Los Médanos de Coro

When you step off the $10.00, 13-hour, bus ride to the city of Coro, nothing strikes you as different or spectacular. It is dirty, rundown, and just normal for Venezuela. Then you head to a taxi with all your belongings, the most efficient and cheapest way to travel when there is no bus. You then ask to go to Los Médanos or the sand dunes. You expect a long ride, because you are literally in a city. The taxi takes you for a less than 10 min drive, and the taxi becomes silent. The city, the noise, the garbage, just stops. It is almost like the tree line of a forest, when it just completely ends. The city stops and the wondrous dunes just begin. For miles from there all you see is sand. We got out and just walked the sand dunes for a little less than an hour. We were hot and sweaty and full of sand by the end. Pictures do not do justice for what you have seen. Quite astonishing.

Camila Concert

Starting off I had to buy a Camila concert ticket. There were signs everywhere saying you had to buy tickets at a bakery shop. When I went to the street where it said it was I had to stop into three shops  before actually finding the correct one! Much different than just buying one from TicketMaster! When the day came we were told we had to get in line at least 4 hours early because there are no assigned seats. I got there with my friends and got really lucky that I saw some of my Venezuelan friends who had been in line for eight hours. So we got to go to the front of the line! After four more hours of waiting, the riot police opened the gates to let about 100 people through at a time. I have never been more scared for my life than this moment, it was a stampede to get in through the gates, people were fighting and the riot police were hitting people with their batons. You, yourself, were not walking, you were being pushed. Some girl passed out in front of us and no one stopped and the riot police had to hit people HARD with their baton to even get this girl up and stop people from stepping on her. Then when we finally got in they had 2 people taking tickets...one line for girls and one for boys. It was AWFUL you think they would have had more people since so many people were pushing and shoving. Then once you finally got in, you had to run up three stories on a ramp and then find and save your seat. By the time I was done I was covered in sweat. BUT we did end up getting front row! It was amazing. During the concert though, it started to pour and everyone got drenched from head to toe! It was worth it! The whole concert lasted a little over three hours, with two people who opened for Camila. But I can skip ever risking my life for a concert again. I really appreciate assigned seating.

CAMILA!

Paola, Me, Michelle, and Tyrell



Palo de Agua (raining cats and dogs)



WOW!!

Alright, so family and friends, I realize I have been slacking here on my blog. I have so much to share with you over these past few weeks...but tomorrow is my LAST DAY OF SCHOOL! So I have currently been focusing on school, which surprisingly is what I actually came down to Venezuela for. Over these past three weeks I have had a total of 15 papers, 3 speeches, and 6 tests. I have been on OVERLOAD for quite some time now. I am really excited to catch you up on what I have been doing. I will let you know this weekend because I will finally have time, to do whatever I want to do! Miss you all and love you all!
-Happy Thanksgiving- (a bit early)





Partido de Futbol

Celebrating the Los Estudiantes!

Last weekend and again this weekend some of us went to a soccer game at the Metropolitano stadium. It was ridiculously packed with people and tickets cost under $10! Everyone drinks outside and on the streets and things get really crazy. They have riot police everywhere during events such as these. We were cheering for the Merida team of course, their team name was Los Estudiantes! The crowds are really crazy and we finally

The crowd and the game



Giant Jersey



got our seats, because it is first come, first serve basis. We watched the Los Estudiantes team come out and the crowd went crazy, there was confetti, and people would throw receipt rolls because they spiral unravel. Then when it was time for the other team to come out they had to be escorted out under police riot shields! As soon as the team came out people would throw anything they had. It could be anything from bottles, to shoes, to rocks. It would never happen in the US that way. The game started and it was really cool to see the fans and the teams play. It was a great time at the soccer game!! After the game you had to walk to try to find a taxi or walk a little more than a mile to the trolleybus. We decided to walk and clearly so did everyone else.

 

Street lined with people!

Canaima aka. Angel Falls

If you look on the map, I traveled from Merida to Salto Angel.

Whoa. I realize it has been quite some time since I have had the chance to update all my friends and family. BUT you as much as I have to remember I am not here just for fun and sun. I actually do attend classes 4 days a week. Plus I really am not a fan of teachers assigning about 4 projects, papers, presentations and tests all in one week. We only have 12 teachers at VENUSA, you think they could possibly plan accordingly. So needless to say I have been overwhelmed with the craziness of school.

