Moustache

Terrible. Terrible. Terrible.

The Amazon River – Lots & Lots of Water

300 million litres of water. First get an idea of how much water that really is. Say the average person drinks 2 litres of water per day, then it would take nearly 6000 people their entire lives to drink 300 million litres of water. That’s a lot of water. Now consider that 300 million litres is the amount of water that flows per second ... per second ... from the Amazon River into the Atlantic Ocean. What better way to experience all this water than by boat?

After a wonderful 4 days in Alter do Chao, it was time for us to get back on the water with another 2 day boat trip - this time from Santarem to Belem. This section is where the Amazon gets serious, having picked up most of its major tributaries, either before or during the route. At times the river got so wide it was like being in the middle of the English Channel – you can just about see land to one side, and land off to the other, but there seems like an insurmountable quantity of water in between. It’s a big river.

The boat trip itself was both worse and better than the previous one. Worse in that it was a much bigger boat, and thus there were many many more people crammed into the hammock areas. Worse in that there was a 7 hour delay before we even left Santarem port. Worse in that the hammock area was enclosed with very little ventilation, meaning it became stiflingly hot on occasion. Worse in that the toilets smelt really bad. But, also better. Better because of the scenery. I couldn’t count the number of times we said “Wow, this is such a big river”. There was also some great “Apocalypse Now” style jungle on the banks whenever we got near enough to see it.



According to our guide book there are supposed to be around 50 or so “undiscovered” tribes in the Amazon basin, which have had no contact with “civilisation” (by which they presumably mean guns, cars and mobile phones) for over a hundred years. We cannot claim to have seen any of these, but on Day 2 we passed by a number of tribal communities living in huts right on the banks of the Amazon.

As we passed, the boat veered over to be near the bank, which was the cue for all the children and the mums of the community to pile into their little wooden canoes and paddle out towards us. Once near, they would call, and make some very odd hand gestures towards us. We weren't sure if we were supposed to be offended by this, until a plastic bag full of clothes was flung by one of our fellow passengers at high speed out into the water right next to one of these canoes. Soon, everyone was throwing bags of clothing, food, textiles ... seemingly whatever they could get their hands on. The villagers weren't making obscene gestures at us, they were calling for charitable contributions to be thrown down! They would then dodge the incoming missiles as best they could, and set about scooping their treasure out of the water and into their boats. It was great to watch.

Whilst all this was going on, a couple of the canoeists began to paddle like mad trying to get alongside our boat. After a lot of effort, they managed it and grabbed on. Then, while one of the villagers secured the canoe to our boat, another leapt on-board with a basket full of freshly caught prawns, and began hawking them to the passengers. Unfortunately we didn’t buy any, as we assumed they were raw – though later we saw a number of passengers munching on them. Opportunity missed.

After this flurry of activity, life became slow and relaxed once more as we meandered along towards Belem. It actually got a little dull to be honest – I think four days of lazy river boat travel is enough, even if you are on the world’s biggest river. Finally, on Day 3 (a little later than expected because of our 7 hour delay) we glimpsed the skyscrapers of Belem in the distance, and our Amazon adventure was at an end.

The Amazon - Really Big Trees

After a couple of days relaxing on beaches, eating good food, and enjoying our air conditioning, we suddenly realised that this wasn't exactly the authentic Amazon rainforest experience we were expecting. In many ways it was much much better than the experience we were expecting, but we thought we'd better go and check out some hardcore jungle at some point in any case ... at least for a couple of hours or so.

Originally we were considering spending a couple of nights with a traditional rubber tapper family in the heart of the Amazon. However the logistics of such a trip looked like a nightmare, especially as we only had 4 days in and around the area before we had to catch a boat on to Belem. So we settled for visiting a community for a few hours on a boat tour. Looking at the conditions we have been staying in, I think we made the right choice. Hey - we'd already lived in dense rainforest in Belize for two months - there was definitely no call to do it again.



We got on a boat early in the morning and eased on up the river for a few hours, marvelling at the banks of pristine beach backed by jungle that we passed en route. Finally we stopped outside a little village in the Floresta National do Tapajós, an area famous for its huge trees. Here our guide, going by the name of Mario, told us to disembark. We were in beach clothes and flip flops at this point, but we had our jungle gear with us in a rucksack. We asked Mario if we needed to change at this point. "No no," he said. "We will just be going for a little walk now." He then handed us a two litre bottle of water to carry, which we thought odd for just a little walk, but Mario himself was barefoot, so we assumed everything would be ok.

