The Araya Peninsula

To escape from the bustle of Cumaná, we decided to make a day trip to the Araya peninsula. It's attached to the mainland, but is long and thin and so the most efficient way of getting there is by sea. Little boats depart every couple of minutes, so we took one, and after a bumpy ride of twenty minutes arrived in Manicuare. The peninsula's main attractions are the salt mines and the old Spanish fort, both in the town of Araya, so we rode in the back of a pickup truck (I'm not making this up, I swear) along a lumpy road to there.

Araya has Venezuela's biggest salt deposits, and that attracted the Spanish a couple of centuries ago (must have wanted it for their paellas). So valuable was salt (whence "salary", by the way) that they built a fort to protect the mines. Eventually the area flooded with water so the Spanish left, but now the Venezuelas exploit the mines for themselves. The company used to be called "Salaraya" - quite a clever pun, I thought - but was nationalised post-Chavez, and is now "Ensal". It's hard to see much salt mining going on - it's all enclosed behind high walls - but we caught glimpses of massive expanses of white salt flats. The fort is still in pretty good nick (for Venezuela, that is). There's no gate or anything, so you can just clamber around it (like the wild goats do). We took a few nice pictures, paddled in the sea, had a drink in a bar and then caught a different ferry back (bigger, and direct from Araya itself to Cumaná). Very pleasant day, all in all!

So, Isla Margarita tomorrow. It's one of the most exclusive places in the country, full of rich Venezuelans, so it should be in better nick than Cumaná :-).

Santa Fé - Cumaná

We spent a second day on the beach at Santa Fé, me still chasing herons and constructing defensive fortifications and getting confused by the local vernacular (see how Katherine has turned me into a figure of fun? See? :-).

Santa Fé is, once you get through the slums around the main road, essentially a cute little village built right on the beach. Houses open straight out onto the sand, or even straight into the sea, and you often have to wade through water to get from building to building. The hotel and posada owners have a co-operative that pays to clean and light the beach, so it's much more pleasant than Puerto La Cruz. The only problem is the discernible tension between the 'ordinary' Venezuelans and those who make money off us tourists.

We left Santa Fé this morning and took a por puesto further eastwards to Cumaná, the thriving capital of Sucre state. We'll stay here for a day or two, and then, if all goes well, catch a ferry to Isla Margarita, Venezuela's most important Caribbean island.

I feel Katherine missed an opportunity to have a laugh at the expense of the Swiss. Señora Rita, bless her, was very, very Swiss. "Can we have the key?" I asked. "No, you will surely lose it." "No we won't." "Are you sure? Lots of people have lost it..." "We promise, we're very careful..." etc. Our room was, of course, spotlessly clean; their garden immaculate. They even had a little stone with a bouquet of little Swiss flowers painted on it by the front gate.

Anyway, you might hear from us again before we leave Cumaná, if not it'll probably be from Margarita. After that we're heading back to Caracas ready for our flight out on 6th to Quito, Ecuador.

Photo updates

Look to the right: our galleries have practically doubled in number, thanks to Caroline and her internet cache! :-) Click on the links near the top to see pages of thumbnails of old (pre-Chicago) pictures. We've also finished doing comments for all our pictures on ImageStation, so flick through those if you have the time / willpower! Oh, and Andy's photos from USA are also up.

Niagara Falls

Maybe we could have tried this...

Moving on...

Living in Venezuela is, in general, very cheap: hotel rooms cost under $10 a night for two; eating out will set you back no more than $2 each; buses will take you across the country for $20. The only real money gets spent on tours and other tourist activities. The rafting and Catatumbo tours cost us plenty - flying to Canaima and the Angel Falls (there's no road access) would cost well over $150 each. That would almost be more money than we've spent in this country so far!

So, seeing as I've already seen the thing anyway, we've decided to give it a miss - this time :-). In a day or two we'll head back north to the Caribbean coast, and sample the beaches around Puerto La Cruz and Mochima. We might even make it to Isla Margarita!

Ciudad Bolívar

After a mammoth bus journey (about 22 hours from Mérida to here, via Puerto La Cruz), we arrived in Ciudad Bolívar, a hot, sticky city on the banks of the Orinoco River (it's named after the Womble, I think ;-). We've just finished uploading the photos from our time in Merida - links to the right -, and at some point we'll have a couple of rafting ones uploaded.

More in due course...

El rafting

Well, looks like we survived our rafting more or less intact! Most serious injury was a spot of sunburn - a couple of our group fell in from time to time, but (against all odds) Katherine and I remained in the raft at all times!

So, our group: eight people in total, four Venezuelan hombres de negocio, a Swedish chap, a German chap, and the two of us.

