We arrived early the next morning and spent another night in Ciudad Bolivar, where we met Stephanie (Germany) and Rickie (Sweden) who accompanyed us on the following night to our next location, the city of Merida in the North-West. This was a 20 plus hour journey, with a change in BarinasAs we got closer, the scenery became completely different, with the road winding around colourful little villages, farms and highland rivers full of trout. The people looked more like indigenous Andeans and wore traditional hats and ponchos. The climate changed from humid to cool and cloudy.
Merida is located on a plateau formation in the valley of the Chama river, in the 400km long northern end of the Andes range that belong to Venezuela. It stands at an altitude of 1,630 m above sea level, and is surrounded by mountains including the highest Venezuelan summit: the Bolivar Peak.We loved it. It's a university city, so has a youthful vibrance about the place, and it feels really liberal and laid back. Combined with the charm of Andean culture, it made for a nice place to stay for a while. We first stayed in a lovely hostel with a terrace which looked out onto the nearby mountains and it felt like eating breakfast in the Alps every morning, with the pleasant slightly more comfortable temperature. We found a couple of Veggie restaurants, our favourite being restaurante vegetariano on Ave 3, Calle 27, where you could get a set menu for 7 bolivars, the cheapest set menu we'd seen. I think it was vegan. The only thing we disliked was the air pollution from the fleet of huge, ancient American cars that constantly patrolled the streets. Some of them looked as though they were about to disintagrate. They must get them cheap from the states.We decided to do a week of Spanish lessons at the IOWA Institute. With it being low season, there weren't many travellers around, so the classes were very personal. We were impressed with the school and were enjoying being in Merida, and so 1 week of lessons became 2.
After spending some time going to bars to ask if I could DJ, and being told to come back, and going back and then been told to come back again, I finally got myself a set at Banana's cocktail bar. I got to play for about 4 hours, with the cocktails flowing freely to me & Colette (and plenty subtly finding their way to our friends. Well, maybe not that subtly..). It's pretty funny here, I'd noticed on the radio and in another bar that the DJ's always plug themselves on the mic, and so the bar manager continued to shove the mic in my face and order 'Habla'! Of course after a few cocktails it didn´t take much persuasion to get me on the mic (Yes Nick!) much to Colettes' disgust. "Soy DJ Defunkt de Inglaterra, terra, terra! Este es Drum & Bass, bass, bass! Que paso Merida?!".It went down well, and reminded me how much I miss mixing to a crowd. The aim is to get to play at least once in each country visited.
One day, we went with our good friends Eli (Eng) and Bert (Holland) to Llano del Hato to see Latin America's 2nd largest telescope. The plan was to check out the stars, and then just find a spot to throw up the tent for the night, and get the bus back again first thing in the morn. The bus journey along this road is amazing. We passed campsinos ploughing their fields with oxen-pulled ploughs, gorgeous little villages with houses painted yellow, blue and pink and then "BANG, SSSSSCCCCCRRRRRRRR". I thought we'd been hit by another vehicle, and looked out of the window to see a wheel roll past. Then we realised that it was actually our wheel, and it had fallen off, just like that. We literally grinded to a halt. It was hilareous, we were all just pissing ourselves! The passengers calmly collected their belongings, and got off the bus to wait for the next, as though a wheel gone AWOL was just a part of their daily routine. After finding his wheel, the driver joined us in waiting for the next bus, and left his 3-wheeled casualty for dead on the narrow mountain road.After 2 more hours we stopped for food at a cute little cafe. An annoying local guy persistantly tried to impress us by roughly picking up a tiny decrepit kitten by it's flea-bitten tail, poor little bugger. He was soon scared away by Colette's scowl of disapproval.
We finally reached the telescopes to be informed that they were closed until the following week. We pleaded to be let in, for just a quick peep at the stars, but it was in vain, and so we decided to return to Merida! The day had neem a disaster, but we'd all had such fun!
We weighed up doing another treck (especially with tour operators with names such as 'fanny tours & adventures'), or some camping in the hills but in the end decided that it was time to move on, as we'd been in Venezuela for 5 weeks and spent a fair bit of money. Also, we reckoned we'd have plenty of chance to see animals such as Caimans, Piranas and Capyburas once we'd entered the Amazon. After some careful consideration, we decided that Colombia would be our next port of call. Most travellers we'd met were either on their way there, or on they're way back, and all who'd been had given rave reviews. So, risking the initiation of 4 simoultaneous heart attacks from our parents, we got ready to head West to Colombia..........
