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Published: August 17th 2007
Riot
Yeah! There's been a riot. Finally some real action on this tripVenezuela - second half of the trip
After we came back from Los Llanos we stayed a few more days in Merida and mum and dad suggested that we would go on another cable car ride. Cable cars seem to be popular in Venezuela. We were not exactly crazy about going on another cable car ride. The one in Caracas was a bit silly. Good for old timers perhaps but for us action craving cuddly toys it's not good enough. But mum and dad really wanted to go so we didn't have much of a choice. It turned out though that this cable car ride was much better than the one in Caracas. This really was an adventure! The cable car took us to an altitude of over 4700 meters. That's incredibly high. It was so high that we could hardly breathe because the air was so thin. It was so high that there was snow on the ground in spite we were in the tropics. It was so high that the ground was all barren because nothing could live there. It was so high that we actually got a bit scared... We didn't even dare to go out but
Look at that sofa?
We found this sofa in a park. It's super cool. The Venezuelans really know how to make sofas. decided to stay in dad's bag the entire time we were at the top station of the cable car. That's how scary it was! But we did go out when we were at a station at a lower altitude when it wasn't so scary anymore.
From Merida we went to a park where there are so called petroglyphs. Petroglyphs are pictures that have been carved into the cliff faces a long time ago. Mum and dad say that the petroglyphs were either art or religious symbols. But to us they looked like graffiti. How can mum and dad know for sure that they were "either art or religious symbols"? Have they asked the people who made them? No they haven't! Mum and dad may be old but they aren't that old. Has anyone now living person asked the people who carved the pictures into the rock faces what the pictures symbolize? Is there any written documentation on why these pictures were put there in the fist place? No and no again! They sure look like graffiti and if it looks like graffiti it probably is graffiti. So until someone show us some conclusive evidence that we are wrong we
Cable car at 4000 meters
Here we are at 4000 meters altitude outside Merida. We were even higher before but we didn't dare to go out. It was scary and cold! are going to call it graffiti.
Well after the little dispute with mum and dad about what the petroglyphs actually are we could go about and actually look at them. There were hundreds of pictures there and many of them we liked. There were pictures of people, there were pictures of animals and a lot of pictures we couldn't figure out what they meant. There were even one picture that looked like a carrot. That's an odd graffiti! Maybe our rabbit friends in Gothenburg know what it means? We are going to ask them next time we meet.
Our next adventure on this vacation was to visit the
Angel Falls. We knew about Angel Falls before we left and we did some research before we left. Angel Falls is the highest water fall in the World. Even if water isn't our favourite element we guess that the highest waterfall in the World still can be worth visiting. But if we are going to spend days in the middle of nowhere to go to a place to see water we really want to know what it is we are seeing. Dad has several hundred of these this books with yellow
Graffiti/petroglyphs
Look at these pictures. Really old are they and we think it's graffiti. One of the pictures look like a carrot covers that have interesting stories in them about all kind of places in the World. In one of them we found an article that had some information about the Angel Falls. Or actually, what caught our attention was a guy who in 1937 crashed a plane near Angel Falls. His name was
Jimmy Angel. When we read about him we found some interesting facts:
- He earned his living flying a plane
- He has been known to smuggle things between countries if the pay was good
- You can argue that he is a mercenary. He goes where the money is the best
- He was found sitting in a hotel lobby (probably in the bar. But that is not verified) in Panama
- He was broke at the time which was very common for him
- He was hired to fly some passengers into Venezuela
- He took the job because it was good pay and he needed the money
- The mission was dangerous but he accepted it because it was a chance for him to become rich
When we check out Star Wars we notice the
Megalith stones
What these stones were used for we don't know. But they sure were nice to sit on. following about
Han Solo:
- He earned his living flying a space ship
- He has been known to smuggle things between planets if the pay was good
- You can argue that he is a mercenary. He goes where the money is the best
- He was found sitting in a bar on Mos Eisley
- He was broke at the time which was very common for him
- He was hired to fly some passengers to Alderaan
- He took the job because it was good pay and he needed the money
- The mission was dangerous but he accepted it because it was a chance for him to become rich
What an incredible discovery we have made! Jimmy Angel is just an alias for Han Solo. Why hasn't anyone noticed this before?
Jean-Claude: "Isn't it a weird coincident that Jimmy Angel crashed his plane so close to a waterfall called Angel Falls? I mean what are the chances for that?"
Emma: "Oh sometimes you are so stupid Jean-Claude. Jimmy Angel
discovered The Angel falls and therefor they are named after him."
Jean-Claude: "Aha, now I get it. But then I think they should rename
The Terminator
Jean-Claude:"There's a picture of The Terminator outside this gym" Emma:"We'd better leave here. What if that evil liquid Terminator is here somewhere?" them 'Han Solo Falls' because we have already established that Jimmy Angel's real name is Han Solo".
So we went with mum and dad to check out the Angel Falls. First we went to a small village named Canaima. There we found some waterfalls. For a while we thought somebody had shrunk the Angel Falls because these falls were not higher than 30 meters tops. That is nowhere near the highest in the World. We've seen
a higher waterfall than that in Iceland. But then mum told us that these were other waterfalls and that the Angel Falls were actually 4 hours by boat up the river.