We got out and waited on the outskirts of the village, while Mario "found" the guide who was to show us around. The problem was, he didn't seem to be there. After half and hour, Mario came back saying that the guide had gone AWOL, but he'd found someone else who could take us. Our substitute guide took one look at us then shouted something in Portuguese. This was translated for us by a German girl in our party who happened to speak Portuguese. Apparently he said: "Why are these people not wearing proper clothing? They will be walking through the jungle for over 4 hours." When we questioned Mario about the so called “little walk”, he said it would be more like 3 hours not 4. I seemed to remember from a couple of years back, that a three hour trek through dense jungle in the scorching heat could never really be described as “little”. Also, for some reason I was slightly more inclined to believe our substitute guide rather than Mario. So, now that we knew the full extent of the walk, we asked Mario if we could return to the boat to change. Apparently we couldn’t – it had left. Mario gestured to the empty patch of river where the boat had been. It was not coming back until after our trek.

Eventually, despite being poorly attired, our substitute guide said he would take us and we set off into the rainforest. Mario himself held back a bit, saying he had to "do something" first. So we began without him, trekking through snake and spider infested jungle, in just our flip flops and shorts.

Speaking of spiders, about 10 minutes in we encountered our first specimen of Amazon wildlife. Naturally it was an enormous tarantula – an animal that Liz has a profound fear of. Around this point, Mario came bounding up to us, no longer unshod, but now sporting a pair of very professional looking jungle boots. Various theories were aired as to how he had come into possession of them – the most convincing being that he had returned to the boat. Mario just shrugged.

He became much more enthusiastic however when he learnt about Liz’s fear of spiders, and set about attempting to “cure” her of her fear then and there. His method involved picking up the recently shed skin of the tarantula (which of course Liz mistook for the real thing), then attempting to wave it about in her face whilst shouting “Nao peligroso! Nao peligroso!” [translation: “Not dangerous! Not dangerous!”] Somehow this failed to work, and Liz’s arachnophobia remained intact ... which was a shame because we then ran into another 3 tarantulas on our walk, and numerous other smaller spiders.

We continued on through the forest. Our walk took in both secondary and primary rainforest. We began with secondary forest, which actually looked identical to the Belizean jungle, just with the added mystique of being “The Amazon”. We according gazed at every tree and plant with an added sense of wonder. This sense of wonder was aided by our substitute guide who, in comparison to Mario, was brilliant. Every so often he would stop, jump off the trail into the forest, then bring back some flower, plant, vine or fruit, that was traditionally used for perfume, insect repellent, rubber production, snake bite antidote, used in cosmetics, could be eaten, etc, etc.

His party piece was taking a large coconut type fruit, splitting it with his machete to reveal a dozen or so smaller nuts, then splitting these smaller nuts in terrifying fashion – gripping one side of them tightly with his fingers, then chopping at the exposed part of the nut just millimetres from his fingertips. Once split, this nut would reveal a powdery substance that smelt like coco, and also a large maggot type grub that wriggled around on the palm of his hand. Apparently these are very tasty fried in butter! He also showed us some rubber trees, tapped by the local community, as well as a large strikingly coloured bug:

After a couple of hours we passed into primary rainforest – something we had not experienced much of before. There was a stark difference between the two; the primary forest had very little ground cover, and consequently you could see a lot further at ground level. Also, the canopy here was much denser, making it darker, cooler and more pleasant to walk through. The final difference was the clincher, and the main reason why we were on this walk in the first place ... the trees were huge! We spent ages taking pictures of them. Here's my favourite:


At this point we had completed half the walk. It had taken 3 hours. We were knackered ... though through careful avoidance of biting insects, and extensive application of repellent, our bare toes were still more or less intact. Our substitute guide suggested we quicken the pace, so as to be somewhat near his original estimate of 4 hours. The walk then became a bit of a slog. The terrain became a bit steeper. We became tired, hot and dehydrated. Our flip flops began to fail us. There was much cursing and stubbing of toes. Finally, after two hours (that felt like two days) we arrived back at the village. The boat was in a slightly different place than before, so a short canoe trip through flooded forest was required. Mercifully this was very relaxing, and before long we glimpsed our boat from between the trees. It was anchored just next to an idyllic sandbar.



What a great place to find yourself after 5 hours hiking through rainforest! We chilled out in the water for a bit, before tucking into a well deserved lunch of freshly prepared fish. It was then time to motor on home, and this was when Mario finally came into his own. Throughout the return journey he plied us all with caipirinhas – a cocktail consisting of cachaca rum, lime juice, sugar and ice - whilst the sun set in the background.

