Laja Real Hotel Ciudad Bolivar

How much do you think it would cost to put 200 litres of petrol into a bus to get me from Margarita Island to Puerto Ordaz? As I'm sure many of you are aware petrol is super cheap in Venezuela, but I think it’s worth pointing out just how cheap it is. The answer to my question is BsF10… which is $2 on the black market, or using the less favourable fixed official rate of exchange, still only around $5 ...

YAY! We are in Venezuela! And its raining!!! Arrived in Caracas early in the morning and our Belgium mate helped organise our bus to Ciudad Bolívar. Lucky the next bus was departing in only one and a half hours. So we stood in the line for the bus tickets. The ticket office didnt open until 20 minutes before departure. By the time we got to the front of the line it was 5 mins till departure. Got our tickets and ran to the bus, the very small bus ...

... hotdogs, corn pancakes and dreich weather! We were well and truly in the clouds! It was raining and there were no views, just loads of school kids running around, but it was one of the few tourist attractions in town! By Friday we had a night bus booked to take us south east to Ciudad Bolivar, it was ok, and we got into the bus station at 7.30 am and by 8am we´d booked ourselves a tour and were sitting at the airport waiting for the flight to Canima to ...

... indrukken, nieuwe mensen, het continue concentreren op het Spaans en het continue mensen om je heen hebben, en voornamelijk niet echt tijd voor mezelf om tot rust te komen... best vermoeiend :) Dat gezegd hebbene, heb ik echt een fantastische week gehad; dinsdag middag zijn we met een bootje naar een soort prive strandje gevaren... beetje zwemmen, beetje bier drinken, het leven kan niet veel mooier :) ´s Avonds was het feest omdat het ...

... and we thought it had gone forever, but the next day we were swimming on the town beach (not the nicest one there and not the nearest to the hostel) and a man was also swimming in the sea with his dog near us. He went out and a few minutes later he came back with our camera and had recognised us from the photos. I couldn´t believe it, it was a chance in a million. We moved on down to Panama after that. The border crossing had the ricketiest, oldest bridge with giant ...

... several thousand oilbirds that inhabit the cave ventured out into the open night. The next morning we were given a guided tour through the cave network with the oilbirds flying around us. Nature works in an extraordinary way, because of course with baby birds and eggs there are plenty of rats around. However the oilbirds bring into the caves a seed which is poisonous to rats and we could see dead rats killed by their intended victims From Caripe we ...

... the connecting flight blah blah. I had a browse through the Venezuela chapter in my guidebook, and made the executive decision to have a proper crack at seeing a bit of the country. The girl at AeroPostal (an airline unlikely to fall out of the sky, but equally unlikely to ever run on time) quoted me $277 for the tiny flight, so I called her bluff and eventually got it for $165 which was probably still a rip-off. The taxi driver to the airport was ...

... to wear racy cloths, some of the tops they wear are really no0n-existing. People in general are of any ethnicity; I haven't seen any blonds, but many people are of my color, some are black-black and the most are in-between. Today I started the teaching. The group is rather small. I look forward to Saturday, there is a big family do, where relatives will gather from many places and they have an outdoors party with lots of drinking and dancing and gossiping.

... Also a big thanks to Moog and Michelle, the duct tape had its first use as a bath plug! Anyways, later on the Monday night we had a fabulous meat dinner in the posh Altamira district (where I got even more mosquito bites, bringing my total to 35 and Andy´s to 5) and moved on to a bar to sample some more of the local beer. Mum just to let you know that I didn´t break my promise and was back at the Hilton before 8pm honest... no, really. Today it was again too cloudy to ...

... Everyone I've met has been really cool and super friendly. We left port at 5pm. The boat is a lot nicer then I expected and the food is yummy. Today we are just passing by Cuba we will be to Venezuela our first stop on Saturday morning. I haven't decided exactly what I will be doing in Venezuela. A few of us I think want to go to Margarita Island or I may decide to stay in Caracas with a few people. I have met so many awesome people already and we have only ...