Alright well on to my lastest adventure last weekend! It all started at 5am on a Friday morning. Eight of us gringos (white people) met at school and hopped into a jeep with our tour guide. We knew we had a long day ahead of us so, none of us really slept the night before so we could sleep on our ride across the country! We almost got to our bus stations, five hours away, when traffic completely stopped on a mountain side. Not much you can do stranded there. We soon found out that a bridge had collapsed about a month ago, and it made it dangerous for the children to cross the river to go to school, on rainy days the children could not even go to school. So the village was having a demonstration against Chavez. As naive as we sometimes can be, we all thought okay soon it will be open and we can go. After two hours of waiting, doing yoga in the street, peeing in bushes, and trying to sleep, we got out a deck of cards (That I brought --Thank you family for teaching me well) and played card games...for another hour or hour and a half. Some Venezuelan children even came to play with us! Finally we were moving again so we all hopped into the jeep to head off to the bus station. We had to go to a further away bus station because we missed our bus. When we finally go to the bus we had to run to get on it! We took a two hour bus ride to a different bus station where we caught out next overnight 13 hour bus! Thank goodness we were all so tired, because I slept the entire 13 hours. We arrived to the bus station and walked to the near by very small airport. We had to take two 6-person planes. We got into our planes and the first one went off and we soon followed. Not 10 minutes in the air and our plane started to smoke, the pilot continued to tell us to stay calm we need to land. (He was making us more nervous by continuously telling us to stay calm.)

Some waterfalls we climbed

 We had another 2 hour wait until we got a new plane to take us to the island of Canaima. The flight was magnificent. The view of so much untouched beautiful land is incredible. As we flew in we had to hike about a mile to the boat that would take us to our camp to set up for the night. We still had about 2 or 3 hours of daylight so we took advantage and hiked three different waterfalls, we even went behind two of them! It was like none of us were talking because you did not want to speak.

One of the beautiful waterfalls we visited

You were completely speechless to the beauty of nature. We got back to our camp for the night ate a delicous dinner of spaghetti, with a potato-chicken sauce on it, veggies, and bread. We were pretty beat for the day and slept soundly in our hammocks with mosquito netting.

In the morning we had to take a "two-hour" boat ride to Angel Falls, I have learned very quickly that Venezuelans are always late and always lie about how long it takes to get somewhere. This "two-hour" boat ride turned into four hours, we stopped on a little deserted island for our bag lunches of ham and cheese sandwiches, a pastry, and water. We also got to swim to cool off for a bit since the sun was constantly beating down on us out in the river. In the river there were so many minnows that would bite at your feet, it was crazy! When we finally arrived to Angel falls we were told it would be about a 30 min walk to so. We were running for the first 25 minutes because our tour guide told us we have to beat the other tour that was also there, so we ran which was a bad idea, because a 30 min walk turned into an hour and a half.

Eating lunch on a island

We were completely exhausted. Also, it was not just a trail we were walking on, we were in the JUNGLE, with tree roots everywhere and rocks and you were continuously climbing up. We were tired. When we got to the top we saw it 1 km of water free falling off a cliff. It was so breathtaking. The thought that I just took a 30 hour adventure to get here was nothing. I would do it again in a heartbeat. Then our tour guide told us to follow him, we followed to the bottom of Angel Falls, where he then told us to jump in.

I swam at the bottom of one of the seven natural world wonders. The feelings we all had were overwhelming. When we got out our tour guide said we need to go quickly down, since it gets dark very quickly. When we had about 1/4 mile left to hike, it was so black I could not see my hand in front of my face. At this point we became a bit terrified because you would just lift up your foot and hope to not trip, fall, slip, or twist your ankle. We soon caught up with the rest of the group who did have flashlights with them, luckily they waited by the river we had to cross because you could only cross by rocks. When we were out of the jungle, we took a boat to our new camp at the bottom of Angel Falls. This camp had no electricity or running water. It was lit by candles, and you either got water from the river to flush the toilet or went right by the river. 

In front of Angel Falls

The next morning we had to adventure our 30 hours back home. From the boat, to walking, to another boat, to a plane (which I was CO-pilot on!), to an overnight bus, to another bus, to a jeep. We made it home, where all is wanted to do was shower in a warm shower! We got home at 6pm on Tuesday (because we had off school Monday and Tuesday). I had to get my homework done and be in class by 8am the next morning. Talk about a hectic weekend!

View from camp

Just another bump in the road.

Alright, so besides a parasite here and scabies in Guatemala, I thought I have had enough. Goes to show that this trip is really toughening me up. I had gotten chiggers, along with about 7 other people, this past adventure weekend. I did not get them as bad as others, so for that I am lucky. They itch like CRAZY! So we had to use a shampoo to make sure they are all out.