Then, truer to form, he rigged up a TV and amplifier and played a video of some truly awful Brazilian pop singer. However, even this assault on the senses couldn’t ruin our day. We had experienced the hardships of the Amazon rainforest, encountered “dangerous” wildlife on the way (well tarantulas look dangerous anyway), and had made it back in time for a good night sleep in our air conditioned room. Perfect.

Alter do Chao - Paradise on the Amazon

We arrived in Santarem ridiculously early in the morning, at around 4am or something. Whilst everyone else was packing up their hammocks and gathering their things together, we decided to stay on the boat until they kicked us off. That occurred at 6, but at least by then the buses were running.

We grabbed a quick minibus into Santarem, then set about trying to get to Alter do Chao ... principally because that's what the Lonely Planet told us to do. To be fair, they weren't far wrong. Alter do Chao is stunning.

In our guide book it describes Alter do Chao as having white sand beaches on the Amazon river. When I read this I was not expecting too much. My idea of a "river beach" is a muddy slippery bank leading down to a small patch of sand, covered in bits of wood and the odd coke can. Nothing could be further from the truth, as you can see from these pictures.



The town itself is very small, and looks out on the picturesque, white sanded Ilha do Amor. It is also situated at the confluence of the Rio Amazonas (the famous Amazon) and two large tributeries - the Rio Tapejós and the Rio Arapiunes. All three of these rivers are enormous, looking more like lakes than rivers. In actual fact the very meeting of these great bodies of water has caused a real lake (Lago Verde) to be formed, also right next to Alter do Chao. The upshot is a lot of water, some lovely beaches, and a beautiful beautiful location.

We spent our first couple of days ooohing and aaahing at the scenery, lying on the beach and enjoying the best value for money room we've come across in Brazil ... it even had air con! We were happy people. Then, on the evening of the second day we thought we would experience the sun setting over the lake ... whilst on the lake. We rented a kayak for this purpose and headed out onto it.

The kayak however, turned out to be pretty unstable. Not only did it threaten to overturn us (complete with non-waterproof camera) at every stage, it also patently refused to go in the direction we paddled in. Even with both of us paddling on the left, the blasted thing would continue to veer over to the left, until we were going round and round in ever more ridiculous looking circles, much to the amusement of the locals watching from the shore. In the end I paddled while Liz steered, and we managed to get at least a little ways out into the lake. We then got tired and retired to a nearby beach ... which also gave fantastic views of the sun set fortunately.


After the sun set, rather than struggle back to the rental place in the dark, we beached the thing at the earliest opportunity and dragged it back. At least it was exercise! We then retired to a restaurant to try Pirarucu - the Amazon river's tasty resident fish.

Back to Brazil!!!

So after the awful debacle that was Venezuela we eventually made it to Brazil. We literally cheered with happiness as we crossed the border we were so happy to be there! Back in Brazil..where it all started all those months ago. First stop, to break up the long bus journeys, was Boa Vista. Boa Vista was great. We decided as we´d had such an awful last week, to splash out on a lovely expensive hotel with air con. It was the best feeling to take off the clothes I´d been wearing for about 3 days and have a long shower..oh to be clean!! I then decided to treat myself to a much needed pedicure! It was a great day and we could´nt stop smiling! We ended the day with some yummy Brazillian food including a big bowl of Acai I´d been craving since we last left Brazil! Acai is a deep purple vitamin rish berry from the Amazon and is said the be quite addictive. My favourite way to have it is frozen like a sorbet in a bowl with fruit and granola...mmmn!

So after our day of R & R we got back on the bus for another 12 hours journey to Manaus. Unfortunately the only bus company that did the journey to Manaus was Eucatur! So despite vowing never to get on another Eucatur bus ever again, we said some prayers and got on. Luckily we arrived safely, with no crashes and no death, in Manaus late that evening.

Manaus is the Amazon's largest city, described as "an incongruous pocket of urbanity in the middle of the jungle". We planned to spend about 4 days in the city to chill out, plan our time in Brazil and eat lots of lovely food! It was really nice to spend more than 2 days somewhere and we stayed in a fab hostel with Wi-Fi in our room and a great big breakfast every morning! Oh we love Brazil! We spent a lot of or time updating the blog and uploading photos, but we also managed to get out and see some cool sights! We walked around the city and found some beautiful old buildings including the Teatro Amazonas opened in 1896, and nearby palaces. We spent a fun morning with lots of manatees at the Bosque Da Cienca, a 13 hectare plot of forest within the city. The highlight is the manatee pool with underwater glass windows. The reclusive creatures, known as peixeboi (cow fish) in Portuguese, are pretty much imposible to see in the wild in the Amazon river, so it was brilliant to watch them in their tank! We also saw a giant river otter, some turtles and a pretty toucan in the trees! Oh and I got stung by a bee and it really hurt.

