Spring Break

I just returned from a trip to Merida, Venezuela. This is a beautiful mountain town, approx. one mile above sea level in the Andes Mountains. The entire town is geared to the outdoors. I am heading back with a group of teachers in a month for a trip to Los Llanos for a four day excersion. Janina and I were planning on a 3 day backpacking trip to these lagoons but the weather did not cooperate with us. It rained for the four days in Merida with a hotel, and there were mudslides in the hills, so we decided not to risk it esp. the boredom of hanging out in a tent for two days. So we came back to Maricaibo for the weekend. We are suppose to go saturday to this village where the houses are built on stilts which I have wanted to see for a while and we will relax until school starts back up on monday. Janina and I are flying to Bogota, Colombia for a four day weekend in the middle of April for a trip. We were suppose to get tickets for a weekend in Havana, Cuba but our travel agent waited to long and the planes were full. So I have to travel to Bogota instead. I hate my life to have to choose between havana and bogota.

Merida a summary: We got on a bus at 10pm on Friday night, this was an all night affair, which I must say, is not very comfortable but not that bad. It was a really nice bus. Made one stop at this dirty gas station for drinks and cafe con leche. And made our final push to Merida. Once we arrived in town, we got a cab to the hotel, dropped off our bags and made our way down to the teleferico, which is the highest cable car in the world. It was amazing traveling up to over 16000 feet above the sea. It was even more amazing to see snow in Venezuela which I am used to boiling. The next day we just walked around Merida, checked out the sights. The town doesnt have a lot to do in it, Merida is primarily a good starting point for excursions into the mountains. We met this couple at a cafe who had been living in Venezuela for 6 years, they were from NYC and just traveled around on their boat. They told us about an immersion program were you can stay with a family in the Andes about 3500 meters to experience their way of life. The program is sponsored by the EU. They recommend it and I will definitely try since if I have time to travel back to Merida. The third day we took a 6 hour car tour of different mountain towns leading up to Mount Aguila which is on the highest road in Venezuela. On the fourth day we took a trip to the hot springs in the town of Tabay. Very rustic but still amazing and relaxing. Our final day in Merida was just walking around, went to see a horrible movie with Nicolas Cage called Ghost Rider. This was such a bad movie, please for the love of god dont see this movie. Eventually we made our way to the bus station. We were planning on going to Caracas for a few days but decided against it because of Semana Santa which is spring break with more of a family religious vibe. A lot of businesses and musuems were closed for the weekend and they dont serve alcohol nor do they sell alcohol. This is suppose to curve the number of accidents and incidents over the holiday week. Like a mini-prohibition to make sure people are safe, not a bad idea but not all that effective either. So we decided to head back to Maracaibo. This decision was not the most convienent. We were on our bus about to depart when we were told that we could not leave and that we needed to leave the bus. Janina and another group of people investigated the reason for our delay, which turned out to be a mudslide that had blocked both sides of the tunnel leading to Maracaibo. The other road to Maracaibo was a mountain road not big enough for our bus. So we were stuck waiting for morning, sleeping on a bus station floor. We met this amazing family while we were waiting. A mother and father who were deaf, with two daughters. The parents were two of the most loving people I have ever seen, the way that they took care of each other and how effectionate they were with there kids. The father waited outside our bus twice to say goodbye to his daughters, just staring into the bus window until the bus pulled away. The kids were the most behaved children, the older daughter really liked Janina. Eventually about 1 am we were told that the tunnels were now cleared of the mud and that we could leave. This trip was an amazing and interesting trip. Our next trip to bogota is coming up in a couple weeks. Sorry for the bad spelling and I will be adding more journals in the near future. Take care and remember not to believe everything that you see on TV.