Day 106 - Orinoco Flow

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We woke at 6:30 in an attempt to begin our day of travel before the sun got too hot, but even at 7:30 our 1km walk with 20kg packs (plus a few kilograms on our fronts) was very uncomfortable. Two loaves of bread purchased, we hopped on the 45 minute bus to Puerto La Cruz from where we would catch a bus to Ciudad Bolivar, the jumping off point for Canaima National Park and Angel Falls, the highest waterfall in the world at 983m. Typical South America - when I asked two of the men from the bus company how long the journey would be, I got answers of 3 hours and 6 hours. I give up, I can't wait to be back to English reliability and access to information (relatively speaking that it). Anyway, an hour into the journey we made a rest stop which turned into a bus repair stop lasting an hour. The choice between waiting it out on the stuffy bus with the air con off or the hot and humid outside world was swayed by the fact that I was sitting next to an above average sized lady who was spilling over into y already uncomfortable seat. When we got going the air con was feeble to non-existent, on a bus with no windows (it bemuses me that they don't install windows for the inevitable breakdown of the air con) so the only way to survive the journey (given it was 30-something degrees outside) was not to move a muscle for fear of overheating.

Upon arrival at Ciudad Bolivar we were accosted by a tour operator offering us a tour to Angel Falls. A happy coincidence that it was the company Sonja and Fred had recommended so we mentioned them to score ourselves a discount. All agreed, we then faced the problem of insufficient cash funds due to the ridiculous Venezuelan ATMs. Of course, no-one on this continent is advanced enough to accept card payments (or astute enough - hello missed business opportunities when people don't carry hundreds of pounds of cash on their person in a crime ridden country!) so we agreed on a bank transfer. This actually worked out very much in our favour, as the agency wanted a transfer of Euros to a Spanish bank account, using the exchange rate of 7 Venezuelan Bolivares to the Euro. We got 6.2 Bolivares to the pound when we transferred to Western Union and when requesting the transfer fro HSBC we got 1.2 Euros to the pound... the point being we saved £150 between us by not paying in Bolivares. We nearly ran into trouble when I hung up from HSBC (after they had told me for the third time that I could not cancel or recalls a foreign transfer) and the tour company asked for a print out of the transfer from my online banking. My Spanish was luckily sufficient to explain I hadn't done it online as it was 10pm in the UK and the online facility to transfer abroad was only available until 3pm, but that I was able to use the 24 hour phone line to take my instruction. They still seemed confused that it was not showing to debit my account (could they not get their head around the time difference and the fact business had closed for the day?) but I assured them the money would be with them within 4 working days. It was OK in the end.

On arriving at our hotel affront the Orinoco River (included in the cost of our tour) we discovered it was not as romantic as it sounds. The river looked like the Thames, except a lot dirtier, and a group of tramps were congregating outside our hotel. Oh and the receptionist was a rude little so and so. Like most locals we've encountered recently, he did not appreciate that whilst I am not fluent in his language, I can understand if he would just speak a little slower than 100 miles per hour and used simpler vocab. Not a difficult concept to grasp. We employ it every day when speaking to other travellers who speak English as a second or third language. Big bugbear of mine at the moment.

We went in search of dinner and found nothing but a handful of cafes closing for the day at 6:30pm. We persuaded one to serve us food - an unappetising and overpriced piece of beef with rice and salad, which tasted of nothing but salt, plus I had lots of unidentified crunchy bits in mine. This town is a total dump, I cannot believe the Lonely Planet suggests spending a few days here after Angel Falls - nothing to see and nowhere to eat!

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