Merida

From Isla de Margarita we took a bus to Merida. On our 1st day we did paragliding on the Andes mountain range. We drove from Merida about an hour and made our way up part of the mountain range and waited there for the wind to be right so we can take off. You basically just stand there and then the wind catches the parachute and your off. No running or anything you just get lifted up. We both had a pilot flying it for us and we went up at the same time. It lasted for about 30 minutes and we decended around 1000 meters. The views were incredible as we were flying down in the middle of a gorge with the Andes either side of us. Plus there was a rainbow. Sams pilot decided to do some quite tight downwards spirals where you plummit about 100 meters in a few seconds. Samantha saw this and was glad her pilot didn´t really do that as she was feeling a little motion sick. The pilots stopped on the way home and decided to buy us some beers, a water melon juice for samantha and snacks, which topped off the day. They also introduced us to the oldest man in the village.



The 2nd day we did canyoning, which is a mix of rock climbing, abseiling, jumping into plunge pools in and around waterfalls and sliding down natural water slides in the rock. At the start of the day we once again drove up into the Andes and then walked for about 30 minutes to the gorge where the river and waterfalls were. From here we walked through the river after putting on our wetsuits. The river was rapids or fast flowing water all the way along. During the day we abseiled down 3 water falls. The 1st was 10 meters, the 2nd was 15 meters and the 3rd was around 30 meters. Whilst we were abseiling down the waterfall the water was totaly battering your helmet on you head and throwing your body around. Sometimes it was hard to see and breathe because the water was constantly in your face. It was a scary experience, but also fantastic. In between abseiling down the waterfalls, there were a number of large jumps, one of which was into a very narrow slit between two rock walls. Sam was first to volunteer and made the jump look easy. Samantha on the other hand, wimped out and had to slide down the rock face and in the process twisted and hurt her arm. Next was a slide of about 5 meters and down a rock face, this looked very dangerous due to us not knowing the depth of the water at the bottom. Once we had finished canyoning, we were welcomed by a family having a bbq at the bottom. They invited us to eat with them and to share their wine. This was very tasty and appreciated. We then walked for 5 minutes and were given are provided lunch back at the jeep. We were stuffed.


On the 3rd day we went on the worlds longest and highest cable car ride, the Teleferico de Merida, which was around a 3000 meter ascent on 4 cable cars to a snow topped mountain called Pico Espejo (4765 meters). The ascent took about an hour into the clouds. Due to ascending 3000 meters in an hour or so you get a headache and at the top the air is pretty thin, which makes it hard to breathe so we didn´t stay up there long to avoid getting altitude sickness. Also we went to an ice cream shop, which is in the guiness book of records for having over 900 flavours. Sam had the flavours spaghetti and cheese, which made him feel sick as it was disgusting, coffee mocca and maltin polar, which is a malt, horlicks tasting energy drink in Venezuela. Samantha had rose water flavour and cheese and ham flavour which was surprisingly nice with lumps of cheese and ham.


We have just got back from a 2 day trip to see an unique natural phenomenon that happens no where else in the world, Catatumbo lightning. The phenomenon is the lightning is accompanied by no thunder at all. This is the collision with the winds coming from the Andes causing the storms and lightning, as a result of electrical discharges through methane created by the decomposition of organic matter in the marshes of Lake Maracaibo. Being lighter than air, the gas rises up to the clouds, feeding the storms. Once we got to the lake we stayed on floating houses in the middle. We went out in the dark to find snakes and caimen, the guoide shone the torch and it would reflect back in animals eyes. We saw 2 monkeys, a group of birds which we got within inches of, a boa constricter and a caimen. The caimen was around 3 years old, and looks alot more muscley and scary than the alligator we caught in the amazon. Sam asked the guide if he could hold the caimen, noone else in the group wanted to. He also wanted to hold the snake, Crazy! That night it was more cloudy than usual because it rained extremely hard earlier on in the day. So rather than seeing the lightning bolts, there were more flashes in the clouds and bolts moving from cloud to cloud instead. To get the pictures sam woke up at 3am and was patiently taking them for about an hour or so. On the 2nd day on the way back to Merida we stopped off at a coffee musuem and a sugar cane place where they made it into a block of a brown sugar substance that tastes malty.