Maracaibo Cumberland

... brute,<br>traffic all over hard to compute.<br><br>Fresh fruits wonderful cheeses,<br>warm air little breezes,<br>queueing for an eternity,<br>narrow minded in mentallity<br><br>Colourful slums named barrio,<br>seeing the people working around the law,<br>beach parties sun and women,<br>coconut kisses sold on the ...

Yo tome un helicóptero y visitar Salto Ángel. Yo jugué en la laguna y la playa de Canaima. Saque muchas fotos de Golodrina Salto, Hacha Salto, y el agua de rojo. Come en La Churuata Restaurante. La comida es bien, pero poco caliente. Llegue a Tapuya Hotel a dormir.

... and would probably be closed by now. Before we knew it they loaded us into their huge truck and agreed to drop us at a nearby hotel. It was so kind of them and they even got out at the hotel and talked to the reception desk to ensure we were ok. We had already been told that apart from in Merida there are no hostels in the country and that it is worth getting cheap hotels. The Costa Real (Avenue Circunvalacion) was very nice, the air ...

I knew that Maracaibo would be bad when I arrived. I only stayed here to break my journey up. However, I could never imagine what dump it would be. Thinking of staying here? You better reschedule your trips so whenever you arrive here, you can leave on the same day. Story on Maracaibo

... it as a proper shithole barely worth writing about. Next... Cuyabeno... The Cuyabeno Reserve, or National Park, was where we headed in search of anacondas, tarantulas, monkeys and other exotic jungle wildlife. We didn't see much. Maybe, after just returning from the Galapagos, I expected too much. On the Galapagos Islands you could go right up to the animals and they wouldn't blink. It seems ...

... another nose. At that time in the morning all we had wanted was an uninterrupted journey to catch up on sleep- but maybe on the bus eh?? Spoke too soon. Got through border control with no problems, and were immediately pounced on by helpful Colombian salesmen. Before we had even left the taxi, we had bought our bus ticket to santa marta, for a 2hour ride. Breakfast (this was only around 7am remember!) was plantain and cheese, comes as it says on the tin ...

... trying to make us pay 30,000 Bolivares when the locals only paid 10,000 Bolivares! They wouldnt budge, which is very annoying because we're getting charged 3x the amount because we have white skin and not a local. A local lady saw us trying to barter and came over and had a huge argument with the driver for attempting to charge us way too much, which was great! But we only could get it knocked down to 20,000 bolivares. The bus was great fun! Not ...

This was my first visit to Venezuela in ten years. My aunt Carol was getting married so my parents allowed me to go. Venezuela isn't exactly that safe anymore, especially for "tourists." I got to spend time with my family which was absolutely awesome.<br><br>My aunts wedding was absolutely amazing. Words cannot describe how gorgeous everything was. As soon as I can, I will upload pictures because that's the only way to get the full effect.<br>

... to purchase a flight to Maracaibo no matter the cost: dont. It was so horrible (and expensive) that I cant even be bothered to slag it off. Suffice it to say that it gave me 48 of the most horrible hours of my life, made all the more horrible by the fact that I knew all the while that it would even be a boring story so I wouldnt even be able to regale people with the hilarious story about 'that time I went to Maracaibo and (insert amusingly horrific event of ...

... for 90 days, instead of the usual 60. My efforts succeeded, however, after all the lies to the border official I ended up being a student in the University of Magdelena, studying spanish with Professor Mel Gibson (the movie Braveheart was playing in the bus and when he asked me who my professor was, this was the name that just came out.) My ridiculous story worked and I now have a stamp that will let me stay here for 3 more months if I so ...