Chigger (about the size of a tick)

I can deal with bugs, handle snakes, cook on a fire, camp ANYWHERE and am always ready for the next adventure....My future husband owes you big time, Venezuela.

Los Llanos

I can not believe it is October already! My first October adventure starts in los llanos. Aside from my amoeba I was really prepared for a rough weekend. It started on Friday at 5am when we had to wake up and be in the jeep by 6am. We drove, ate a quick breakfast, and continued to drive. We also had to stop for lunch, because we were hungry and our butts hurt with 9 people shoved into a jeep! We had to take our original passports because we were crossing borders from the state of Merida to the state of Barinas. One boy forgot his and it cost him 270 Bs. of bribes to get across the border. When we finally arrived around 5pm to our camp in los llanos, we ate a quick dinner, unpacked in our cabins, which consisted of only hammocks, and got ready for our first night safari! As we started to get into the jeeps, our tour guides asked how are we going to see...so we ended up riding on TOP of the jeeps and just holding on! We drove for a while until our tour guide, Tony, jumped off and went into hip high water to wrestle a cayman. He brought it up to us to show all of us so we could touch it and learn. It was CRAZY! Then we continued on and saw more animals such as the giant anteater(was about 5 feet from tail to nose!), snakes, an ocelot, many different birds, an opossum, and world's largest rodent a chiguires. When we arrived back at camp we had a very relaxing night, we were all tired from the long ride in. During the night we were awoken by a bat flying around trying to get out of our cabin. Once it was out we all slept well! In the morning I took a quick shower in our outdoor shower filled with bugs and frogs, and got ready for the day.

Swimming with the river dolphins.

Our first adventure of the day was a boat ride. We had to keep very still because if you would tip one way or the other, water would be filling our boat. On the boat we looked at a rare species of bird that only eats leaves, big turtles, cayman, piranhas, and more. We got to a spot where the river widens and our tour guide pointed out to us PINK RIVER DOLPHINS! They were incredible, they are the only fresh water dolphins in the world. Then our tour guide jumped in and told us to do the same. All of us thought he was bullshitting us because we know what lives in the water, but besides the piranhas, cayman, turtles, etc. I jumped in. We swam with the river dolphins! Once back in the boat we headed back to start out next activity of the day, anaconda hunting. We took a jeep to where the anacondas roam and our tour guide told us we can either stay on the road or follow him, I thought it would be better to follow him, so we got into a muddy area. This muddy area soon turned into a swampy area, with water almost up to our knees!

Anaconda hunting.

We were showed the area in which the anaconda laid and her trail, but unfortunately we lost her trail and did not find one. In the mean time my friend and I made a joke to the others to "watch out ahead because it is leech infested" Well my joke was not that funny when I got out of the swamp with a big leech on my ankle. One of our tour guides had to pull it off, along with my skin he got. So besides my shoes and socks having mud and muck, there was also blood on them too. After anaconda hunting ,we decided to fish in the river for piranhas. So we baited our very simplistic hook with chicken and tossed it in. I am proud to say I caught a piranha and was the only girl to knock it over the head to kill it before you had to get it off the hook! Then we headed back to camp and to get dry clothes on, have a lunch of piranha (which were incredibly amazing to eat) and prepare for mule riding! I went in the first group, we headed through rivers that the mules do not like because the mules know that there are cayman and they get really jumpy. We had to cross a river where the water was up to our thighs, and we were ON the mule.



Heading through the river!



It was crazy, but of course fun! After mule riding, we had to walk a mile or so back to our jeep. On the way we found a boa constrictor in the mud, so we kept it with us and in the jeep to show the rest of the group back at camp! After a long day we proceeded to have supper and hit the hammock for a great nights sleep. We had to wake up around 6am for a delicious breakfast of pancakes and get in the jeep for a five hour ride to whitewater rafting! We rafted for about an hour and a half. I was in a raft with our guide and 3 other girls. We stopped in the middle to get out because our guide said he wanted to show us something. We climbed a ledge up a cliff where you could only fit one foot at a time on the cliff. We climbed up about 20 feet and he told us to jump into the water. My fear of heights kicked in, but I was the first to jump! It was so fantastic that I climbed up and did it one more time! When we finished whitewater rafting it was time to go home and rest for school the following morning. We ended up getting home around 11pm Sunday night. Also, this trip only cost $153 US dollars. It was incredible.

My first piranha!!