Blogs from Ciudad Bolívar, Guayana, Venezuela, South America

Hello everybody, this is my last blog from my 4-week trip to Venezuela. I left Merida by nightbus towards Valencia. The journey was long and tiring. In the morning I arrived in Valencia. In Valencia I have several friends who I actually know through the internet (penfriends) since 1999 / 2000 and I kept in contact with them until today. Facebook helped a lot to maintain these friendships. Valencia is the third largest city of Venezuela with about two million people. It's also the capital city of Carabobo state. The city is quite big and it has a lot of industries in its outskirts. The current metro-system consists of one line with 7 stations and there are more stations in construction. A ride in the metro is cheap (Bs. 1). The city also has a small, ... read more

After having such great times in Ecuador and Colombia Venezuela is a real disappointment. The people are OK and some of the scenery around Merida is nice, but the exchange rate problem makes everything either expensive, difficult or both. That's probably making us view everything else negatively, things that we would laugh off in a country we liked become another reason to dislike this one, and we don't like it here, both of us are looking forward to getting out. We decided to cancel our biking and paragliding plans in Merida and head straight to Ciudad Bolivar to see whether we could sort out a trip to Angel Falls. We did some research on the internet and found the best route was Merida - Barinas - Ciudad Bolivar. Stage 1 went well, we got to the ... read more

Canima and Angel Falls After we had a great time with the girls in the Amazon we all decided to stay together and travel to Angel Falls. From Cuidad Bolivia we had to catch a local 5 seater plane to take the 1 hr flight to Canima. The views from the plane where fantastic of the winding rivers and all different types of trees as far as the eye cold see. Approx 10 minutes before we landed we caught sight and flew over a beautiful lagoon with a number of waterfalls which were spectacular from the air. This area was called the Aerea de Laguna y Saltos and you will see from the photos how amazing this place was. Apon arrival we immediately got on a river boat 3 hrs up river where we stopped fro ... read more

Dopo una settimana di sole e spiaggia, sono tornato sul continente (o in "Venezuela" como dicono quelli dell'isola) pronto a prendere la via del sud, quella che traversa il Paese da nord a sud, attraverso l'Amazzonia e più giù fino al Brasile. Ci sono voluti tutti una serie di autobus per raggiungere Ciudad Bolivar, il capoluogo della provincia amazzonica. Il peggior nemico durante questi spostamenti è stata l'aria condizionata che, mantenuta a livelli da cella frigorifera di macelleria, mi ha forzato a chiedere una coperta ai miei più avveduti (perché esperti) compagni di viaggio. Alla fine sono comunque riuscito a beccare un fastidioso raffreddore. Un saluto.... read more

We had a day of manic sorting, more money exchanging and trying to get some flights and trips arranged for the next few weeks. We then headed further north to Ciudad Bolivar, the jumping off point for Angel Falls. After another 11 hour bus journey we arrived at our hotel at midnight. Not the best time to arrive in a strange city and it did feel a bit dodgy and it did get a bit worrying when the old guy on the door where we were staying wouldn’t let us in because it was too late! Fortunately with Michelle playing the girl card he let us in which was good as a car had already drove past us twice and I think if we were there a third time things could have turned nasty. The next ... read more