We tried to stay away from these waterfalls as much as possible but we have to admit they were a bit fascinating. There were so much water at the same time and the sound from them was deafening. Mum and dad actually walked
behind one waterfall. They asked us if we wanted to join them. "No way José" we answered. They could make us do anything that! We stayed behind and let them get soaking wet. Cuddly toys are happiest when they are dry!
The day after we did the 4 hour boat trip
Plane to Canaima
Look at the small plane we flew in to Canaima. We think even we can learn how to fly this plane. It looks simple. up the river and we saw the Angel Falls. It was huge! We have to admit that it was even beautiful. So it seems like water actually can be nice, at least if we are at a respectful distance from it.
After the Angel Falls we went to one of those horrible places mum and dad threatened to take us to earlier on this trip - a beach. Well, we tried to keep away from both the water and the sand as much as possible. We asked mum and dad if they could buy us nice and big drinks, because plenty of alcohol tends to take our minds off from whatever is around us we have noticed. But to no avail. They just answered "What doesn't kill you make you stronger". We tried to explain that this could actually kill us, but they refused to listen to that.
After we left the beach we went to a town called Maturin. There dad took us to see a mud volcano. Mum refused to go with him there because she couldn't understand why anyone would want to see a mud volcano. Well, we can't either see the point in that
Not the highest in the World
This is a big waterfall but nowhere near the highest in the World. We've seen higher in Iceland. to be honest. It's a heap of mud. Who in their right mind want to see mud? It's just as stupid as to go and see sand! Well, it was still a bit of an adventure to find the volcano. It was right in the middle of a cow field and we were afraid that the cows would come and chase us. But dad made sure we got there and back safely.
One of the last places we visited in Venezuela was a cave named
Cueva del Guacharo. When we came there we first had a look at the visitor's centre. All over the visitor's centre there were signs telling about an explorer named
Alexander von Humboldt who had visited the cave in the year 1799. The signs were all saying how important Alexander von Humboldt discoveries were and how he bravely explored various countries in South America. We have noticed that Alexander von Humboldt seems to be very popular around here. There is an ocean current named
Humboldt Current, there is a river named
Humboldt River and even a mountain named
Pico Humboldt. So we wanted to know more about Alexander von Humboldt. He is an adventurer just like we are. It's natural that we
Trail behind the waterfall
This trail goes behind the waterfall. We didn't go in because it's wet in there. want to learn more about him just as we are sure that he wants to now about us. So we started to read about what his connection with this cave was. First we thought he discovered the cave, just like Han Solo/Jimmy Angel found the Angel Falls. But we found out he didn't. Several westerners had visited the cave before him. Well, maybe he found the end of the cave? But we learned that he only went about 500 meters or so into the cave before he went back out again. We went much deeper than that into the cave. We did not turn back until we were more than one kilometre away from the mouth of the cave! So we are starting to think that maybe Alexander von Humboldt isn't such a big explorer and adventurer after all. We think we might be much better explorers than he is. Dad says that we should be more humble because "If we could go deeper into the cave it was because we were
walking in the footsteps of giants". No, we are not going to be humble because "we could go deeper into the cave because we are
better". We think Humboldt should be humble. That
Angel falls/Han Solo Falls
This is the Angel falls or, as we prefer calling them, The Han Solo Falls. It was Han Solo who discovered them so he should have the honours. Alexander von Humboldt is not much of an explorer. In fact we think a better name on him is Alexander von Humbug.
After we came home from Venezuela we read in the newspaper that Alexander von Humboldt was actually coming to Stockholm. We decided to go and visit him all tell him about us. We thought also about confronting him with the news that we don't consider him to be such a big adventurer and traveller as everybody say. But we were very surprised when it turned out that the Alexander von Humboldt who came to Stockholm was not an adventurer but a
big boat. Well, if the adventurer Alexander von Humboldt actually brought that boat with him into the cave we might reconsider our opinion about him because it would be quite a feat to pull off that stunt. Well, if he dares to show up in Stockholm we'll ask him. But if he hears about us we think he will stay as far away from here as possible or he might have to face that he has been dethrowned by two cuddly toys. That would be an embarrassment for him. We think they in the future will rename
Night shelter
This is our night shelter by the Angel falls/Han Solo Falls. Hammocks, really nice. that mountain in Venezuela after us. "Pico Emma and Jean-Claude"? We can certainly get used to that!
Before finally leaving Venezuela mum and dad decided to stay at a spa for two days. They even threatened that they in the future might spend an entire vacation at a spa "because it's so nice". Well, for us it is NOT nice. We looked everywhere but couldn't find one single cuddly toy there. And why is that do you think? It's because cuddly toys aren't designed to soak in a spa! When are mum and dad going to understand that?
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Jimmy Olano
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Riot at Valencia
Hey, now you know my dear city, Valencia. Enjoy it, every day happens something different here, not boring i promise. This picture taken: Urdaneta Street at Lara Avenue. Excuse for my english. Valencia, Venezuela.