We left Merida at 8am in a jeep (just the four non-Venezuelans; the others got there under their own steam), and drove through the Andes and cloud forest. We stopped in Barinitas, on the edge of Los Llanos, for lunch. The area is famed for its yummy cows, so the three carnivores had fantastic steaks - our guide, John, and Katherine, made do with cheese and salad instead. We also had plantains (of course) and yucca. Yucca is some sort of root, or something, and tastes almost identical to potatoes. (Indeed, McDonald's fries are often made of it, rather than potatoes, because it's a bit cheaper).

We reached our base camp near Barinas by about 2pm, and less than an hour later eight of us, plus our pilot Hector and John's son, were bouncing downstream in a raft. It's a pretty simple concept: the pilot shouts derecha or izquierda (right, left), according to the direction he wants the boat to go, and you row in the appropriate direction. The rapids on the first day reached grade 3, which was pretty tough in places, but nothing we couldn't handle! We stopped at the banks along the way to do crazy stunts like jumping in off big rocks, dangling off tree branches, and getting swept along by the rapids (needless to say, Katherine declined to participate in many of these activities :-). Eventually we came to a bridge, where we were picked up by John and brought back to camp.

We spent the afternoon recovering (we'd only been in the water for less than two hours). At 7pm we trooped up to a nearby farmhouse, whose occupants had prepared a meal for us (spag bol - or spag soya bol for Katherine and John), with ice tea, soup and salad. Needless to say, we slept soundly that night! (And used our mosquito net for the first time).

We woke up early the next day, to the sound of birds singing in the trees!, and breakfasted at the same house. Our meal was fresh melon juice (yum!) and arepas (yum! - made from wheat rather than maize, Andean style) stuffed with perico (yum! a mix of scrambled egg, onions and tomatoes).

This time, rather than launch from our camp, we drove up a dirt track to a point further upstream. We were in two boats this time, four plus pilot in each. This time we entered the water by first throwing the boats of a bridge, then jumping into the water ourselves to get in! (Katherine didn't do that either :-). The river was a bit more treacherous, and there were a couple of hairy moments, and we all got flung around inside the boat, but Hector kept us on-course and after a few hours we arrived back at our camp.

White-water rafting was fantastically fun, every bit as cool as you might imagine it to be. The river near Barinas is apparently one of the best places in Venezuela to do it, and we both had a great time!

Photos ...

... are uploading as we type, but might not be ready until tomorrow. Watch this space :-).

Catatumbo Delta / Maracaibo Lake / Punta Concha Trip

As planned, we left Mérida at 7.15am on Tuesday morning on the Arassari Catatumbo expedition.

César was our guide, Ramón our driver; the group was made up of the two of us, an English woman, a Scottish couple and five Catalans from Spain. Either by accident or design, César is also Catalan, so they had plenty to talk about. (My Catalan is somewhat rusty, but I did pick up a word or two!). Perhaps the most interesting thing about the Brits was the twenty year age difference between the Scottish couple: female our age; male our parents' ages (more or less ;-).

On the way to the southern shore of Lake Maracaibo we stopped at various scenic and cultural spots. The first, and most interesting, was a sugar producing factory - the manufacturing process is pretty convoluted, and all done by hand and ancient mechanical machinery. We also visited a tobacco gum factory (the famous Venezuelan "chimo", ghastly stuff that blackens your teeth and befuddles your senses), a restored coffee hacienda, and a cute little Andean village. After a long drive and a stop for lunch, we arrived at Punta Concha, at the end of a river that flows into Lake Maracaibo. We took two motor boats along the river ('native' drivers), slowing down to stare up at red howler monkeys and a panoply of different species of bird. In the lake itself (which is really, really huge - the biggest in South America -, and slightly salty) we spotted river dolphins. They're pretty shy, so they stayed away, but we could see them leap through the water clearly in the bright sunset.

Our accommodation that night was a palafito, a hut on stilts in the middle of the lake. Generally used by fishermen, they're useful for avoiding the mosquitos that swarm the shores. A recent storm had destroyed lots of them, but ours had obviously survived - which inspires confidence, I suppose -, and had running water to boot.

It was dark by then, so we ate a quick dinner and set sail once more. The moon was full that night, but luckily it was cloudy, so we travelled in darkness. We were hunting caiman: you shine a torch towards the shore, looking for the light reflecting from their eyes. Once you see one, you can't miss it - their eyes shine bright red just above the surface of the water. César must have special kung-fu powers, because the boat glided in towards the creature he reached down and grabbed it out of the water, dangling it for us to poke and ogle the poor beast! Turns out that the light in their eyes blinds them (temporarily, of course), so they stay stock still, and once caught they just go limp. They're pretty ferocious when released though, and the one we found had lots of pointy teeth! We let the poor thing go in the end, and it scuttled off. We were looking for boas, too, but never found any. We did spot an owl though, sitting up on the top of a tree.

