Merida, Venezuela

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After a looooooooooong trip, Merida has finally received its much wanted guest. After a few days in Stockholm meeting friends and my sister (thanks to all of you), then a great weekend in Oslo with the spectacular Thomas B (muchas gracias) and his friends, who took me to his sailboat and to the fantastic nightlife of Oslo, I have finally arrived in Merida, Venezuela.

Via London and Miami, the plane landed in Caracas. Since I did not have anything booked from Caracas, I started investigating the possibilities to get to Merida. Very interesting is that you can bargain about everything here, flight tickets, currency etc. It´s like being in Bill Clinton-land, everytyhing´s a greyzone.

My first impression is that everyone tries to rip you off. Starting at the airport where lots of "new friends" offer to help you get where you want, exchange money etc. Being tall and pale skinned, I´m the most obvious target on the scene. An expensive taxi ride took me to the busterminal where you constantly have to stay alert. It´s like being a sitting duck to pocket thieves and street salesmen. Yelling some lines in Spanish and looking annoyed helps to keep them away.

Four more hours at the busterminal and the bus finally left to Merida. Great comfort but ice cold aircon. Only 14 hours later, the bus entered Merida. A smaller university city in the Andes, with lots of outdoor activites to offer, like paragliding, trekking, moutaing biking etc. The only other tourist at the bustation was a german latin-american student. So we haled a cab to the center and we are now staying at at a small B&B-style hotel called Pasada Suiza.

The people here are friendly, smiling and quite relaxed. Seems like the perfect place to start.

That´s it so far, more to come!

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