A Belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

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Hola Amigos,

We are currently in the Andes town of Merida, where we will be spending New Years Eve.

We met up with our group in caracs last Saturday and left with our group to the beach town of Santa Fe. We have 36 in our group that will travel with us to Rio. Most are friendly, but of course there are some 4 who are miserable and difficult. We have been split in to groups and we have to make dinner, lunch, or help clean so it is like living in a commune. There are four in our group and Louise and Gary are already fighting over who is chopping and who is cooking after they saw the size of the wok they can use. We could cook a small child in it, or dog. However, when we stay in hotels we have to go out and fend for ourselves. We have now got to grips with what chicken and prawns are. We are also learning Spanish from our phrase book, it´s just a pity that Latin American Spanish is slightly different so instead of catching a bus you could end up bonking one, but we do know how to ask for three beers perfectly!

We met up with our group in Caracas on the 23rd and went out for dinner. Caracas is not a place we will be rushing back to. You never feel safe and it there are hundreds and houndreds of ugly 1970´s tower blocks. We then set off early on Christmas Eve to the beach town of Santa Fe. After a 6 hour journey we got to a vacant hotel that was reserved only for our group, which we soon made home. After dipping our toes in the warm waters of the Carribean we spent the evening drinking beers in a local beach bar whilst watching the sunset.

We got up fairly early on Christmas Day and exchanged our presents of fresh air. We want to thank our parents and David and Tracey for our gifts and not forgetting people who we have already given us presents whom we have alreadythanked. In the morning we set off on a fairly small motorised fishing boat to spend a few hours on a deserted island. On the way we passed a skool of dolphins, which made our Christmas. We got back to the hotel where some groups made a proper Christmas dinner, whilst we chilled on the beach. After the dinner we all made our way up to the hotel terrace and had a party and tried to learn Salsa until the small hours. Everybody spent boxing day on the beach nursing sore heads.

On the following day we set off on a very long drive to another costal town called Chichirivichi. This was a little bit more Spanish as we would know it, but looked as if it hadn´t seen paint for a while. On our only full day there (Thursday) we all got in small motorised fishing boats and set out for another beach island. However, once we got out to sea the waves became enormous and our planned 45 minute journey turned in to a 90 minute one. It was alot of fun, but a little bit scary at the same time. The waves were coming over us and we got drenched. Unfortunately, the sea calmed down on our return journey.

We are soon realising how spoilt we were in England with regards to plumbing (David, you would earn an absolute fortune out here as you would be on call 24-7). We are still trying to get to grips with putting loo paper in a bucket as oppose to down the loo. As a result the last 2 hotels we´ve been in, our group has blocked the loos. Also, Gary soon got a culture shock half way through a ´COLD´ shower when the water ran out. Not just for our hotel but for the ´WHOLE´ town.

We had another early start on Friday and set off on a mamoth journey to Venezuela´s party town of Merida. We drove through the Andes on the way and Venezuela is a really beautiful country, which is so green. Every thing seems to be on a large scale from massive mountains to 6 foot long leaves. It´s just a shame that the people are not quite as pleasant as their surroundings. We have noticed that they try to give us ´Gringo´prices and they are happy to ignore us in bars and shops. It is really fortunate that our tour guide is very good at helping us out with these problems. Having said that, a bottle of beer costs less than 30 pence, and a nice meal is about 2 pounds (yet petrol costs 1 pence per litre - we put 180 litres of petrol in our truck and it cost less than the three ice creams we bought. Water costs 3 times as much as beer so all the locals just drink beer all day). We understand that they are trying to make a bit more out of us, but it is annoying. The thing that we do like is they have brilliant music turned right up, ready for people to dance to at every corner at all hours. Old and young all listen to the same thing at the same volume. Venezuela must have one of the highest numbers of deaf people in the world! Regaetone music is great.

We are currentlñy in Merida and it seems to be completely different and we would recommend people to visit here. It is situated in the Andes and lots of activities to do and bars to visit, which we will tell you about on our next entry.

Happy New Year to you all

Gary, Lorraine and Louise xxxx

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