Another massive highlight of Manaus was Churrascaria Buffalo. A churrascaria is basically an up-market all you can eat restaurant including lots of different types of dishes, a huge salad bar and men that bring you freshly grilled meat from skewers to your table. Amazing! We visited one of these Brazillian institutions before and left feeling so ill after eating just way too much...it was not pleasant. Basically you have a little wheel at the end of your table which you can turn to the green YES position or the red NO position. If the wheel is on YES the men with the meat will come to your table. Simple! It's quite difficult to say no though when the meat looks as good as it does! So you end up eating far too much! So this time we decided to be sensible and try to say "no" to some of the meat coming round. This time there was a special something else on the menu of all you can eat too....sushi!! So we decided to have a sushi course to begin with (ok we had maybe 2 sushi courses to begin with...actually Chris had 3 sushi courses to begin with!) it was fantastic, we hadn't had sushi for over a week and we were in desperate need of some!

So 23 salmon nigiri later, we decided to start on the meat course! We felt a bit wrong just having meat so we added some salad to our plates too. And the meat was good...really good! It was great to have some picanha again, our beef cut of choice from our month or so in Brazil at the beginning. We got through a lot of meat and decided to call it a day an hour or so later. But then they came around with dessert! And we can't say no to dessert..especially when it is fresh strawberries and cream! So we each had a bowl and it was delicious! Chris then decided to have one more bowl, which is quite unlike him...not being a massive fan of sweet things..but as it's all you can eat for a set price he thought why not?! So, full up to the brim we got the cheque and got ready to leave. It was then that we noticed it was a little more expensive than we had thought it would be. Oh dear. They charge for desserts..and Chris had 2!!! Hahaha! It was very funny! Well worth it too!

The main reason we were in Manaus (apart from the sushi and all you can eat meat) was to see the famous Amazon! Most people start or end their trip in the Amazon in Manaus and ours was just beginning. We decided against the normal jungle trip where you see some monkeys, pink dolphins, aligators and fish for piranhas as we had already done this type of trip twice, once in the Amazon basin in Bolivia and also in the Pantanal in Brazil. Both trips had been so successful and we'd seen so much wildlife that we decided to make our way down the Amazon river to a place called Santerem, where we could do a hike in the jungle and see some big trees and also visit a few beautiful beaches. The only way to get anywhere in the Amazon is by boat, so we booked ourselves onto a 2 day passenger boat to Santerem.

The boat trip was great! We got there about 5 hours early to secure a hammock spot and we got a good spot on the middle deck. As the 5 hours passed by before we set off, about a hundred other people set their hammocks up around us, below us and pretty much on top of us! It was a fab sight..so many colourful hammocks! And luckily not too uncomfortable with so many people around us!

We had a very relaxed 2 days aboard the boat making our way down the huge Amazon river, the views were beautiful and the sunsets around 5pm were spectacular.

Venezuela - oh dear ... (Part 2)

CONTINUED FROM PART 1 ...

So we were on a night bus to Brazil, happy and relaxed. The bus was driving quite quickly and swinging round corners ... but no more than several other busses that we'd taken in our previous 8 months around the continent. We talked about what we were going to do (and what we were going to eat!) when we reached Brazil for a little while, then slowly drifted off to sleep ...

Then BANG! We were awake with a shot as the bus jolted, lurched to one side, and started to skid along the road. It was very frightening for half a second or so, but then we felt the driver regain control of the vehicle, bringing it to a controlled stop. We were very disorientated having just woken up. I glanced at my watch - midnight. After a few moments I composed myself and followed some of the other passengers off the bus to see what had happened.

The front right hand side of the bus had a large dent in it and the headlight had been smashed. Under the front right wheel of the bus was a twisted wreck of a motorbike, leaking some sort of liquid over the road. The bike had clearly been dragged along by the bus for some time, as there were parts of the it strewn along the road behind. Around 50 yards back there was crowd gathering around the body of a motionless youth.

