So we're in Colombia now...

Hey, about time for a blog entry, right? Yeah, it's been a while, but I think we were spoiling you guys. Though most travelers we've met are keeping a blog, most are also several months behind. Feel lucky!

Where did we leave you off... Oh yeah, we had just seen less-than-exciting Coro, Venezuela, and were heading to Merida. We took a night bus, which was pretty cool, because we didn't lose a day of sight-seeing!

Leg rests are awesome!

 

Merida is an awesome, young, mountain city, in the heart of Venezuela's Andes. We arrived at noon, found a hotel, and started exploring the city.

One of the first sites we saw (after the white car against the graffiti-ed white wall) was the cemetery, which was very cool, with awesome views of the mountains, and Pico Bolivar across the valley.

We spent the first couple days walking around the city a bit. There are a ton of outdoor adventures to do here, from repelling, to paragliding, hiking and overnight trips into the mountains. We needed some time to figure out what we wanted to do. Plus (!), we worked out an exchange with our Posada (Hotel) owner, in which we'd give him some photos of his hotel, and he would let us stay there for free. It all worked out pretty well, though the photo-shooting and editing took longer than expected, so we lost a day to that.

No.. unfortunately this was NOT our room! Though ours was real nice too! and CLEAN! and had hot water!

 

Besides outdoor activities, Merida is known for delicious eats. We ate Shawarma from the same street stand almost every night (2 enormous ones for $3!!). We also went to the famous (and Guiness Record holding) Heladeria Coromoto ice cream shop. They have hundreds of flavors of ice cream, including some really weird ones like beef, crab, salmon, and black beans. We tried calamari (terrible! as you might imagine), cheese, and avocado before settling on boring old mint-chocolate chip and oreo.

We also had delicious pabellon (rice, beans, shredded meat and fried plantain) and fresh squeezed juice. Abra was excited.

While there, we also found this guy selling snail-slime as a skin-care item. His little display showed before and after skin shots, as well as showing how the slime was extracted: by letting it drip down from a strainer containing snails. It was all pretty weird, and disgusting. 

Pushing the food cart to the right street in town.

We decided our one adventure for Merida would be a 4 day/3 night excursion to Los Llanos. Los Llanos are the low land plains of Venezuela, and encompass a huge portion of the country. They're hardly inhabitable, as they flood during the rainy-season, and dry out during the dry season (which it is now). Therefore, they're home to hundreds of types of animals, especially various kinds of birds, caymans (mini-crocodiles), capybara's (the largest rodents, look like big hamsters), anacondas, anteaters, piranhas, and pink fresh-water river dolphins. Our pseudo-safari would take us by boat, jeep and horseback to see as many of these animals as we could find.

We arrived at 8am for the 10-hour drive, and loaded up the jeep with our gear. We were lucky, just sharing the trip with Brandon, a 26-year old from Boulder, CO, and an elderly couple from Poland: Renata and Tomas.

On the way there, we stopped off at this stone chapel in San Rafael. It's built entirely from stone, without mortar. Which is impressive. Except they've started using mortar to hold it together as it falls apart. Still impressive though.

We also stopped off in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and checked out a lake, and a plant.

Lake

Plant

For lunch we stopped off at a roadside carne asada restaurant. The meat was pretty tough, but the flavors were delicious.

Our last stop in civilization was at a fruit stand to pick up a few last minute supplies.

We ate watermelon.

We crossed a bridge to get there. We walked across and saw the pink, fresh-water river dolphins we had been promised. They were too quick for photos, which wouldn't have been that impressive anyway. But the bridge was cool!

The drive was long, it started to get dark...

We arrived at our camp at 8pm. It was a ranch run by a local farmer. We were hours away from the nearest store, and in the middle of nowhere. Even the closest neighbor was a long, bumpy dirt road away.

The surroundings were chalked full of animals. My first shower was interrupted by a toad, and the property turned out to be full of them.

Our camp was right along the river, and when you held a flashlight over the swamp in just the right angle, all the cayman crocodile eyes appeared. There were hundreds of them peering out of the water! Our guide reiterated what we already knew: don't go swimming in the water! Apparently it's full of piranhas too.

Out hut

I like to sleep on my stomach. Apparently you're not supposed to do that in a hammock.

Our room for the next 3 nights! Brandon got the bed, though he was aware he might have mid-night visitors if the hammocks didn't work out.

Out first night went without a hitch. The hammocks weren't as uncomfortable as I thought, though I like to toss-and-turn, and they made it quite difficult. Also, I was too tall for it, and had to lay diagonally with my feet sticking off the edge.

The next morning we were up by 8, to an awesome breakfast prepared by the host family.

Out first activity for the day was a boat safari. We saw tons of caymans, a couple capybara's, and countless numbers of birds.

