Venezuela - Merida

Once arriving back in Ciudad Bolivar Sam and Chloe were heading different ways to us, they were going to work in a jungle lodge far out it the amazon for 10 days. It was sad to say goodbye but we planned to meet them again. Harry and i spent some time with the spanish girls, with them cooking some great meals for us. The girls were heading the same way as Harry and I, we organised bus tickets in the day and left on a night bus for Valencia, where we would split from the girls and continue on to Merida. I have terrible trouble sleeping on busses, so i had a sleeping tablet and literally slept the whole 14 hours on the first bus to Valencia. When arriving at 8 am we said our goodbyes to the girls, we then went in search for a bus company to get us to Merida, the only available bus being 8 pm that night, we weren't exactly sure what to do we walked around the terminal thinking when we suddenly got stop by police and told to come with them, Harry and I weren't to sure about this because police in Venezuela have a bad reputation of being completely corrupt. We had no choice we went with them to a little interview room upstairs, the 3 of them asked us to start emptying all our bags, I had $600 US cash on me plus all me Camera gear, they counted all the money, looked at all my camera gear looking at each other and smiling. I didn't feel comfortable at all, they found my hiking knife looking at me as if i was a criminal. They then just said pack your bags and the whole mood changed the started laughing and making jokes about one of the police women wanting to sleep with Harry, it was a weird situation but they just let us go. We then got something quick to eat and got the hell out of the terminal. We decided to leave out big bags at the bus company office and we went to the beach for the day, catching a public bus for an hour and a moto taxi for 20 minutes got us to a safe beach ran by the military called Playa Rosa

We spent a while there swimming and laying in the sun, i had a girl walking past me flirting with me tapping me on the back, it continued for a while then Harry and I went to get some lunch at the beach restaurant, whilst in the restaurant i need to go to the bathroom, as i was walking towards it the girl that was flirting walked in and made a gesture to follow her i was already walking that direction when she stopped, at this stage i had not even spoke a word to her, i was kinda laughing because it was so random, it was midday on a busy beach. The first thing i said was "que" as is what.. she just grabbed me and started kissing me, i went along with it for a bit, i then pulled away and walked off because i felt awkward, i never seen her again haha. About 4pm we were standing around the restaurant again when a nice old lady came up to me saying " I don't speak very good english but, where are you going" i said " we are going to Valencia to catch the bus to Merida" she said " we live in Valencia would you like a ride to the terminal" of course we weren't going to say no, i said "yeah that would be great thanks" The older couple were from Spain living in Venezuela, we offered them money for petrol and they just laughed saying "petrol is basically free here. The cost to fill there car was 4 Bs which at our conversion rate equals about 10c..... its just crazy 10c for 60 litters of petrol  !!!!!! 

They dropped us at the Terminal and we got the bus later that night to Merida it was another 14 hour trip over night so again we had a sleeping tablet and again we slept for the entire time it was great. 

Once arrive at the terminal in Merida a lady about 35 who we had spoken to a little before getting on the bus came up to us and said would you like a ride to where you are staying, we had a rough idea of a few places to look at so we got dropped there. Johanna then said i will come a pic you up for lunch and take you somewhere nice, we checked into a place called Guamanchi, which is actually the most recommend place to do tours out of in Merida. Johanna came at lunchtime to pick us up, also with a friend Elly, it was a double date, the girls spoilt us a took us up into the mountains to eat lunch, then to a winery and after that horse riding haha they paid for most of it to. It was a fun day and then we also went out for dinner. 

Harry and I decided to do a climb with Guamanchi up Pico Bolivar 5, 007m the highest peak in Venezuela, the day before we left the guys said it would be a great idea to go up to Laguna Negra at 3, 500 m to do a walk and acclimatise a little    

We went up there with another Australian girl Lisa who was also staying with Guamanchi, we got a taxi for 2 hours splitting the cost of 500 Bs ($10) then walked the hour to the lake, it was much colder up there than in Merida ( 1,600m ). 

It's a beautiful area of the Andes mountain range, basically right at the start of the northern end where the Andes start. We returned to Merida by local bus, later that night organising everything for our climb the following day