I'd seen enough road accidents to not even consider going anywhere near the body, but I spoke to one of our fellow travellers who had just returned from the scene. She simply shook her head sadly and said "Muerto," drawing a finger across her throat just in case I didn't get the picture.

Speaking to a few of the locals in the aftermath, it turned out the youth was just 19 years old. It wasn't clear who's fault his death was, as nobody had witnessed the accident. The people in the bus couldn't see out of the front, as a screen seperates the driver's cabin from the rest of the bus. The bus driver himself had run away, whilst the second driver, a man called Jefe, was asleep and didn't see the incident.

The police arrived on the scene and asked some questions. After a couple of hours or so we were told to get back on the bus, which was then driven to a police outstation and impounded. They let us know we were welcome to go back to sleep on the bus - another one would be along in the morning to continue the journey. Despite the shock we managed to get back to sleep eventually.

A moment of levity came at around 4am when an enormous earpiercing noise shattered the peace and quiet of the bus. The noise seemed to come from a canvas bag dangling down from the armrest across the aisle from me. "What on earth was that?" I asked Liz. "I think it's a chicken," she replied half asleep. Sure enough, a few minutes later, the noise came again. It was a cockerel - his crowing almost impossibly loud in the tight confines of the bus. He continued to crow at 10 minute intervals for the rest of the morning.

At 6.30 we were "officially" woken up and told that a replacement bus would be along at any moment. We all waited with our luggage at the side of the road, and sure enough, another bus came along at 7. The problem was - it was from a bus company called Occidente, which was a different (and more expensive) company than Eucatur who we were travelling with. Jefe did his best, but Occidente wanted us to pay for our passage again, not accepting our Eucatur tickets as payment. Since we had spent nearly all the remainder of our cash on a ticket to Brazil, we didn't have any spare money with us. We couldn't get any more because we were stuck by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere with the nearest bank 30 miles away. This wouldn't have helped anyway because it was Sunday and would have been closed. ATMs of course, were no use (see previous post).

So, we were abandoned, on the side of the road with the 20 or so other travellers who couldn't afford a ticket. Jefe got on his mobile phone, as did a few of the other travellers, and ascertained that another replacement bus would be along at 9. This failed to show up. As we were waiting, we were forced to witness the most heartbreaking part of the whole ordeal. The poor young boy's family arrived at the police station to receive the news of his death. We all stood in numb silence by the side of the road whilst members of his family broke down in tears all around us. It was absolutely horrific.

After the 9 o'clock bus failed to show, and the family had left, one of our gang rang up Eucatur head office to complain. She was assured that another bus was being sent from a place called Santa Elena, reserved just for us, and it would be with us at 1pm. So we had another 4 hours to entertain ourselves. We assessed our surroundings ... a police station, a bus station, a few shacks, and a field ... with chickens in it. We went with the field. We layed our bags down under a tree and then used them as a makeshift bench. However, we weren't able to drop off to sleep, since at any moment a bus might pass that we could flag down.

The man who owned the cockerel - or 3 cockerels as it turned out (!) - decided to let them out of their canvas bags so they could have a free run around the field. He then amused himself, and anyone else who cared to watch, by pitting his own animals against those in the field. That's right - we were witness to a some illegal cock fighting, performed for a very select audience of bus refugees. Surreal just about covers it.

At 1 o'clock there was no sign of our special private bus. A quick phone call to Eucatur head office confirmed that we had been deceived. The bus coming from Santa Elena did not exist - it had never even left. At that point, a few of our number somehow arranged other means of transport, leaving a hardcore group of 12 of us still standing in a field by the side of the road.

Around 2pm a representative from Eucatur turned up ... and was set upon on all sides by the angry travellers. My Spanish isn't exactly fluent, but I could swear that what they were shouting at him didn't have much to do with a lack of busses ... it seemed to have more to do with a lack of ... chicken? Yes, indeed, our fellow travellers were hungry, and were incensed that Eucatur hadn't provided them with any food. So off the Eucatur representative went to get some fried chicken, without a word it seemed on when we might get rescued from our field.

An hour or so later, he returned, and we ate ... which admittedly was very welcome. In between bites of chicken, I turned to him and asked how we were going to get to Brazil. "No problem," he said. "A bus is coming at 5 to take you." I'd heard this before. "Are you sure?" I asked. He stared back at me unblinking, "Yes, of course."

We weren't so sure, and so in the intervening period I managed to source some cardboard from the police station, and we made ourselves a makeshift hikehiker's board, which can be seen at the beginning of this post (modelled beautifully by Liz). We went for "Santa Elena" (a town on the Venezuela - Brazil border) rather than "Brazil", since darkness was fast approaching and we didn't fancy spending the night in a field.

