rum hangover from last night. Close to our destination, we spotted an Anteater and the driver and the guide shot out of the Jeep and started running after it!. They were gone for ages looking for It to try to bring it back to us, but they couldn't catch it. Their determination to catch it gave us a good, positive feeling about this tour as they looked so enthusiastic!.
We went to bed last night exhausted, it was a 10 hour journey, a long way going sideways. We were given the option to sleep in a hammock or a regular bed. I felt a little silly on missing out on the hammock experience but I KNOW beds are better!.
This morning after a nice breakfast of Arrepas, we got back in the Jeep to do a mini safari towards the river. Five of us got on top of the roof of the Jeep and we went through the scrub land holding on very tightly!.
We had a 2 hour cruise on a long motor boat where we saw various birds, Caymans (croc´s), turtles and dolphins. They tried to catch an anaconda but didn't find one.
Absolutely beautiful journey and so amazing to see dolphins in a river!. We have lots of Caymans in the river next to our camp, we saw all their eyes shining last night ... they looked so spooky!.

Venezuela. Last days in Merida

On our last few days in Merida, Ronald's family took us up to the mountains to see more of the family. Ronald's family have a farm Way, way up in the mountains, up an incredibly steep mountain, where we were surprised to see a whole village up there!. complete with Plaza Bolivar (Bolivar was the founder of Venezuela and in every town there is a park celebrating him). The family up in the mountains, was fantastic, they had cow, chickens, pigs, newly born piglets, peacocks, horses, rabbit's...the list goes on!.

Today Ronald's mum has arranged a BBQ for the family in Merida to come to. Its a scorching hot day and we all keep dipping into the pool to refresh ourselves. Later that evening the 4 of us will finally meet up with Rokil and Gaudy, Nothing too big as the tomorrow we are off to Los llanos!.
I am in the city at the moment, I came with Ronald as he need to go to the Dentist.

Merida pics

In the Zoo
The magician cousin