Hotel Avila Venezuela

The stay at Hotel La Cumbre in Ciudad was just the right rest I needed before getting back on an overnight bus to Caracas.  You can't really sleep on those anyway.  They are very cold (40 F), and sometimes smell, and stop at National Guard posts ...

... to the airport. Kinda wish someone had told us that the bus ran right by our hostel though, oh well.  Our flight into Venezuela was really late and we felt terrible because we had arranged a pickup.  None the less our guy was ready and waiting ...

... super nice guy in the bus (5 hours of transportation... we had time to meet people!). He's from Iceland but has been living in Venezuela for 8 years, so he could give us some good advice! From Puerto la Cruz, we took a boat to a small remote beach ...

... he lived on the mountain, he knew all the perfect places to stop and take pictures. You could tell that he loved living in Venezuela and his mountain because everytime we got out of the jeep thing he would always say "come" implying us to follow him, ...

... into Hotel Alba, which in itself was a controversial decision. From someone I met at the airport, I understand that the hotel was formally a Hilton, but they were not allowed to renew their lease so the government re-opened it as their own!! ...

... Hauptstadt CARACAS. Mir wurde schon etwas mulmig als ich die Headline der Zeitungen, die auf den Sitzen lagen, sah: Flugzeugabsturz in Venezuela kostet 46 Leben. In Mérida, einer Stadt in den Anden, war tags zuvor ein Inland-Flieger abgestuerzt. Diese ...

... was born in Caracas and educated during the enlightenment period in Europe. He led the fight for independence not only in Venezuela, but Columbia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana and other countries. He had a vision of a United South America, but died before ...

... revolutionary who led the bloodied uprising against the Spanish in the 1800s, and established the republics of Colombia, Equador, Bolivia and Venezuela. He is very much the hero in modern Venezuela, with every city, town and village, no matter how ...

... and finally I got to my hotel. I just unpacked, ate in the restaurant and went to bed. The next day was a national holiday in Venezuela so I had the day off to explore the city. I met up with a Venezuelan boy and his friend and we had lunch together. We ...

... . We enjoyed Parque del Este, but it was definitely much quieter during the week than on the weekend. We also visited Parque el Avila, which has a Banff style gondola, but we almost got lost when we hiked back down. We popped out at a campsite that ...

... , synagogue, pool, cafè, library, bank etc...Beautiful, but segregated. It's not been easy to be a Jew in Venezuela in recent years. Government sponsored antisemitism, as well as Chavez's relentless demonisation of Israel, his global "anti-imperialist" ...