We slept in hammocks in our palafito, in the open air with a thatched roof (and mosquito nets) above us. At night the spooky Catatumbo Delta lightening starts up. Apparently there's a scientific explanation, which has something to do with swamp gas rising from the delta. The result is a display of lightening (but no thunder) which occurs practically every night. Very spooky!

A storm whipped up during the night, but Katherine and I had managed to choose the side away from the wind and the rain so we were fortutitously left warm and dry.

The next day was a bit damp and cloudy. We set off along another river, but there wasn't too much wildlife about. We did see plenty of birds with impressive-sounding names (ospreys, vultures, eagles and so on), and a couple of monkeys, who were no doubt annoyed at being woken up by a bunch of gringos.

On the drive back home we stopped at an impressive waterfall, where César excitedly announced that he might have discovered a new species of frog (his speciality), and we all gawped at a tarantula (yeah, a real live tarantula!) sleeping under an overhang. We also trekked through cloud forest to a picturesque river, into which I promptly leapt for a bit of a swim (only one other person was brave enough to join me - and it was not Katherine :-).

We got home late in the afternoon. Fantastic trip - loads of stuff we'd never seen (or even heard of) before, and stuff that we'll probably never see again - or forget!

Today, Thursday, was spent performing various administrative tasks in Mérida - shopping and so on. We also took a steep little walk down the side of the meseta (we were going to do it a couple of days ago but didn't get the time), and managed - finally! - to find an internet café with USB computers so we could upload all our new photos!

Photo captions

We've just written some more captions for our photo albums. Now you can look at the Albuquerque and Santa Fe ones and know what you're seeing. We've yet to do captions for the Grand Canyon ones, which will no doubt be a struggle...

We're just off on a little walk down the side of the mesa upon which Merida is perched. Then in the evening we're going to sort out the details of our wildlife tour, which starts early tomorrow morning.

Teleférico de Mérida

Believe it or not, Venezuela has the longest and highest teleférico in the world. The Teleférico de Mérida is a stunning feat of engineering (even if it did fall apart in 1991), and the closer you get to the top the more difficult it is to find suitable adjectives to describe the view!

We were going to take it yesterday, but the weather was pretty rotten, and it was a good thing we decided to wait. This morning was probably the clearest day yet, so we could see right up to Pico Bolívar.

The cable car trundles along 12.5 kilometres (not entirely true - you have to get off and on at various stations along the way), and by the time you're done you're at an altitude of 4,765 metres above sea level. That's only a fourteen metres short of Mont Blanc, the highest point in Western Europe. Pico Bolívar itself is about 200 metres higher, and we were lucky in that the views of it from the top were amazing.

At that altitude, lack of oxygen becomes a slight problem. You can feel your pulse quickening, and it becomes increasingly difficult to walk for any length of time without running out of breath. It's also pretty cold, although there was no snow at the top station (Pico Bolívar was about half covered in snow).

We caught the cable car back down just as the inevitable clouds descended on Mérida for the equally inevitable afternoon showers.

At Bs 25,000 ($16) it isn't cheap - that's a huge amount of money by Venezuelan standards. Nevertheless, worth every penny (or cent...). I'd been on the thing before, with RGS, although the top station had been closed when we were there, so there was something new even for me!

OK, we're having a day off tomorrow. But get this: the day after that we're going on a two-day wildlife tour of the Catatumbo river delta, north west of here. Then next Saturday we're going on a two-day rafting expedition in the foothills of the Andes. Needless to say, we can't wait!

Republica Bolivariana de Venezuela

... to give the country its official title, post-Chavez.

We went downtown to the historic part of Caracas today. We started at the Contemporary Art Museum, which was mostly Venezuelan stuff, and, bizarrely, some David Hockney. Surrounded by street vendors and ancient concrete tower blocks it seems terribly out of place.

We also visited the Capitol Building - impregnable, surrounded by armed guards (and I mean armed: shotguns, rifles, bayonets and SMGs all on very obvious display) -, and the National Pantheon, which holds the remains of Simon Bolivar. Again, it's well-guarded, and visitors have to be smartly dressed (I was required to tuck my shirt in!). Venezuelans hold Bolivar in a huge amount of reverence - so we trod very carefully! We also visited the (reconstructed) house where he was born, then caught the Metro back to our hotel.