After a few hours of fruitless and rather depressing hitchhiking attempts, 5pm came around. We had a moment of elation when a bus trundled over the horizon, only for it to be quickly dashed, as the bus stopped and informed us it was going in a different direction. It was full to bursting in any case. At this point we pretty much gave up all hope.

Soon afterwards the Eucatur representative called head office and booked us some places on the next Eucatur bus passing through. That happened to be the same one we'd taken - just 24 hours later. So we had to wait another 7 hours until midnight. We were so used to waiting by then, it wasn't actually that bad. Even the cockerels settled down and stopped making their infernal noises.

Finally, after a whole day sitting in a field by the side of the road, our bus turned up. There was a nerve shattering few seconds when we thought their wouldn't be any spare seats for us, but fortunately, they were hiding at the back and we all got on. What a relief. The bus continued through the night and to Brazil without incident. Our Venezuelan nightmare was over. It was easy to forget in all of our happiness that we had witnessed a young man lose his life just a day previously. It was very sobering. We tried however to put all that behind us. Passing the border we made a pact ... we would never to get on a Eucatur bus ever again ...

Venezuela - oh dear ... (Part 1)

Venezuela is supposed to be a wonderful country full of natural beauty, and we were greatly looking forward to spending some time there. Why then, is this post titled "Venezuela - oh dear ..."? Unfortunately, like many things in life, the reason is to do with money ... money and a bus ...

Firstly some background: To get to Venezuela we were flying from Panama City. Since our flight was an early morning one, we decided to spend the night in Panama City airport to save some cash. Never a good thing. Especially not a good thing when the seats in departures are incredibly uncomfortable. On our last airport all-nighter in San Jose, we were treated to big banks of seats upon which you could stretch out ... and pass out. This time all we had were little canvas numbers with no place to put your head. Each one was separated from the next by a pair of large metal arm rests, making it impossible to lie across a few of them - and thus making it impossible to get any sleep. We boarded the plane very sleepy.

A change of plane and a 5 hour wait at San Jose airport later - we arrived in Venezuela. We were only planning on spending just a week here on our way to Brazil, but were hoping to catch a few rays at a beach town along the way, and maybe even stop in at Angel Falls - the world's highest single drop waterfall.

The first thing we had to do before beginning our mini adventure, was to grab some of the local currency from a cash machine. Fortunately, the airport was blessed with five available cash machines, all in a row along one wall. Unfortunately - my card did not appear to work in any of them. It was then that we began to realise the first major problem with travelling in Venezuela - the cash machines do not accept foreign cards. We did not know this at the time however, and were still hoping to find one that did.

Fortunately (very very fortunately as it would turn out), I had $80 of emergency money stashed away which I was able to exchange for Bolivares - the currency of Venezuela. All I had to do was exchange these dollars at an exchange booth right? Sounds simple? It wasn't.

There was an official exchange booth in the airport offering a rate of 2 Bolivares to the dollar. I went into this booth, ready to change my dollars. Whilst in the queue however, I was approached by a number of people offering me rates of up to 3 Bolivares per dollar. If I went with these unofficial money changers, I could get 50% extra money for nothing.

But ... I didn't know what Venezuelan currency looked like. They could have handed me fake notes, or out-of-date notes, or random bits of coloured paper ... anything really. I asked a police officer to help me find a money changer who wouldn't scam me, but even this wasn't fool proof ... ever heard of a dishonest cop?

In any case - it all worked out ok. I ended up with 50% more Bolivares than I would have done going through a bank, or official exchange office. But why the discrepancy between official and black market rates? It was all very confusing.

The reason became clear a few days later, when we asked a tour agency tout (the only person we found in Venezuela who spoke any English) why there were two rates. Apparently, at the beginning of 2008, the Venezuelan Government launched a new currency, in an attempt to forestall the spiralling inflation rate that was gripping the country. This currency was called Bolivares Fuertes, and each unit was to be equivalent to 100 of the old Bolivares (which explains why local Venezuelans confusingly quote prices 100 times higher than they actually are). This new currency appears to be failing quite spectacularly, as according to our tout, there has been huge inflation since its launch. The Government, embarrased by this, is refusing to acknowledge there has been any inflation, and has pegged foreign exchange rates at January 2008 levels. The result is an exchange rate that reads 2 Bolivares to the dollar, whilst the reality should be closer to 6 Bolivares to the dollar. This has enabled a the black market trade in US dollars to blossom, since traders can offer much better rates than the banks or official channels. According to our source, the Government controls the black market, so isn't too bothered by this development.

