With this in mind... Venezuela was now suddenly calling out to me. While making my way through Colombia... I thought why not go to Venezuela to see just how uncomfortable and on edge I can feel! Brilliant idea and so off we went!
First stop was to be Caracas, which if you don't already know this, and why would you know this- because most of you would probably not even consider going to a country that is flooded in political turmoil, crime and known for its more than frequent kidnappings... Caracas has one of the highest murder rates per capita in the world!
Great... sign me up... let's go there! Oh... it is not safe to walk around after the sun goes down? Why, is that when the Venezuelan zombies come out and prey upon poor unsuspecting tourist such as myself? Nope... that is just when all of the good law abiding citizens lock themselves behind their fortress like fences that are so beautifully lined with big jagged pieces of glass. They do this in order to avoid getting mugged or murdered by the less than friendly crack heads that roam the streets at night. I mean... I don't really see what the big deal is here? Sounds like fun to me. By now I am guessing that those of you reading this might have a slightly different definition for the word fun!
But before you can even think about experiencing all of the exhilarating sights Venezuela has to offer, you must first manage to get your hands on some of their bolivars... the local currency and this my friends is definitely not an easy task. You see the man in charge of Venezuela is missing a few screws and so he has made it rather challenging for foreigners to access cold hard Venezuelan cash. However, I have always enjoyed a good old fashion challenge, so this made going to Venezuela even that much more appealing. Because crime, drugs, murder and kidnapping were not crazy enough reasons on their own... make it close to impossible to get the necessary currency to be able to survive and now you got yourself a good time!
You do have a couple of options for accessing cash and here they are...
1. You can buy bolivars on the black market, but the chances of ending up with funny money is pretty damn high. You would probably have better luck trying to pay for things with Monopoly money than than you would with the fake stuff you would end up with from the black market. Bad option.
2. You can swipe your ATM card at any of the 10 million ATM's located throughout the country, but you will almost certainly be asked for a top secret 2 digit pin number. The reason this pin number is 100% top secret is because it does not exist. That's right... you don't know it because you don't have one. The ATM machines have been programmed to read international cards and then ask for a bogus pin number in order to prevent us evil foreigners from accessing any cash. Plus you now run the risk of having your identification stolen because many of the ATM's read your info and then pass it along to a gang of bad guys that somehow hack into your bank account and steal all your money. Sweat... terrible option.
3. You can look up the closest Citibank and get ripped off by a taxi guy to take you there. Here and only here you can access an ATM that is neither encrypted with identity stealing software or with the requirement for a non-existent super top secret pin number! Make sure to take out enough money to last you for the entire duration of your trip because there are only 6 Citibank locations in the entire country. Don't take out too many bolivars though because you will have a hard time getting rid of your leftover money. We don't want their money anymore than they want ours. Best option and no Citibank did not pay me to write this and no I no longer work for them! Good option.
By my calculations that makes it... Georgeanna- uno... Chavez- nada...zero...ZIP!! Ha-ha in your face Mr. Crazy Dictator Man! Anyway... on with the tale.
Now that I had finally cracked the 'How the heck do I obtain money?' code... it was time to move on to the real adventure... Angel Falls. For those of you who don't know about Angel Falls... just know this... it is the world's highest waterfall located in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Next task... getting to the world's highest waterfall located in the middle of absolutely nowhere. But how?
First you must catch a bus to Ciudad Bolivar, which is one of the main places a tourist, such as myself, would go to in order to arrange an insanely expensive tour that only lasts 2 nights and 3 days. Easy... yeah... right. Anyway... so you jump in a cab, play a game of charades with the taxi driver to try and get to the bus station, end up at the wrong bus station, throw yourself in front of the taxi to avoid having to pay yet another driver to take you to yet another incorrect bus station, end up getting out of the taxi at the second wrong bus station thinking the hell with it and starting to wonder just how many bus stations does Caracas have anyway?
Here an executive decision is made to just figure it out from the incorrect bus station because your taxi guy will probably take you somewhere really dangerous, rob you and leave you to die if you tell him that this is STILL not the bus station you were aiming for. At this point I would rather just wait for 3 hours then try to find the station with the early morning departures because it is just too damn complicated. Plus this bus station had a proper coffee machine. Happy again... see I told you... it doesn't take much.
