Having flagged a bus just outside Tayrona National Park, which incidentally was the worst shed of a bus we have seen in Colombia we arrived at the border town of Maicao into chaos. There were several men greeting us off the bus shouting "Maricaibo, Maricaibo, Por Puesto, Por Puesto", traffic all over the place and no sight of a collectivo. We were closely followed and harassed as we tried to refuse to get in an unmarked bashed in shed of an old American Chevrolet as our Taxi and headed over to the Brasillia bus terminal to be reassured by the security [View Full Entry]

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Wow...I made it through a very tough few days of travel on several very LONG bus trips. I now sit in an internet cafe in the barrio of Gestemani in Cartagena, Colombia...but didn´t get here easily. At this point I am too tired to go into detail...I will leave that till tomorrow. Lets just say that negative parts of the story include freezing and then sweltering buses, thunder storms, highway paralyzing car accidents, purse snatchers, unrelenting itty bitty gnats that bite like hell, corrupt as f--- policia at 10 different checkpoints at every damn kilometer approaching the border, credit cards [View Full Entry]

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Another weekend…another adventure… Thursday after class, four of us decided we would try to find something to eat. I haven’t spent much time in El Centro yet, so I was excited to go downtown and eat at a true Venezuelan restaurant. Two of the girls I went with had asked one of their professors for suggestions on where to eat, and she told us a name of a great Italian restaurant in an area we were all pretty familiar with. So after class, we took the bus to El Centro and started on our search for the restaurant. After walking for [View Full Entry]

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The weekend was another adventure to say the least : ) A group of students and I along with our trusty Venezuelan guide, Tony, ventured north to Lake Maracaibo in search of the natural lightening phenomenon at Catatumbo. According to Tony, who is literally the South American Steve Erwin (this guy catches piranhas and alligators bare-handed for fun), Catatumbo is one of four places in the world where the unique combination of a warm and cold front collide over open water composed of 50/50 sea and salt water to create methane gas and spark silent lightening 24 hours a day, 375 [View Full Entry]

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Zulia er en delstat i det nordvestlige Venezuela. Hovedstaden er Maracaibo. Zulia dekker et areal på 63 100 km², og har en folkemengde på 2 983 679 innbyggere (2001). Den viktigste næringsveien i delstaten er petroleumsindustrien, det utvinnes store mengder olje fra felter under Maracaibosjøen. Her kommer jeg fra. Zulia delstaten i Venezuela er det beste over alle beste i Venezuela. Folk, mat, musikken, været, og så kunne jeg forsette. Definitiv en sted man bør besøke mens i Venezuela. Bru Maracaibo over Maracaibo innsjøen. Monumenten til jomfru Maria de la Ch [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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So i started writing this entry over a week ago but things have become a bit delayed, possibly because i am fitting back into Latinamerican laidbackness or because i am a bit ill. Sympathy e-mails very much appreciated. Now I would like to cast your minds back to Monday the 16th of July when my nightmareish escape from Venezuela took place. I should have known it would be difficult, any country that asks for your passport number when you buy a pencil sharpner is seriously flawed. It was a hot dusty road from Maracaibo to Maicao (on the Venezuelan/Colombian border) and [View Full Entry]

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After 4 memorable months, it was finally time to say goodbye to Brazil and hello to Venezuela - the land of free petrol and no eggs. Venezuela is an interesting, but not too welcoming of a place to visit. Political tension is always in the air and the communist mood is inescapable. We had to quickly get used to societal climate change - coming from the warm, caring Brazilian people to the cold, unconcerned Venezuelans. The socialist president, Hugo Chavez, recently said something along the lines of “what the Americans don’t understand is that Hugo Chavez is not just Chave [View Full Entry]

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Another early start at 7am, and a long drive to witness an unusual phenomenon which is unique to Venezuela; the Catatumbo Lightning. There is a particular area, no more than 20 kilometres square, where lightning occurs continually at night. Strikes occur between 30 and 100 times a minute, apparently enough to read a book by. But curiously, these strikes are not accompanied by thunder. Scientists have studied this phenomenon, but no-one really knows why it occurrs, or why it only occurs here. It is not a guaranteed occurance however. On average it will occur about 300 nights each year. Would we [View Full Entry]

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On the road again. Venezuela visade sig for dyrt och besvarligt for att gora nagot roligt. Varje gang jag skall lyfta pengar far springa runt i respektive stad for att hitta en bank som ger pengar pa Visa, och sedan koa andra halvan av dagen for att komma till disken. Ofta har det funnits bara ett bankbitrade som tar hand om en kilometerlang ko. Alltfor jobbigt, sa jag bestamde mig for att ta bussen till gransstaden Maracaibo for att snart emigrera over till Colombia. Lar vara billigare och lattare att fa pengar fran automat. Ett par dagar sedan traffade jag en [View Full Entry]

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