This is the part of the trip I knew was coming. YThe lasty leg. We have about 5 days left. We have survived heinous bus rides, roads that shouldn't exist, horrible venezuelan diets, long bus rides, longer kombi rides, super high altitudes, snakes, pirañas, alligators, painful sicknesses, torrential rains, long hikes, crazy bush women, wacky farmers, and the worst driving in the world and each other's company. A few more days of surfing/ getting slammed by waves, a couple more ceviche meals, and we will be bound to declare our lies to us customs. We have become very comfortable in the [View Full Entry]

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Well as the tensions rise, we fled caracas without brian, to Merida once again. From there Talyn and i joined some folks in a land-rover to get into the llanos, this time much deeper. We had planned on going to one of the Hatos, the biological reserve like HAto Frio, or Cedral, but decided we wanted a more authentic experience. We ended up at a ranch in the state of Apure. The decision was extremely rewarding. We rafted the Santo Domingo river, rode horses through the llanos among lagoons of caiman and storks, took multiple trips looking for wildlife, pirana fishing,...... [View Full Entry]

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More has happened than can ever be remembered. We have been weaving our way through problems and set backs all the way through the end. We made our way through weather, crazy birds, years of data, hours and hours of unbelievable traffic, car searches with large weapons, power hungry police, and have finally ambled our way to a research institute to try to get the blood samples back to the states. As always there are mind-boggling setbacks to paper and bureaucracy for everything. Consequently Brian will be unable to come with Talyn and I for the rest of our venezuela tour. [View Full Entry]

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Well, well. It has been many many days. Many weeks. We have been waiting for the permits, and finally it looks like soemthing has happened. We may finally get into yacambu after all. The professor in Ebich eems to have finally gotten off his ass. Well now we still have to wait for this and that- bureaucracy bs, so hubert wants to go cowboy style into the park tomorrow, demand they let us in. I think I will wait in the car! Either way, looks like we might actually be in the park this weekend. i hope. We shall see. We [View Full Entry]

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My oh my, what a trip! It has been a little over a week here and I have been exposed to so much. The culture is completely overwhelming. Things in the city move so incredibly fast. On a personal level, people in general are very kind, however, they dont seem to honor spatial relationships, and are so sharp with the tongue. I have weather torrential downpours- like in biblical terms- I have spent a night with a social revolutionary group- a hair raising experience- called the furs, and I have seen the parts of the andes that are completely indescribable. I [View Full Entry]

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