We had set out from our hotel at six in the morning and a quick five hours later we were finally beginning our six or so hour ride towards Ciudad Bolivar. We were scheduled to arrive to our destination prior to sunset, which is all I cared about because apparently with the sun up- you don't have to be as concerned about getting mugged, kidnapped or murdered as you try and sort out your accommodations. Again... why... just why?!
Oh yeah... this might be why.
Umm... right- so everything always goes smoothly when traveling by bus in second world countries, right? Wrong... so imagine my surprise when my nose started filling with the putrid aroma of burning oil. This was quickly followed by our bus coming to a screeching halt on the side of the road. Awesome. A daylight arrival was now completely out of the question. Great... I left my zombie fighting equipment in LA in order to make room for my laptop. Bad move on my part.
Just go to your happy place and everything will be fine.
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One hour, two hours... 3 hours of sitting in the dark on the side of a pitch black road with cars flying by at mock speed makes for a really relaxing way to spend your time. What was even nicer than the trucks flying by- is how wonderfully hot it is in Venezuela... pretty much all the time. I am not sure one ever gets used to sweating like a pig 24-7. Regardless how many times you tell yourself that you just love the "tropical" weather... constantly being drenched in dirty sweat just gets old.
Because I did not feel like hanging out on the side of the highway waiting to get picked off by a crazy Venezuelan driver and sitting inside the bus was sort of like hanging out in the bog of eternal stench; I was left sitting crunched up on one of the bus steps in a desperate attempt to not die while strategically positioning myself in the only place with a bit of a breeze. So much fun.
I had absolutely no faith in the bus driver and his failed attempts to fix whatever it was that had gone so wrong with our broken bus. Sitting there once again asking myself... self... what exactly is it that you are doing sitting in the dark on a smelly bus on the side of a pitch black highway in the middle of a country that is considered to be extremely dangerous and unwelcoming to tourists? Why exactly are you here instead of at home with all of your comfy cozy things? Oh yeah... I like this sort of stuff... wait... do I really or am I just telling myself this in a desperate attempt to control my sanity? I honestly don't know the true answer to this question anymore, so I will just pretend for arguments sake that I prefer the smelly bus to my comfy couch.
Moving on. Another bus finally showed up, which at that point I saw a knight on a white horse as opposed to another bus. We had been rescued from having to pitch Beau's tent on the side of the road. Happy again... doesn't take much.
Armed with the Lonely Planet (so basically blind) we approached a group of guys standing around a line of beat up cars aka taxis. How much to go to blah, blah, blah... the answer was something like the equivalent of $30 or $40 US dollars. Okay... not paying that... how much to go to Posada Don Carlos instead? And so it was settled, for the bargain price of $15 bucks, one of the old rusty clunkers was going to take us to the Posada Don Carlos... where ever that was.
As we were driving along (praying not to break down) I was noticing that Ciudad Bolivar appeared to be much smaller and nicer than Caracas, however, there was something really strange about it. It was only 10 o'clock at night and other than our taxi there were no other cars or people anywhere in sight. In my opinion this seemed strange. I mean although there were not loads of people walking about in Caracas at night... there were still cars driving around. Here there was nothing. Like a total ghost town or even worse... could it be that everyone had already been devoured by zombies and that we were next?
Seriously?!
Standing outside the posada, while waiting for someone to answer the buzzer, I began to wonder once again... Georgeanna... what are you doing here? The next morning we got the low down from the manager of Don Carlos, Paul. Paul is a very passionate individual from Belgium and is quite the character. He proceeded to tell us that nobody goes out after dark because although the city is small, it is extremely dangerous, with 2 or 3 murders happening everyday. WHAT THE F*#$!
Umm.. OK... let's just get in and get out. We were here for a reason... to see Angel Falls and in order to see Angel Falls you must fly in a tiny 5 seater plane to the village of Canaima. From there you must take a motorized wooden canoe up the Carrao River, which in theory takes about four hours. Oh goodie... another wooden canoe trip. Can't wait. After the canoe you disembark at your base camp where you drop your overnight bag and hike for about one hour at which point you will find yourself looking up at the world's highest waterfall. Awesome... right?
Angel Falls or Kerepakupai meru, which means "waterfall of the deepest place" in the local indigenous Pemon language, stands at a whopping 3,212 feet. It is so tall that much of the water falling from the main plunge evaporates or is carried away by a fine mist before ever reaching the ground.
