Traveling through Venezuela

Hola chamos y chamas from Puerto la Cruz, Venezuela, a port city on the Carribean coast. Driving up here through curvy roads under overcast skies, we say the grayed water to the left, and lush green mountains graced with strips of bright white fog to the right. Palm trees and all sorts of tropical plants and flowers glistened with water despite the lack of sunlight. The shades of green are amazing.

The last few weeks I have had the pleasure of getting to know Venezuela. With my friends, I have taken long rides, yes, in an SUV, cramming as many as 8 people with luggage and extra cargo, resulting in all sorts of unpredictable seating arrangements. We fill the 100 liter tank for less than 3 bucks and we're off, slightly polluting the beautiful landscapes we pass through. Venezuela is filled with green mountains, interspersed with even brighter green fields and plains. I'm slowly putting up pics in my online photo album.

During these days I have had many new experiences. I have been to the smallest colonial town I have ever seen, Jají (see first picture above). After an afternoon there, we headed back to the briskly breezy college city, Mérida, where we took the longest and highest Teleferico (lift) ride in the world, eventually ending up on the peak of the snow-covered mountain (see 2nd pic). My friends had their first ever snowball fight, and I tought them to yell out "Snowball Fight!" before chucking their first one. We also spent one day at the zoo, and watched them feed the baby leopards. A small chimp pozed for me. I wore a snake Britney Spears style. The huge lama didn´t spit at us. The waterfalls were beautiful.

A few days later we changed places and climates completely, crossing from Puerto la Cruz by ferry to get to Isla Margarita. There we saw crystal clear Carribean water flowing against usually soft, white sand. We went to the beach almost every day, and I had my first kiss in the Carribean, or any sea for that matter. I also chopped a coconut to obtain the water for the first time. It would have been nicer to have a machete instead of the small, dull kitchen blade with which I was supplied. I drove illegally for the first time, without a license in the small town in order to pick up some bread and beer for the family--yes that's right. But this didn't quite compare to the two hours I spent driving illegally on the highway a few days later (see 3rd pic), passing slowly over the speedbumps at the police and national guard checkpoints. The flexibility with the law is slightly different here in Latin America.

For now I´m heading back to the hotel in Puerto la Cruz. Even though we just left a week ago, we came back because my friend Danilo has more clients here to sell books to. We might head back to the beach one day before heading back to Caracas for a couple days, and then it's off on another road trip. A little more of Venezuela and then off to Bogotá in about 3 weeks.