Oh, we had lunch in a nice restaurant on Plaza Bolivar, but we don't have time to tell you about that. Next time I'll try and remember to describe what we're eating and drinking (or better yet, get Katherine to do it)!

Rollerblading on Venice Beach

Actually, maybe I've built it up too much, but it was pretty amusing. I often have trouble standing upright at the best of times, so try to imagine, if you will, me on rollerblades.

Needless to say I was dreadful. As Katherine zoomed off into the sunset I spun in circles and fell over twice. At one point I found a bit of pavement that sloped downhill, and so got up quite a speed - until I skewed off into the grass and sank into the mud.

Well, I didn't break anything, and I guess I got marginally better (over the course of an hour), but it's clear that rollerblading is not one of my fortes.

Apart from my rollerblading humiliation, Venice Beach has lots to offer. There're lots of stalls selling trendy clothes, CDs, books and jewelry. There's also the famous "Muscle Beach" - an outdoor gym where the vain come to flex their muscles.

All the Motel 6 valet parking clearly took its toll on our poor Hyundai, which decided not to start the next day. We found a handy man across the street and got the battery going again with one of those big power pack things. After that we were too scared to go anywhere so we drove to a car wash to clean the Navajo dust off the car and a gas station to fill it up, then returned it to Rex Car Rental, and got a lift to LAX.

After a long wait in LAX we got our overnight TACA plane to San Jose, Costa Rica, then changed planes to fly into Caracas, Venezuela.

Rewind to Los Angeles

We stormed back from Albuquerque to Los Angeles, covering loads of miles in a couple of days. Our motel in Flagstaff had a jacuzzi, which was something of a first!

Finding somewhere cheap (and wholesome) in LA to stay was a little tricky. In the end we opted for the Motel 6 in Hollywood, which was within walking distance of all the sights and not too expensive. It even had free valet parking (which merely served to run down our car's battery - great!).

Hollywood: of course, we strolled along the Walk of Fame, where all the stars' stars are, and visited the Chinese Theatre where the hand prints in the conrete are, as well as the Kodak Theatre where the Oscars now take place. We drove up into the hills to get a good view of the famous sign. Surprisingly, Hollywood is a pretty grim place - no celebs actually live there, and it's a bit unsavoury after dark.

Much much nicer is Beverly Hills - we drove out and walked along Rodeo Drive, by far the swankiest place we've been to yet. Every imaginable fashion boutique is there, all of which way out of our price range :-).

Somehow or other we managed to get free tickets for the Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn, who is essentially an inferior version of Conan O'Brien, but on CBS. Guest star was Eva Mendes, which was pretty cool, but his jokes just weren't as good! We were able to watch the same programme on TV that night, but none of us made it on screen :-(.

We spent the next day at the Getty Center - more art, very swish. I liked the illuminated manuscripts (not entirely popular with Katherine and Andy). After a few hours there we dropped Andy off at LAX and drove out to our new, budget-er hostel...

... Which turned out to be rather nice. The place has a swimming pool, as well as free muffins for breakfast, coffee and biscuits for lunch and glasses of champagne, cake and pasta in the evenings. Plus lots of cute little kittens wandering the grounds. All in all probably the nicest hostel we've been to, and good VFM.

The hostel offered a daily shuttle bus to Venice Beach, which we took the next day. It was a bit too cold to swim, but we found plenty to entertain us...

What happens next is so ludicrously funny that it probably deserves its own entry. See above.

Venezuela

Wow, well we made it to Caracas, Venezuela at last! It's my second time here; it's all new for Katherine...

I know we haven't yet done a blog entry for LA or Hollywood - we're working on it!

Nor do we really have time to let you know what we've been doing here so far - suffice to say we're both safe and sound and still having a great time! Here's a quick update:

We arrived yesterday afternoon, and caught a shuttle bus to the Gato Negro Metro station, from where we took the metro to Sabana Grande. Our hotel is perfectly decent, and costs only $17 for a double room with "bathroom". I'd forgotten from my previous visit to this country that hot showers are almost unheard of. A shower here is usually nothing more than a cold tap a couple of feet up the wall of the bathroom! I remember I got used to it last time, so I'm sure we'll adapt soon enough :-).

Today we visited a shiny modern mall on the outskirts of Caracas, had an arepa (Venezuelan cross between a sandwich and a doughnut...) for lunch. We also bought some (first class) bus tickets to get us to Merida on Thursday morning.

Most museums and parks are closed on Mondays, so tomorrow we'll be doing some more touristy stuff - almost all of which involve, somehow or other, Simon Bolivar!

OK, there'll be another quick update tomorrow or the day after... Bye for now!