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Published: September 28th 2004
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Los Nevados
Andean Village of Los Nevados, near Merida, 3000m, at dawn. You know how some of the best nights out are sometimes the ones that arent planned?? Well, I think countries are a bit like that as well... Originally, Venezuala was just going to be our gateway to South America, and a stepping stone to other, more celebrated destinations... but plans change, and when a combination of expensive flights, stories of Colombian coach robberies, and a primary school full of innocently named tropical storms caused us to abandon Central America to another day, we then found that Venezuala was a quite amazing place to spend a few weeks, and we´ve been delighted to stay here..
Venezuala is a hot exciting country on the northern flat bit of South America... it has all you´d expect of a South American country - towering mist covered Andean mountains, remote Amazonian rainforests, picture postcard beaches, and a questionable democracy with a president who likes to dress up in full military regalia with elaborate gold epalettes, and hundreds of medals he´s awarded to himself... but it also has more.. rich with oil, it has good infrastructure, visibly wealthy cities, and a Caribbean atmosphere to it´s spectacular beaches...
The Andes are still in full effect this far
Coro
Colonial Town of Coro north, and they dominate the Venezuala and Colombian border, and then snake their way eastwards where they drop to become a coastal mountain range... in these green hills, lies Caracas, only 20Km from the sea, but 1000m above it.
Carcacas
The Venezualan capital is a sprawling hectic city, that isnt well known for it´s safety, but we had a very pleasant 3 days there.. although Hurricane Ivan put the cable car above the city out of action, we were fully occupied looking round the mixture of Spanish Colonialism and Oil Crisis 70s excess. Street life in Caracas is something to behold... salsa tunes thunder out from huge speakers set up around CD stalls, juice bars and novelty mobile phone covers... it´s loud, vibrant, and has a certain in your face sexuality that is rather appealing after the rather repressed air of India... the women in particular are sexy by sheer force of will... heavy make up, lipstick and impossibly tight skirts and push up bras impose themselves on even the most innocent passing eyes... it´s no wonder that Venezuala has provided more Miss Worlds and Miss Universes than any other country...
The Andes & Merida
And
Incey Wincey Spider
f*cking massive spider, Paragua Peninsular so after a few days becoming accustomed to the never ending salsa heartbeat of this country, we set off on the luxurious Buscama (bed bus) to the mountain town of Merida. We had decided to take a week of Spanish lessons, since Caracas was more difficult to navigate than India.. I had assumed that at least some people would speak english, but I was wrong... so off to Merida we went. We chose this town because it´s a renouned cheap student city, so the language lessons were dirt cheap, and it´s also a major tourist and adventure sports capital of Venezuala, so there was little chance of being bored.
And so we had a week in this cracking town - the beer was 12p a bottle, our 21 year old Spanish teacher took us for 3 hours a day of lessons, and we filled the rest of the time with exploring the town, eating in some really excellent restaurants, mountain biking, paragliding (awesome) and a couple of days hiking up from a typical Andean village (complete with weather worn faces and bent backs of the Indian blooded locals) to the top of a cold & misty mountain pass, well over
Salt Plains, Paragua Peninsular
Pink Salt Lake, Paragua Peninsular 4000 metres... we then took the cable car (the worlds highest) back down to the sunshine of the town...
To the sunny Caribbean Sea
Another advantage of going to Merida for a week was to allow Hurrican Ivan to bypass the coast, so that when we arrived in the North Western coastal town of Coro, the weather was idylically Caribbean again. Coro is a pleasant town with a preserved colonial centre and absolutely nowhere to change travellers cheques.. (we eventually took 8 hours to track down a mysterious and elusive chap to a restaurant and managed to get some Bolivars). From here, we had a spectacular and full day trip to the Paragua peninsular, where we saw lots of wildlife, including huge tarantulas and grashoppers the size of lobsters, and some amazing sand dunes and pink coloured salt lakes. After a quick dip at the beach that still bore the scars of Ivan, we headed back to town and from there on to Tucacas.
Beach Hopping
Tucacas is uninspiring, but acts as the gateway to the Morrocoy National Park, which is a collection of thick scrub covered islands, mangrove lagoons and cays. It also has some
Morrocoy Beach
Coconut Ice Cream, Playa Sombrero, Morrocoy National Park quite amazing beaches, that are only accessable by boat. We had a great couple of lazy day touring round these beaches and lagoons, and then at the weekend headed for Puerto Colombia.
This is a tiny fishing village at the end of a spectacular 2 hour drive through the mountainous Henri Pittier National Park. As you plunge down 2000m from the cloud rainforest to the coast, you see the lucious green palm trees of the hill coast end, and then the brilliant blue begins... Despite being remote, Puerto Colombia is a very popular weekend getaway for Caracans, and is therefore very busy and overpriced as a result... kind of like a Venezualan Brighton. (If Brighton had towering mountains covered in tropical rainforests plunging down to golden sand beaches, palm trees, a coral reef, scores of small, remote beaches only reachable by local fishing boat, and bottles of beer or a fresh passion fruit juice for 25p, and not quite as many gay nightclubs... so come to think about it, not very much like Brighton at all, really).
We managed to escape the crowds on Sunday when we walked for an hour into the jungle, to search for a
Puerto Colombia
Venezualan Beach Scene, Puerto Colombia, Henri Pittier National Park small, solitary beach that we´d heard some locals talk about.. (sounds a good idea for a backpacker book & film, I reckon..) anyway, we found a tiny strip of sand that was completely isolated and secluded, and we had it to ourselves... except for the 4 naked young men that were frollicing in the surf, holding hands... yes, we´d found Venezualas only naked gay beach... my Brighton analogy was back on... these Caracan boys spoke english, and were very pleasant and curious as to how we knew about their secret beach. They soon left to head back to town, and thus leaving this tiny, lonely strip of sand to just Rachael and myself, but I cant help feeling that we somehow interrupted their fun!
And so after a good week of Caribbean sun, and the continually amazing sight of Venezualan beautys in G string bikinis, we´re heading south, into the remote wilderness of the Canaima national park... Anacondas permitting, I´ll update again soon..
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beautifull pics