The upshot is, Venezuela is prohibitively expensive for the foreign traveller at the moment. Every price, in an already expensive country (in South American terms), is two to three times higher than it should be - depending on the exchange rate you get. Over the week we were there, we had to stay in the cheapest places, eating street snacks and apples (apples were $2 each for goodness sake!), so as not to blow our budget for the rest of our time travelling. Unsurprisingly we elected to get to Brazil as soon as possible, without seeing or doing anything in Venezuela.

All this was ahead of us however, as we stood at the airport bus station, nervously clutching our small handfull of Bolivares, shuing away anyone who came too near us. We wanted to get out of Caracas as soon as possible because, rightly or wrongly, it has the reputation of being one of Latin America's most dangerous, most expensive and least visually appealing cities. We had heard some real horror stories about Caracas from other travellers. One girl had got into a taxi at the airport, only to have the driver pull a gun on her then drive her round to various ATMs, taking as much money out as she could. Obviously this wouldn't have worked for us (!), but we still didn't want to spend any more time here than was necessary. We hung around long enough to get a bus to the centre, a taxi to the long distance bus terminal, and a bus from there to Maracay - the gateway to one of Venezuela's best stretches of coastline.

Not that we saw any of it. We had used all of our money getting to Maracay, so we spent most of the rest of our time there trying to get more. The first day was spent trying all the cards we owned at wide range of ATMs across the city - all of which had a massive queue for some reason - and none of which worked. We managed to plead with the hostel owner to let us have a night on credit, then went out to the only restaurant in the area that accepted cards. Amazingly my card worked! Can't use it in a bank ... but restaurants are fine. The meal was good, but horrendously expensive. Liz's salad consisting of a few leaves of luttuce, a tomato and some cucumber (not even any dressing), cost over $10.

Day two was spent queueing inside the banks. Three of the banks I went to dismissed me out of hand. They didn't give cash advances ... after all, if I wanted money - I just had to go to an ATM ... right? At last however, I found a bank willing to give me an advance. It took 3 memebers of staff and over 2 hours, but eventually they gave me some money. We set about getting a bus to Brazil immediately.

As Brazil was a two day bus ride away, we got as far as we could in 24 hours, then decided to overnight in a place called Ciudad Bolívar, apparently a nice colonial town and the gateway to Angel Falls. We were even considering still going to Angel Falls if the price was right ...



To be fair, some parts of Ciudad Bolívar were nice, as you can see in the above photos, but most of the town was a bit of a dump. Because of the bus timings we were forced to spend a full day there, so we looked around, took some pictures, ate a few $2 apples, and found out all about Venezuela's money problems from our friend the English speaking tout. He then let us know it would cost $600 each to see Angel Falls. Riiiiight. I'm sure the falls are very nice and everything, but that price is just ridiculous. That afternoon we spent the rest of our money on the next direct bus out of Venezuela and onwards to Brazil.

As we got on the bus that evening we were in high spirits. We had spent an awful five days, mainly either on busses or in bank queues, eating very little and generally being very miserable. Things were looking up however ... our bus was comfortable, fast and more importantly going non-stop to one of our favourite countries ... Brazil. Hooray! It was time to celebrate ...

TO BE CONTINUED ...

Golfo De Chiquiri - Fishing for Trees

Farewell then Costa Rica. Next on our now very random schedule, was Panama ... again. As per usual when crossing borders, we had to get up painfully early, catch a bus to some town in the middle of nowhere, change bus, fart around at the border for an hour or so, then change bus again before getting to our destination. It took all day, but at least we made in to Davíd, Panama before nightfall. We had had a fairly late night the night before, so were in pretty bad spirits by the time we got there. Fortunately Davíd boasts a large branch of the best supermarket we've encountered whilst travelling - the 24 hour Romero - last seen in Boquete. Cue tuna sandwiches made with freshly baked baguettes, Lurpack butter and Hellman's mayonnaise ...

We had returned to Panama for 2 reasons. Firstly we were flying out of Panama City to Venezuela, so it kind of helped being in the correct country for that. Secondly, when we were here last we failed to see one of Panama's highlights - the Golfo De Chiquiri - so we thought we'd remedy that and get there asap. As we had limited time before our flight, we grabbed a taxi very early (again!) and then a boat to Bocas Brava, a small jungle island in the Golfo consisting of a hostel/bar/restaurant, and ... quite literally ... nothing else but trees.