Completely surrounded by jungle amongst table top mountains makes this waterfall very difficult to access, but if you had told me that I was going end up in a very cold river on a sinking boat amongst class three rapids washing me downstream in the middle of absolutely no where Venezuela... well I would have probably laughed in your face.
Not really us. There was actually 12 of us and our boat was made out of wood.
But this is sort of what we looked like.
And if you had told me that while all of this was happening our guide would be chugging whisky as all of our overnight bags were getting soaked...well then I would have probably told you to go pound sand. Now if you had finished this ridiculous tale by informing me that our trusty guide was going to then ask us if we had a lighter in order to light the wet, not to mention completely green wood on fire- because his only lighter got wet when our boat sank... well then I might have called you crazy. I would own you an apology.
This was our white water raft.
Okay, so you might be wondering- just how much does one have to pay to be dragged out to the middle of the wilderness with a drunken idiot for a guide to flirt with death? Beau and I were lucky enough to secure our spot on this joyride for $500 bucks each. This included the round trip flight from Ciudad Bolivar to Caniama, one night stay in an actual bed, the relaxing white water rafting booze cruise up the river, a full hour of freezing on a rock in a river (highlight), a bag full of sopping wet clothes, one night stay in a hammock with no mosquito net, one complete moron for a tour guide, some pretty subpar food ending with about 30 minutes at the actual waterfall at a god awful hour in the morning. Heck of a good deal if you ask me!
We enjoyed processed cheese and ham for breakfast.
Seriously though... the sinking boat, wet clothes and idiot tour guide aside... this journey made for one hell of an adventure that we lived to tell about and although we ended up with only a short time at the falls... the travel gods were looking out for us that day. Right as we were getting ready to leave a rainbow popped out! Moments like these are my gentle reminders as to why I love the adventure, why I will risk hell in hope of reaching heaven and why even when it really sucks... it is still totally awesome!
The remainder of the trip was rather uneventful, which was fine with us. Prior to arriving in Caniama, Beau and I had requested to stay an extra five nights and were told that we could sleep in hammocks for free. However, once we realized that we were surrounded by massive flying bugs and no mosquito nets, we opted to cut our losses and head back to civilization. At this stage in the game we were thinking peaceful beach alongside the Carribean as opposed to bug infested Caniama.
This stuff clearly worked well.
When we turned up at the posada early we were greeted by our more than puzzled host, Paul. I quickly painted him a picture of what we had gone through with the tour that he put us on and he quickly offered us a partial refund. The only catch was that he had to write us a check and we had to go to the bank to cash it. I will start by saying... I have worked in the finance industry for 10 years- during which time I have witnessed some pretty silly processes. None of which will ever compare to going to a bank in Venezuela.
Ding...Now Serving Number 999,999... Ding
You begin by entering into an extremely crowded bank with red blinking numbers in every direction. You hear ding, ding, ding constantly as the red blinking numbers change, but these numbers appear to be called in no particular order. This place is like the DMV on steroids. To your left there is a little machine that spits out numbers at complete random. Even though there are different options (written in Spanish obviously) the numbers correspond with nothing, so your ticket could say anything between 1 and 999. There are 10 windows with random numbers flashing and dinging. Some numbers are repeated while other numbers are never called. We stood there for over three hours and that is in no way shape or form an exaggeration. I have never seen anything so utterly stupid in my entire life... ever. Never... ever go to a bank in Venezuela.
Now we were flush with bolivars and heading to the beach town of Santa Fe. However, due to our three hour bank experience we were going to once again arrive after sunset. On top of that there is no official bus stop for where we were headed and the surrounding area of Santa Fe is said to be extremely dangerous. And that would be different from everywhere else in Venezuela... how? Evidently, even the zombies avoid this part of town at night. Super... can't wait to walk through a dodgy area at night with all of my crap and zero idea as to where to go. Can you say... moving target?
Down Kujo
We quickly made our way towards the ocean passing stray dogs snarling at us along the way and with the help of a stranger off the street whom I am positive was either on drugs or drunk- we ended up at the Posada del Mar. Tried to slip him some money as a reward for not killing us, which was apparently not enough because he wouldn't take it at first. The question- as to what the hell am I doing here was once again slowly starting to make its way back into my head. But as the sun came up... all my doubts were soon washed away. Dolphin watching, snorkeling and a few cervezas... happy again. Told you... doesn't take much.
Santa Fe Beach
Life is good.
Traveling rules.
