Centro Turistico El Encanto Merida

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... rallied up the only biligual guy in the airport and he organised us a cab to Merida. Another interesting tid-bit of information was that the timezone is 30 minutes ahead of what it should be according to the rest of the world clocks. The president decided he would change the timezone as well as set the currency at a ridculous exchange rate to make life so easy for the tourists. Having done a bit of reading ...

... has his own time agenda which involves collecting his daughters from daycare! We arrive back in Mérida around 5pm and check into the Posada la Montaña again. It has been raining here too and has cooled to 22 degrees. Its good to have a hot shower in private surroundings again. We go out to La Mamma restaurant and have pasta pesto and a calzone pizza. Pesto and I are not friends at 3am! The toilet and I get quite intimate!

Venezuela has big cities where most of the population lives while the mostly wild countryside evidences a spattering of people, but where people leave off nature takes over. We managed to avoid most big cities but had to endure the trek through a few. We maintain that cities are attractive only from a distance. Looking down upon their creative sprawl from some winding road is by far our favorite way to enjoy a city. Even then, it ...

... of course checking out the food. It was just by our guesthouse that we discovered the best burger. Costing just over a quid, this was a triple decker spectacular which included the genius addition of fries in the burger. Heavenly. Because the strange money situation in Venezuela (you can't take any money from the ATM as you would only get half what you would changing dollars in the street) we couldn't really ...

... 2,450 Bolivars to the Dollar and on the black market its 4,600 to the Dollar. I only brought $200 with me (was a bit nervous about a strip search durin the bus trip so didn't bring more with me). The Angel Falls trip is roughly $250 but will be nearly an extra $50-$100 because I have to use the official bank exchange (damnit). Jan 10th Merida Woohoo, after 2 more hours of queuing this morning and pestering the staff at the cable car I managed to get a ticket for the 10am ride ...

... with them for two hours and they even stopped off along the way insisting that we take some photos. Back in town we headed out for a great dinner and Carly sampled her first vegetarian empananda and Garvo had a bizarre but tasty looking sandwich which was made from mashed banana fried and then filled with some spicy vegetables apparently called tostones. Taking advantage of our cable TV, we headed back to the room to catch some of the football.

... grass by the mountains and suddenly, bam, they`re surrounded by water on some kind of farm animal Alcatraz. Noticing that we´re bummed out about not being able to see the village, Ingrid tries to cheer us up, telling us that our tour´s much better than the last one she did. Apparently, nobody in the group could sleep because the guy in the stilted house next door was playing loud music all night. Unbelievable. Imagine, moving to ...

... har vaeret i stykker siden koebet, saa vi skulle koerer i den gode gamle jeep/minibus - "The white *****" som vi kalder den. Den havde selvfoelgelig startproblemer, men efter nogle skub var den igang. Det varede kun omkring 4-5 timer foer det begyndte at lugte maerkeligt inde i bilen, og det osede ud med noget meget mistaenkeligt roeg - Bremserne var roeget!!! Derfor fik vi en bonus overnatning paa hotel. Efter at " the white *****" havde besoegt den lokale ...

... his somewhat undiplomatic french way. "You must have had a big lunch then" I replied curtly "If I say I´m 10 stone, then I´m 10 stone" and went back to trying to take photos of the valley with my feet in them. At the bottom, Andrea landed first, and lots of local kids were ready to help with packing up the gear, which was quite sweet. She was a little shaky, but had enjoyed it, although perhaps not keen to take me up on my suggestion of learning to paraglide ...