Mérida - Adventure Capital of Venezuela

Today I got to spend the morning flying... Paragliding over Cañon de Chama. It was an absolutely gorgeous day to take flight and we drove about 1000m up to the top of a canyon where we got suited up and ran off the edge... it was very exhilerating to spend about 40 minutes in the air completely free!

For those who worry about me when I go a day or two without posting... be forewarned!!! I'm going to be offline for the next 6 days; doing a two day rafting trip down some class 3-4 rivers and then going directly to Los Llanos, a savannah area south of the Andes for a SAFARI!!! We'll be searching for 12-15' Anacondas, Boa Constrictors, Pihrana, Alligators and many more exciting species! If this turns out to be my final post you can assume that I got a little too close to the wild creatures.

Colombia to Venezuela... a long journey

I got a bit of a late start from Santa Marta, Colombia to Mérida, Venezuela. I, foolishly thought i could make the trip in 6-7 hours because it "didnt look that far" on the map... I started around 2 pm in Santa Marta and was ready to take a bus to the border when my taxi driver informed me (dropped me off) with a Collective Taxi service which cost about the same as a bus but was a private car that took as many passengers as they can fit into the vehicle. This system worked very well and got me all the way to the border town of Maicao. One of the funniest things during the trip was the method used to avoid the toll plaza. At the final toll plaza some very entrepreneurial Colombians that owned the land adjacent to the plaza constructed a dirt detour road around the plaza and charged about $.50 instead of the $3.50 for the toll so everybody went around the toll booth and hopped back on the highway on the other side... wow...

I spent the night in rough and rowdy Maicao... it was a typical border town full of contraband and corruption so i stayed in my hotel so that i could get an EARLY departure in the morning and avoid any sort of night-time trickery. Early in the am i jumped into another Taxi Collectivo for my ride to the dirty petro city of Maracaibo, Venezuela where I was to catch my bus to Mérida. As we approached the border our driver (in his 1985 Chrysler Conquistador... think chevy caprice large boxy car) stopped to sell his full tank of gas. A guy with a big syphen quickly syphoned the car to nearly empty as gasoline is one of the major commodities that Colombians like to get from Venezuela and as near as I could tell, all the cars go to Venezuela empty and come back full because thanks to Chavez it only costs about 50 cents to completely fill a tank and the Colombians are only too happy to help him use up some low cost petrol.

The actual border crossing was very quick and painless. We then started bouncy down a bumpy road towards Maracaibo. Once in Venezuelaa we stopped and filled the tank and headed on. Bout 10 km from Maracaibo the car overheated and there we sat on the side of the road watching the radiator steam... normally i'd have freaked out but down here you just you just relax and watch a solution present itself; in this case within about a minute we were hopping on a bus to town and our taxi handed us the fare... problem solved!

In Maracaibo I hopped onto the bus for Mérida put my favorite playlist on, put the seat back and fell into a deep sleap until we arrived.

Mérida has turned out to be a very nice mountain city that is set in the very north part of the range but is completely surrounded by peaks. For the next few days I plan to paraglide and go on a rafting expedition.

Alo Presidente!

i'm so glad that i talked to a few fellow travellers prior to embarking on my trip to merida, venezuela. one would think that you'd be able to get local currency out of their ATM machines at the market rate like 99% of places that you travel... well you'd be thinking incorrectly if you thought that was the case in venezuela. thanks to el presidente chavez the official exchange rate gives you 4 bolivars per USD while the cash starved black market pays around 8. i spent the afternoon getting some extra USD so as to not support the crazy regime. i'll provide a full report on how socialism has helped the population and will try to steer clear of starting any revolutions or getting locked up for espionage.

Lost City Rediscovered

For the past 5 days i've been scouring the jungles of Colombia's caribbean coast with a group of 10 adventurers looking to find the infamous Ciudad Perdia -- the ancient capital city of the Tayrona Indian Nation. Yes, we did finally find the city and found it to be quite impressive. I will admit, however, that our find may not have been completely possible without the help of 3 Colombian guides that setup our accomadations and cooked for us... or without the help of the very useful mules that carried our supplies to the campsite.

The morning of our second day we had the rare privilege to tour a "non-working" cocaine factory where we gathered under a small tent in the jungle to learn from a guy that "no longer did this for a living" how one could take coca leaves and turn them into the lucrative white substance we all know as cocaine. I unfortunately got very bored during the lecture and decided to go sit on a "bench" towards the edge of the tent. Unfortunately it was actually his chemistry lab and I knocked all of his chemicals and stash all over the ground!! Anyhow, he didnt kill me so i'm not sure if he was worried i'd report him to the police for breaking laws or if he just figured that since it was all a farce it wasnt worth messing with.

My other problem on this trip was that I thought that my Chaco sandles would be much more usefull than hiking boots as we were going to be crossing multiple rivers and I would be able to carry on smuggly since i wouldnt have to take off my shoes while everybody else did. This tactic worked great until I realized that the straps on my sandels acted as sandpaper and completely rubbed swathes of skin raw. Today I can barely walk due to all of the open sores. Not to worry though!! I've been to the pharmacy and have gotten plenty of meds to remidy the situation.

Ciudad Perdida itself was good although I think I may officially be done with visiting ancient ruins. Although their architecture and traditions are interesting they're just so hard to get to. I need something easier.

Also... one quick note! I tried spell checking this and it appears to be stuck on Spanish so I apologize for all the errors that I'm sure are throughout!

I´m alive!!! sweating to DEATH in Cartagena!

I´ll get some great pics loaded once I get the chance to get to an internet cafe but at my hostel there´s no uploading... grrrr.... So...anyhow... arrived in Colombia and thought that I was going to melt on the tarmac.... hot and humid and that´s amazing coming from Columbia SC! The old city is amazing and reminds me of all the old videos and pictures that I´ve seen of Havanna Cuba. So far I´ve been offered "everything you need man" which I did´t bother getting clarification on.

On the road...

I had an uneventful trip to Atlanta and am fortunate enough to have a very kind uncle who is not only putting me up but also driving me to the airport at 5am and storing my vehicle while I'm off trotting the globe! I also noticed that in my haste to get this blog started up that I mentioned that I had to pay a "Speeding Ticket." For all my former colleagues at Enterprise... I misspoke... It was a PARKING TICKET!!! My speeding days are history; I am currently driving a 1995 Volvo 850 --- a large family sedan that is probably very good for me because it's not exactly a hot-rod!

Getting Packed

Welcome to my adventure; I'll do my best to keep you all posted on a regular basis with pics and anecdotes from the trail.

I should already be on the road to Atlanta but I still have a laundry list of things to do!! Gotta pay my speeding ticket; do some banking and PACK! So far all I have together is my backpack and guidebook... At least I'll have the entire plane ride to Colombia to focus on a rough itinerary as I've been too busy lately to get one together.