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Published: September 13th 2007
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Liar1
One of our first guides who tried to trick us. This past weekend was a wild adventure for nine of us here at VENUSA. We heard about a strange phenomenon known as Catatumbo and decided that we just had to see it! There is an area near Lake Maracaibo where it is lightening constantly but with no accompanying thunder. Scientists aren't really sure how or why this occurs, but they suspect that it is due to the change in altitude near this area.
So, the nine of us headed to the bus terminal at 5am on Saturday morning with our bags packed and ready for adventure! We took the bus to a city called Santa Barbara where we caught a taxi-van to a small port city called Puerto la Concha (Port of the Shell). It seems to be a fairly poor area of the country and most of the people there make their living by fishing and tourism. Our biggest mistake on this tour was going without a guide or picking a definite leader. What many in the group failed to realize is that you never pay the asking price here in Venezuela. Almost everything in negotiable.
Our first set of "guides" were going to charge us 500,000 bolivares
Monos
Some monkeys we saw along the way (about $150) to take us three hours up the lake to a posada where there were supposed to be hammocks waiting for us. After about 45 minutes in the boat, we pulled up to some cabins built over the lake and were told that we had reached our destination. Well, we weren't having that...it wasn't what we had agreed on....so we made them turn around and take us back and we didn't pay them anything. A little disheartened we arrived back at the port and tried to decided what our next move was. Some of us wanted to just give up and go back home, but we hated to give up the idea of our little adventure. We happened to see some more "gringos" who had arrived at the port right before we had so we decided to ask them for some advice. They were very helpful, having just returned from a similar adventure, and gladly introduced us to their guide. After haggling with him for a while, it was decided that he would take us to the same place he'd taken the others for a grand total of 450,000 bolivares. We would each pay 50,000 bolivares (about $15) which
Iguana
You might have to look hard, but there's an iguana on the limb. wasn't a bad price at all. We had already packed all of the food, water, and alcohol we would need so that seemed like a good deal for housing.
So we headed out in the boats again ready to meet adventure. The boat ride was pretty fun. We saw some wildlife and got to ride the waves. Our first destination was a place called Congo. It's a small village made of houses called palafitos which are built over the water. Venezuela actually gets its name from these type villages. When explorers first came to Lake Maracaibo they saw the houses on top of the water and said that it looked like "little Venice." They also saw a bunch of naked women (of course the natives didn't really wear clothes) and called them "mujerzuelas" which meant "prostitutes." So, you add Venice with mujerzuelas and you can make Venezuela. Anyway, we stayed at the city of Congo for a few hours while our guides rested. There was another group of tourists from Merida there, so we all set our food out and chatted with each other. There were a bunch of children from the village who were around as well, so
An Eagle???
Not exactly sure what kind of bird it was, but we thought it was some kind of eagle. we fed them and talked to them about life in Congo. It was a quaint and also seemingly poor town, but they had the cutest little church. And, as every city in Venezuela must have a Plaza Bolivar, there was one attached to the church, and yes, built over the water.
After Congo we headed to a beach on the lake and played with some more children. We were all pretty tired and ready to get to our destination though, so after eating a meal of grilled fish, cheese, plantains, and crackers we headed to our cabin. It was a small one-room house with a bathroom outside. The problem was....there were NO HAMMOCKS!!! The only thing to sleep on was a dirty old mattress. I ended up sleeping on the mattress because I didn't think I'd be able to get off the floor if I slept on it. The mosquitos were horrible! We all came back looking like we had awful rashes and I have a few bites that I know aren't mosquito bites, but couldn't tell you what they are. I watched the lightening for a while but was disheartened that I couldn't get any pictures of it.
Palafitos
The first place we went to. It totally slipped my mind that lightening happens really fast. After a while the mosquitos drove me into the cabin where I forced myself to go to sleep. The next morning we woke up to a breakfast of bread and cucumber and headed back to the mainland.
It was an unforgettable adventure, but not necessarily in a good way. Next time, we'll know to bring our own damn hammocks!
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Gayla
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Sweet Sorrow
Hey girl. I'm glad you had a moderately good time. I'm sorry the adventure didn't turn out as planned but nonetheless, at least it was an adventure. Hope you are well. I'm really glad you are doing this blog site. At least it lets me keep up with you to a degree. Everyone here in little ole' Leesville says hi, they love you and are praying for you! Same goes for me too! God bless. Love and prayers to ya, Gayla