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Hello to all back there. We are in Puerto la Cruz, (if I might advise you:
cancel any trips you might have planned here) and will be leaving soon. We’ve
been here a really long time, because we went to Merida for a couple of weeks
from here, and also to a wedding in Georgia. I think someone has already told
you about the Arctic Bus, so I will tell you about Merida.
Merida is a town of 80,000 or so that is located 5,000 feet up in the Venezuelan
Andes. Part of the reason why it is a nice place to go is because the town is
conveniently located for trips you can take, and the other part of the reason is
because it averages less than ten million degrees, and 100% relative humidity.
Also you can feel fairly confident that the taxi driver won’t mug you. The town
itself isn’t anything that special, but it is OK, and Plaza Bolivar is quite
nice. By the way, Venezuela is crazy about Simon Bolivar – iconography is
everywhere. Every town has several streets named after him, the currency is
bolivars, statues and pictures of abound (and yes, Bolivia is named after him
too.) He liberated much of South America, but died in disgrace, so it seems that
people are making up for it.
Our first trip was up world’s highest and tallest cable car in the world – the
Teleferico. We went up in four stages to Estacion Pico Espejo (close to 16,000
feet) which is right on the shoulder of Venezuela’s highest peak – Pico Bolivar.
The weather was truly perfect, really clear and no clouds, which afforded a
spectacular view. Bolivar was really beautiful, jagged, black and white, in
stark contrast with the green rolling ‘hills’ below. After sea-level for four
years, the thin air came as a bit of a shock, as did the cold, so we got on the
cable car down to the third station (some 13,000 feet) and there started ‘the
eight hour hike -- a hike to live in imfamy…’ Actually it wasn’t that bad,
except the first hour and a half, where we had to ascend to 14,000 feet. This
was really tough on us, as we were not all that fit (to put if lightly), and
this was really quite a bit higher than we were used to! We were literally
taking such tiny steps that my feet overlapped at times. Once we were over the
ridge we had mostly downhill for 6 ½ hours. The scenery was really beautiful,
huge pillars of white-streaked rock rising up into the clouds (by now some
clouds had rolled in). The mountains slowly became less jagged; they looked like
outsized hills. The real low point of the hike was when one of us left a bag
full of fleeces on the trail somewhere. Mum and I decided to go back up for half
an hour to a place where we had stopped. I was a rather stupid and ran the last
bit, which gave me altitude sickness – this felt really wretched, headache,
nausea, and difficulty breathing (had to breathe into a bag). It is weird how
running seems all right, and then catches up with you. We were now in a tight
spot with sunlight running out, and had to go as fast as the invalid (me) could
go. As we were approaching the village (when I say approaching, I mean 2 hours
away) two caballeros passed us, Dad asked if they had our bag, and they did!
Getting it back cost us 5,000 bs. (7 bucks), but everything was still in it. The
last part of the walk cost us more than that in photos; it was really beautiful.
The sun was almost going down, so the other side of the valley was all blue, but
our side was brightly lit, and lots of quaint cottages were scattered about. We
got into the village at 6:30 after having descended 7,000 feet by foot – from
14,000 to 7,000. I don’t think my body was made for this kind of abuse.
Los Nevados (where we hiked to) is a village of 50 or so, with a tiny church and
square. The streets are cobbled, and all of the houses are whitewashed plaster
and brick, with red tile roofs. Most of the households have at least a cow and a
couple of horses. You get the impression that people here have been doing the
same thing for generations – except the people in the posada business. We saw
some men making bricks, just by compressing dry dirt, no straw or anything. You
would have thought that on the day after the hike we would have had a nice
relaxing day, and certainly not go hiking – but no, everyone but Emma (she must
have more sense than us) went out for a moderately grueling 2 ¼ hour hike!
We took a three hour jeep ride back down to Merida the next morning. There is a
really good lunch restaurant here, the Luncheria Joseph – $ 2.50 gets you a
restaurant-made juice, soup, a really good meal, and a dessert. The staff is
very friendly as is the owner, who seemed to take a liking to us. On our third
time there, he offered us a pamphlet about a place he owns with rooms to rent in
the mountains. We were planning on making a trip up there anyway, so we went for
it.
About 2 hours bus ride from Merida is Apartaderos, a not-so-great town of maybe
200 people. The place we stayed at though, was great. Its a really nice house
with three extra bedrooms that we stayed in two of. It had fireplaces, a
kitchen, a card table, couches – all that stuff that you people take for
granted. The main downside was that it was really cold. The first afternoon
there we took five caballos on a 1 ½ hour trail, (I’d never touched reins before
in my life) or rather they took us on the trail. Mine didn’t seem to feel too
confined to the trail either, in fact it seemed to enjoy trotting away from the
trail. By the way back, however, I could tell it to stop, go and turn; it just
sometimes vetoed. The trail was also really beautiful (you must be getting tired
of that word), except that we had no view at all – we were at cloud level.
The next day we were planning on having an excellent time: we were going to
watch Wimbledon in the morning (which we did), then we were going to go up to
the pass and get horses down, Dad was then going to go back and do some work,
and we were going to do one last horse ride. We waited an hour for a bus to the
pass, found out that the horses were gone, waited another hour for a taxi, and
ended up abandoning it and walking down a trail to the second horse place. This
was not a very easy walk, as it was rather high, but the view was nice. After
two hours, the trail stopped, and we ended up walking across several farmers’
fields. They didn’t seem to think it in the least unusual that some tourists
would show up in the middle of their fields. We had to plan out every stretch of
the hike, as we had no trail of any sort. The last bit was very steep, and then
a mile or two on the road, ending in heavy rain. So all we got of that day was
two hours of waiting, five hours of hiking, and some very muddy/wet clothes. And
in addition to this, there was a power cut.
We got one horse ride in the next day, and then got a bus back to Merida.
We stayed one more night in the Posada Encanto Andino, and then got back on the
Arctic Bus.
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