One of countless birds

Our bait in luring a hawk down from his perch. To no avail,,, He had jumped right into our boat earlier in our ride!

Capybaras!! Aka Big Hamsters.

At the half-way point in a boat safari we stopped at a riverside house. It was in the middle of nowhere- even more so then our camp. There were no roads connecting it to civilization. The family truly lived off the land. They had a small farm with a couple cows, lots of pigs, and a few turtles.

 

 Then it was back on the boat for the return journey.

A dolphin!!! Proof.

Howler Monkeys!!

Back at camp

at camp...

and at camp! (just about 10 feet from where we ate lunch!)

An iguana at our camp

After we got back from our river tour, we had a lunch of pabellon: rice, lentils, shredded beef, and coleslaw.

It was good.

Then we took an afternoon siesta before our afternoon jeep safari.

The clouds were beautiful, and they let us sit on top of the jeep for 360 degree views. Our driver was pretty new to this though, and speed along the bumpy roads at 40mph. He also didn't seem to have an eye for overhanging trees on the side of the road. Or he did, but thought it was hilarious. It wasn't.

Our guides did manage to find us an anteater, one of the rarer finds in Los Llanos. They spotted him far off in the distance, so they stopped the car, ran into the field, then chased him back across the road for our photographic needs. They're pretty crazy animals. 

Our guides then spent the rest of the afternoon wading through thigh-high swamps (full of caymans I might add) in search of the elusive anaconda. The strategy was to poke it with a stick in hopes of locating it. I'm not sure how that would not just piss it off. Anyway, our search was unsuccessful.

We did find a dead turtle!

We waited a while.

The sunset on out first day in Los Llanos was beautiful.

The next morning we were to start with horseback riding, but we first caught our rancher-host in action branding his cattle. It was a painful process to watch, as the cows were chased around, slammed by gates, got their legs caught in metal railings, and endured scalding metal pressed against their backs. It's moment's like these that make you want to go vegetarian.

Next we saddled up. I was lucky to get the biggest horse.

The horse riding was pretty uneventful (but fun), and before we knew it we were back at the camp for lunch. After eating we decided to take a stroll through the nearby wooded area before our next excursion.

View looking back at the camp

The household dog decided to come with us, and attacked a poor iguana in the river.

After yelling at the dog, he finally gave up. The iguana escaped, though was badly injured.

On our walk we saw these crazy birds. Supposedly they're prehistoric. Not sure what that means.

Some of the roots of the trees were pretty crazy. On this one you can see how high the water comes during the wet season.

After lunch we did another jeep safari. More roof sitting. And more waiting, while Ingrid (our guide) waded through water, poking for anacondas.

And just as we gave up, and started driving home, we spotted one! Just laying there, a few meters from the road. It was just a couple meters long, and maybe only a couple inches thick. A male for sure. But boy, was he strong!

We were grateful to see the anaconda, really the last animal on our checklist. But out luck wasn't quite finished. As we headed back for camp, our guide spotted another anaconda!

See the anaconda? He did...

This one was curled up in a ball, squeezing the life out of a cayman. This one was much bigger, maybe 5 or 6 meters, and much thicker. Definitely a female. We couldn't pick her up because she was feeding. She didn't move the entire time we watched her. Just slowly cinching around her victim. Breaking all of his bones for easy digestion.

For our last activity in Los Llanos we went fishing for dinner. On the menu: piranha. We walked through the thickets to get to the river shore.

Our guides showed us how it's done. All we had were a couple spools of fishing line with hooks on the end, and bits of beef to use as bait. You would spin the hooks around like a lasso to get it 20 feet out into the river, then you pull it back really quick when you feel a tug. The piranhas bite fast and often.

Abra's first capture... and the meat was gone.

Our guides were more successful than we were, though Abra did catch one.

Their teeth are so sharp!!

Bait. (Can't I just have that for dinner? Thanks)

Ingrid, our awesome guide.

Day 3 was over, and we headed home for dinner.

Piranha is actually really good. Not a very fishy tasting fish. And if you're lucky, (depending on how much bait he ate before he died) you might even get surf and turf!! (Not really).

Like all good little boys and girls, we finished our plates.

Then played with our food.

The next day, on the drive back, we saw some awesome trees, with, what I think is moss growing from them.

We also had to take a break from the winding, nauseating mountain roads, and stopped at an overlook. The views were stunning.

 

The next day we headed off for Colombia. We were on a 10am bus to the border. Our time in Venezuela has come to an end. It was a short hop-over on the way from the Caribbean, but well worth our while. A big thank you to Ingrid, our guide, and Brandon (good company) for an amazing trip to Los Llanos!

More on Colombia soon!


Posted by Hans, Photos by Abra