It was really nice but, to be brutally honest, pretty isolated. We were still with Elise and Greg, so on the first day we had fun just sitting around doing nothing. I say "nothing" but we did manage a 4 hour team nap in the afternoon. On the second day we decided that we had to leave the bar area, so we did what we always do when looking a bit of fun - we booked another fishing trip. This one was far less successful than the one in Belize however, but at least the setting was great. The Golfo De Chiquiri is a group of spectacular jungle islands off the south westerly coast of Panama. As we were transported in our boat to the "fertile" fishing areas, we passed a number of great looking islands rising out of the sea.

When we got to the area for fishing however, we were handed trawling rods. As mentioned in an earlier post, trawling = boring. The fish you catch whilst trawling are usually much larger than with fly fishing, but on average you get one per hour, which amounts to a lot of meandering around in a boat, holding a rod and praying for a bite. This time Elise was the the lucky one out of all of us - or as she would put it - "by far the most skillful". She managed to catch two very evil looking needle fish on our two hours out on the water (yes that's right - one fish per hour). Unfortunately needle fish aren't good to eat, so our guide simply unhooked them and threw them back. At the end of two hours we had nothing in the boat.

As we were reaching the stage of fishing I like to call "numb bum time", and thus considering cutting our losses and heading home, the guide suddenly pointed to the horizon and said something in spanish that no one understood. He then translated for us - "Whales". "Stuff this fishing lark," we said, "take us over to those whales!" He agreed, and soon we hurtling at high speed towards what turned out to be a pod of at least four humpback whales! It was very exciting. We saw them "blow" from a distance, then got closer and closer until we were pretty much right on top of them. They kept coming up for air, at one point emerging just 50 yards from our boat. They were very difficult to photograph - you never knew where they were going to turn up; just popping up out of the water for half a second or so before disappearing again. That said, Liz managed to get a great shot which now graces the top of this post.

We pretty much gave up on fishing and spent the rest of our time watching the whales. On the way back however, I decided to chance my arm at a bit of trawling anyway. Even though we were not in good fishing waters, it couldn't hurt - right? I wasn't expecting much luck, but then, to my surprise I got a bite! I exclaimed with joy, and started to reel the sucker in. It felt like a big one - it was definitely putting up a fight, and I told everyone so. After what seemed like ages, and after a whole lot of effort, I finally wrenched the thing out of the water. It was a medium sized tree branch. Apparently it felt like it was fighting because of stong sea currents in the area. There followed many jokes at my expense ...

In disgust I threw the thing back into the sea and we set off again. Fortunately for me, Liz then caught exaclty the same branch around two minutes later ... which made me feel a whole lot better.



That night was supposed to be the last night on Team Quad (ie. the four of us) in Central Amercia. However, after much cajoling (and a few glasses of sangria) Elise and Greg decided to accompany us to Panama City to send us off in style. And what style it was too. We visited the local sushi bar twice, went clothes shopping twice, ate at a great middle eastern restaurant twice, celebrated Elise's birthday once (because we failed to celebrate it in Costa Rica two weeks previously) - with a cake, candles, presents and everything - and hit the casino once. We only did the casino once because despite Liz and me coming out of a casino in credit for the first time in our lives, Greg and Elise didn't have so much luck. It wasn't pretty, and they vowed not to return to a casino for a long long time ... (we actually received an email that they went back the night after we flew to Venezuela, so a long long time ended up being around 48 hours).

After all that however, it was time to go. The parting was emotional since we'd been with travelling with these guys for a while now, and they were absolutely brilliant. We could not have wished for a better two poeple to travel with. We are hoping to meet up with them again towards the end of travels in Chile - or failing that in New Zealand ... what do you say guys?

In any case we said goodbye, and then left to spend the night in Panama City airport. Our flight was at 5 the next morning so we thought we'd save on a night's accomodation and sleep in the departure lounge. Yes - it has got that bad! We were excited however to return to South America - and to go to Venezuela; a country we hadn't yet been to ... which surprisingly hasn't happened for ages ...

PS. The observant among you may have noticed that in the picture above I seem to have some sort of hair growth on my face. This is in preparation for the "handlebar moustache" I pledged to grow as required by the vote held on this site a couple of months back. The moustache has indeed been grown, pictures have been taken ... and yes ... it looks terrible. More to come on the next post (including mug shots).