Highlights of Mérida

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Mérida

I arrived in Mérida in the morning of the 20th of January 2010. Beside sleeping I was talking to a guy, named Juan, from Mérida, who offered me to stay in his apartment. I thought "why not" and so we went in the car of his aunt to his apartment. The apartment was big and I got my own room. He started to clean a little bit and buy some food, because he invited a friend and his brother for that night for dinner. So he cooked Pasta with pig in tomato sauce. Delicious! His friend Reynaldo and his brother were really nice. We spent a nice evening.
The next two days went by making party at night, sleeping very long and I visited a few things on my own on the day, like the botanical garden, which I like really much. And on Saturday I went to a village "El Valle" in the mountains, where I took a little walk. On Sunday I went with Reynaldo to the hot springs "La Musuy". Very nice, because they are natural. Not like this swimming pool like. No, just a stone wall to dam the water from the little waterfalls. I enjoyed it a lot! Thanks Reynaldo.

Los Llanos

On Monday I went on the tour to Los Llanos and met a couple again who were also at the hot springs the day before. The trip to Los Llanos was amazing. On the way we shortly stopped at the stonechurch and la laguna de Mucubají.
I had some problems of getting money, because all the ATMs we stopped didnt have money 😞
All the way you drive up, up, up in the mountains, until la laguna, which is almost the highest point. From there its going down, down, down until you see no mountains anymore. Then you arrived in "Los Llanos"( the planes). Our camp has a little lagoon in the back (see picture) where you can watch the animals: crocodils, capivaras, herons and other birds.
The first day we did the boat trip and saw monkeys and dolfins and were searching for a matamata, a turtle which we also found finally (see picture). In the afternoon we searched and found an anaconda. And luckily we also saw a Anteater, which we hunted for 15 minutes, but nobody got a good picture.
In the evening the guys who lived there were playing music and I tried to dance Vallenato, which is really difficult and exhausting.
The next day we went to fish Piranhas. I just got one small one. And we went horseback riding. In the afternoon we searched again for animals, found another anaconda and an Armadillo. We also went to the highest point of the planes, which is 400m 😊 and saw an amazing sunset with thousands of animals making their way home.
The next day we just went home and I finally could get some money to pay for the tour :S
I really enjoyed that tour and can recommend it to everyone.

Gavidia

On the way back, I jump off in Mucuchies and took from there a jeep to Gavidia, a small village in the mountains. That was a pretty extreme temperature change. Its really cold there. Unfortunately also the people are more closed and dont speak easily to you. I stayed the night in the house of a family. I had some nice dinner and a really good breakfast with andinean arepas, which are made from wheat and I loved them!!! In the morning I went for a walk alone. I found a nice waterfall but the water was too cold for a swim. Its a beautiful nature there and with more time or maybe a horse you could see many beautiful lakes and waterfalls. But I was in a hurry because I wanted to take the bus in the evening to Maracaibo, which I did. On the way to Mucuchies I met a lovely colombian-venezualean couple from San Cristobal with a lovely daughter, who gave me the ride to Mucuchies. We talked lot and it was my first time that I tried Aguadiente with Anis. Very nice! Thanks a lot for this warm moment after the coldness in Gavidia. I had a short look into Mucuchies - nothing special in my opinion - and then went back to Mérida, where I said goodbye to Juan and Reynaldo.

That was Mérida! I left on Friday evening, the 28th of January 2010.


Thanks to Charles Plaigin and Frida Couillien for the pictures!

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