Venezuela

Well I have to say Venezuela definatly did improve after Caracas. We stayed in Caracas for one night then fled northward to the Carriabean cost, we travelled by bus then by dodgy old american car to a small beach resort called Santa Fe. It was absolutely beautiful and somewhere that you might see on the front of a post card. Our hotel was right on the beach and we chilled out and drank some beers and rum. As you can imagine rum lead to some more rum and then a headache...

The next day we went on a small speed boat with a man from belgium. We got to see all the small islands and went snorkelling in the reefs next to them. It was amazing apart from the thousand of Jelly fish the swarmed round us!! Luckly none of them stung anyone so the peeing on each other was advoided. We then went to a bigger island for some lunch, here we were greated by some giant Iguanas, they were seriously huge and have evolved to eat meat, which is quite scary when they keep running for your feet.

Sadly the next day we left the beautiful beaches and headed on a long smelly bus to Cuidad Bolivar. We stayed in a hotel, with a TV!!!, for one night. Next we went on the 3 day Angel Falls trip, it was amazing, i nearly didn;t go cause it cost alot BUT it was flippen worth the extra expense. Firstly we had to travel to a villiage called Cainima, we flew there on a rickety 5 seater plane where most of the dials and digits didnt work, and the oil tank moved from empty to full every few minutes!! The flight took just over and hour and even though it was amazing seeing all the the gran sabana from above I was very very glad to be back on solid groud. From Cainima we went along the jungle river in a small rickety boats for four hours. We had a brilliant guide called Freddy who was our guide for the three days. After the boat we trekked, yes I trekked!, up through the jungle to the foot of the Angel Falls ( the tallest water fall in the world). It was breathtaking!! I then swan in the pools. By the time we were heading back down from the falls it turned dark very quickly so we ended up walking through the jungle with noooooooo visability and all the time passing huge spider citys, we also had to walk accoss the river which had risen since we had been there earlier! But we survived and walked to our lodge, I say lodge but it was some poles with a roof on it, where we slept out in the open in Hammock, mine smelt like horrible sweaty men, needless to say when i woke i was not feeling my sexist feeling sexy. However I think you should try everything once, gladly it is done now!

The next day we travelled back to Canima and were given beds!!! We then went to see lots of smaller waterfalls near to the villiage, we even went behind then and swam in them, AMAZING! That night a group of us decided that some rumski was in order, one bottle turned in three or four and yet again i awoke to the familar cracking sensation in my head!! The hangover, as you can imagine, was only made more delightful by our return trip on the plane. Thankfullly and new Venezuelan friend gave me a pink pill that aparently stops sickness, it worked and my stomach was kept at bay!

Later that evening we embarked on our first fun time adventure of the night bus. The bus was good, feet space ect BUT it is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo cold. I have never been so cold, they seriously crank down the temp. We later found out the reason for this, we were told that the coolers they use to store meat when transporting it stays at one constant heat, the aircon on the buses uses the same system as to have only one setting is so much cheaper. So yep i do feel a little like a piece of meat! The bus is suposed to take around 9 hours but once you have factored in the stupid amount of police check, ( the police stop the bus and check all the luggage, during one of these times they decided to take stuff from Dan (my tour leader) and Matts bag!!!) Corruption is rife here! We were also help up on the roads by a big lorry crash, it took three hours for them to be able to move it and the bus to get past!

Finally we made it to out destination, Santa Elena a town on the Venezulan border with Brazil and Guyana. Santa Elena was like a breath of fresh air from Venezuela, to me it didnt feel like Venezula any more. The people were so friendly and the atmosphere changed authomatically. We spend 4 days and three nights there and i really enjoyed it. We got the opportunity to meet up with some other traveller. We also had a day tour of the Gran Sabana which again was amazing. We also had our first trip to a discoteche, good times. Completely by concidence that night they had some strippers in, firstly a male one then what i think was a female one!! Good times!

Yesterday we left Santa Elena and headed over the boarder to Brazil!!!! I enjoyed my time but hell at the same time im glad to get out!!

Anyhoo I have loads of photos but the internet runs at the speed on a snail so not sure when they will be available.

Miss you all

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