Hotel Mintoy Merida

... many times to catch an anaconda, tree boa, and a caiman (Small croc). He was very informative though and kept things interested. A little too informative on birds and butterflies though.. not so interested in them! He took us down the river.. I really should take note of the names of these places.. anyways, we got to see pink river dolphins which were so hard to photograph.. I do have a photo of some water where it re entered.. so basically a splash. We also went down ...

... it is 1US to 4.5 / 5, and 1UK pound is officially 3.12 and on the black market it is 5.5 / 7 depending on where you change). This is a problem as things cost comparably with Western European prices 'officially', but if you are paying having changed on the black market everything becomes very cheap. So as we didn't have much US dollars on us we originally thought that there would be no chance of us being able to raise any money to make things cheaper. However ...

Hid my US dollars (Venezuelan officials have a history of sticky fingers as the Dollar fetches nearly double the official exchange rate on the back market for the government overvalues their own currency) in my boots and crossed the border into Venezuela. After a few backhanded comments about the US and Obama saving my country from her problems I was in with minimal fuss and cavity searches. Venezuela (though I only remained a shade ...

... towreing mountains got closer and closer as I kept gazing up! After approximately an hour of ascending we passed the vegetation line and all that remained was the grey sharp boulders, spotted with snow. We hit the end of the cable line and hopped off. At this altitude, walking in a straight line is difficult enough, and makes you puff alot. Walking up any hill is enough to sping your head out also and make you dizzy. I climbed around outside on the ...

After I got back from the Llanos and caught up on a night´s sleep, I caught a 5 hour shared jeep up a steep cliff-hugging road to the mountain village of Los Nevados. On the jeep I met Joshua, a very interesting American guy studying medicine as part of the Cuban Medical Mission in Merida...and his friend Olge, a Venzeulan student who has just been given a small house in Los Nevados. They were both there to clean up some of the land around the house ...

... before feeling any effect! We even managed to have a few games on the Nintendo Wii and rounded of the perfect evening heading out for ice cream before visiting one of Homero's friends to wish him a happy birthday. Here it does not matter what day of the week it is people are constantly finding any excuse to throw a party and have a beer. But then it is not surprising when they have the gypsy curse that if you drink on a ...

... to say really dirty things all the time and has been caught in some embarrassing photos pinning some Venezuelan girls on a pool table. When he gets all fired up he starts saying ¨Damn¨ a lot and ¨Freakin.¨ Somehow it just doesn´t have any oomph when it comes from him. Mara: Sweet older lady from Melbourne, Australia. I really like Mara. She was really quiet for the first few days and now is warming up. She just is chill and isn't quick to gossip or ...

... person for the changed continental flight and an extra day in Caracas, most of which was spent in or near the airport and another meal in TGIF's (Their food is appalling). Our re planned schedule gave us a bonus stop for two nights in Los Angeles and a few more days in Fiji. So now everything has been delayed by a week till we get to South East Asia. Which isn't that bad really. I'm just very happy that we survived it all, one with fewer bruises than the other!

... aldrig kunne naa det paa 5 min. Heldigvis var vejret paa vores side, og vi naaede det til tiden. Turen til Caracas var meget lang. Lidt over 10 timer men vi hyggede os med film i flyet. (maate selv vaelge om de skulle vaere spansk eller tysk synkroniseret) I Caracas kom endnu et problem, da en for vores gruppes rygsaek ikke var med flyet. Turen fra Caracas til Chichiriviche ...

... After the museum (round one, we'd be b*ck l*ter) we went to the oce*n *nd sw*m in the gorgeous w*ters. Both R*chel *nd I were bested by the gi*nt w*ves *nd ridiculous undertow so we w*ndered *long the be*ch *nd bought * non-*lcoholic, possibly mol*ss*s b*sed, drink which w*s biz*rre, but quite yummy. From the be*ch (s*lt w*ter) we went to * w*terf*ll (fresh w*ter) where some people elected to swim (the smell of fec*l m*tter overwhelmed me *nd I did not p*rticip*te) *nd we ...