Mérida, Venezula - Part 2

I am starting the second half of my stay in Mérida with a four day excursion to Los Llanos, a huge savannah, seven times as big as Switzerland. No hill rises higher than a few meters above the plain, of which more than half under water during the rainy season. It is a good bunch of people who meet for the tour at the offices of extreme adventours (http://www.hosteltrail.com/extremexpeditions/): Gema and Anna, two Spanish rasta girls on a one year Latin America trip, Marta and Jordi from Spain on their honeymoon, Thomas from Germany, Allert from the Netherlands, Horatio our ever hungry Romanian and me. Tony, the guide, and Jarvey, the driver, bring us safely via the Los Paramos Nationalpark to Los Llanos. Close to the camp Tony points out some Caimans next to the road. The camp is very simple but clean and we all sleep in hammocks in a joint room. The camp is next to a river where we went swimming and observed fresh water dolphins cruising around.

I am sleeping surprisingly well in the hammock and after an extensive breakfast (I love Perico – scrambled eggs with tomatoes and onions) we navigate the river with a motor launch, seeing many freshwater dolphins, turtles, capybaras, iguanas and dozens of different birds such as the osprey, ibis, egret or vulture. Like every day we make an extended siesta and go on a jeep safari in the late afternoon. We have an excellent view from the top of the jeep and see an anaconda (with up to 19m the longest serpent of the world) and an anteater, a very rare sighting. The camp is a family affair with the sons helping Tony to catch the animals and show them to us. The next day we ride horses and I even dare to gallop for a while. But I never feel in harmony as with Blue Bie. It feels good to realise how close I got to Blue Bie over the last year! Once again we see an anteater and catch piranhas. In the evening Tony and some locals sing local songs and we enjoy their impromptu concert. On the way back home to Mérida we go white water rafting on a grade 3.5 river. I enjoy the refreshment of the cool mountain river after the hot and humid days in Los Llanos.

Much is going on and many young tourists are coming and going. I enjoy many good conversations and dinners. But there is also much superficial talk and it is not always easy to get away and get some time for myself. But I enjoy the process of feeling how I react to different situations and people.

For the next three weeks I am continuing to study Spanish. I am happy with my progress, but am nevertheless far away from speaking fluently. I think more and more about staying longer in the Spanish speaking area to further practice Spanish, sailing up to Cuba and sailing via Central America to Panama. There I could leave Blue Bie for the next hurricane season and go backpacking to Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru & Chile. It seems I am not running out of ideas and my circumnavigation might not end so soon. Not that it worries me, but it is quite a difference to last year when I felt a big urge to cross the Atlantic.

Having spent the last 5 weeks in a guest family, I am moving to a posada for the next two weeks. I go Canyoning and don’t know what I enjoyed most: the rainforest, the big slides down rocks, the jumps into narrow pools or the abseiling in 35m high waterfalls. It is lively at the posada and quite a change to the guest family. It is so easy to get carried away in meaningless small talk and I have to actively pull away to find some time for myself. On the other hand, there are some great people here and I enjoy many good discussions and dinners with fellow travellers and students. Only the weather doesn’t seem to change: Every second evening it is pouring, making the way home from school or dinner a gamble!

One Sunday, I do the mandatory excursion to the top of Pico Espejo with the cable car. It is with 12.5km the longest and with 4’765m above sea the highest cable car in the world. There are many people and I have to queue at 6.15h to get the second cable car at 8.30h. I am one of only few foreigners and can practice my Spanish. The ride and the view are not really spectacular and also the little snow on top fascinates the locales more than me. Of course I play my Alphorn on top of Pico Espejo. It functions better than expected and I have an enthusiastic audience.

I am sightseeing the last week in Venezuela; first to the Angel Falls and then to the Orinoco Delta. On the way to the Angel Falls I was stupid enough forget my Alphorn in a taxi! Since the plane is only a six-seater Cessna, I ask the operator to wait a few minutes for me. I hunt with another taxi after the first taxi, but can’t find it. The head of the taxi-rank knows the taxi-driver and promises me that I will have my Alphorn back on return from Angel Falls, a small finder’s fee certainly helped facilitate the process. For once the plane runs on time and leaves without me and I have to postpone the flight to the next day. Everything goes smoothly and I am heading with a larger group in a wooden boat to the Angel Falls. The boat is more than 10m long and 1.5m wide, built from one tree and hollowed by fire. The boat ride is really exiting since the river has very little water and strong rapids. I would have never thought that we can get up these rapids. The boat ride was at least as exiting as the Angel Falls. The Angel Falls are with 1’020m the highest waterfall in the world. They are really impressive. It is difficult to grasp the height, but the water travels some 30-40 seconds to reach the bottom! Overnight we all stay under a metal roof in hammocks in a pouring rain. We return to Canaima the next morning, where I am all by myself in the camp and enjoy some further waterfalls and sleep outside in a double bed under a mosquito net.

Returning to Ciudad Bolivar, I was told that the taxi driver has found the Alphorn, but would like to pass it to me personally. He did so half an hour later, but not after demanding some more finder’s fee. But it is still very moderate and I am very happy that he isn’t aware how much the Alphorn means to me! The next excursion to the Orinoco Delta was very picturesque with uncountable rivers, water ways, islets, island, bushes and rainforest. It was very interesting to meet some Warao Indians. I expected proud people with a decent lifestyle. But they can barely survive from fishing in the river and live in very simple conditions and everything is dirty. I am not surprised to learn that a “Venezuelan [i.e. non-Indian] ex-husband got his daughter out of here.” On the way back to Grenada I stop overnight in Margerita. A very wise decision, since my flight was 5 hours delayed. I am spending a very pleasant evening in Margerita, enjoy the smell the sea after four months on land and cook with the owner of the Posada mussels, both of us not knowing how to do it!

The last flight to Grenada was without problems and I was back on Blue Bie soon thereafter. I am very relieved to see her in the yard in perfect shape. I will take the next few days to prepare her to launch, will spend a few more days in Grenada and then sail to Tobago to go kitesurfing. I very much enjoyed these four months on land and the change of scenery. As beautiful as sailing is, too much of it gets boring. So you can look forward to hear some more stories from a landlocked life later on.