Blogs from Zulian, Venezuela, South America

Maracaibo The city of differences: old and new, beach and city, ocean and lake, industry and indians, poor and rich. Already finding a taxi at the bus station was not easy. Even harder to find a hotel. The one recommended in my guide did not exist anymore, so the taxi driver recommend me one, that looked dubious from outside but turned to be quite okay from the inside. Only the airconditioner was really noisy, so I turned it off at night :( I arrived Saturday morning, 29th of January 2010, and after getting some sleep I met Eva and Miguel for a ride with the Tranvia. It was fun, although very difficult to understand the guide. Miguel laughed a lot :) In the evening we went for Patacones - delicious. And we met Miguels cousin ... read more

(Francais en bas de page) This day has actuelly been so long, I´m going to have to divide it into 3 entries, don´t feel obliged to read it all but if you do, well you´ll understand exactly what I mean... This is the 1st bit: After 11 hours (an hour early!!!) on a rather comfortable bus, I finally arrived to Maracaibo. The last major cityof North West Venezuela before Colombia. I´m pretty pleased with myself, I quickly managed to find a bus to take me to the border on a very cheap fare. Only one problem, the bus is basically empty and I wonder how long it´s gonna take before it fills up with people and we can actually leave Maracaibo... I should probably have used the competition to try to find a bus which leaves ... read more

ohohohooh, ich hab gerade bemerkt, dass ich den verdammten nationalfeiertag voll verpasst hab. ich war glaub die ganze nacht auf und bin so am 30. juli von santa marta los, ueber die grenze nach venezuela. da musste ich aber vorher noch stressprogram durchziehen und mich gegen grippe impfen lassen. sehr logisch. an der grenze hab ich dann die impfung doch nicht gebraucht. geld hab ich dort viel gewechselt und relativ schlecht. aaaah. dann nach maracaibo, eine nacht am terminal verbracht, mit dem fruehen bus nach corro und von corro gleich weiter nach adicora. da bin ich jetzt und wollte eigentlich windsurfen. hat sich geaendert. ist jetzt kiten geworden. jetzt hab ich schon 7 stunden geuebt und kannst schon n bisschen ;) hier in venezuela hats sehr nette menschen und extrem unfreundlich. nicht wie in columbien wo ... read more

Wow...I made it through a very tough few days of travel on several very LONG bus trips. I now sit in an internet cafe in the barrio of Gestemani in Cartagena, Colombia...but didn´t get here easily. At this point I am too tired to go into detail...I will leave that till tomorrow. Lets just say that negative parts of the story include freezing and then sweltering buses, thunder storms, highway paralyzing car accidents, purse snatchers, unrelenting itty bitty gnats that bite like hell, corrupt as f--- policia at 10 different checkpoints at every damn kilometer approaching the border, credit cards that don´t work, strung out drug addict teenagers begging for a bolivar at the bus terminal, tough as hell kid demanding a bolivar and turning his nose up at food at the swanky mall, Colombian immigration ... read more

Zulia er en delstat i det nordvestlige Venezuela. Hovedstaden er Maracaibo. Zulia dekker et areal på 63 100 km², og har en folkemengde på 2 983 679 innbyggere (2001). Den viktigste næringsveien i delstaten er petroleumsindustrien, det utvinnes store mengder olje fra felter under Maracaibosjøen. Her kommer jeg fra. Zulia delstaten i Venezuela er det beste over alle beste i Venezuela. Folk, mat, musikken, været, og så kunne jeg forsette. Definitiv en sted man bør besøke mens i Venezuela. Bru Maracaibo over Maracaibo innsjøen. Monumenten til jomfru Maria de la Chiquinquira Parker Kjøpesentere (Noen av de største i Venezuela) ... read more