Yesterday Chloe' (a girl from Belgium who lives with us) asked me if I would like to go to a beach with her. I phoned Alex, the guy C&C sent me on a date with (unsuccessful date though ha ha ha - he is a man with an ex-wife who asks him for money all the time, and his two children too. I don't really want to hear about it). He came by car and we went to a very beautiful place called Pozo Azul (blue well); it is a small waterfall surrounded by mountains and amazing tropical plants. We drove one hour up the mountains on a very small and bumpy road and when we arrived we jumped in the river. The water was very cold so I managed to stay there for only 15 minutes (Chloe for 2 minutes). Pozo Azul is a place unknown for tourists, you can visit it only if you know local people.                      
In the evening I met Jose' for a drink and later in the night I met William from Couch Surfing and his friend.
Tomorrow I am leaving Santa Marta for Cartagena :( I have had a fantastic time in the town but now it is time to go as I want to enroll in a Spanish school in Bogota'.
The result of the first stage of the presidential elections is that two candidates: Santos and Mockus will fight again on the 20th of June. Santos got 47 per cent of votes and Mockus 35 per cent (most of my friends voted for Mockus). In the picture one of the polling places in Santa Marta.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colombian_presidential_election,_2010
Here are my pictures from Maracaibo in Venezuela:
Maracaibo

Tayrona National Park

On Friday we went to Tayrona Park: Rocio, Cynthia, Thomas, I and a Spanish guy - Cynthia's friend. Jose' joined us in the evening as he had to work on that day.
I had a very interesting conversation with the Spanish guy on the bus. He has been travelling for five months now and.... he hates it. Before, he was always doing voluntary or paid work while travelling, on this trip he feels he is wasting time and he is not productive. He will be back in Europe next week and he can't wait to start working. I felt the same in Brazil for the first two months - that I was wasting my time. As soon as I got to the Amazon forest and to Venezuela, I started learning so much that I didn't think the same any more.

Tayrona Park is amazing, it is jungle with many exotic types of trees and plants. It was raining a day before so to get to the campsite we had to walk for more than two hours, in the mud..... getting dirty was so much fun!! :)) Everything was nice apart from horses. There are many of them as some people prefer to ride a horse instead of walking, so it became a business for the local people. The horses' excrement was everywhere and the smell was not good either. I think it spoils a lot the beauty of the jungle. However, we had a lot of fun when we arrived in the campsite - after fixing tents we ran into the sea, it was fantastic. There were big rocks around and the water was crystal clear. When Jose' arrived in the evening, I went swimming with him again. It was already dark so we took off our clothes and we swam naked for about two hours. It was great but... suddenly the police appeared and they asked Jose' to go out. He did, covering some parts of his body with hands and he was talking to the police officers for about 15 minutes. They searched pockets of our clothes for drugs. I got really scared for a moment because I suddenly remembered two other people walking on the beach before the police came. I thought that maybe they had put drugs in our clothes and that we were in a big trouble, and that we would be arrested....
I was wrong, they found nothing and they left. Jose' was angry that the police had to show off their control over everything. However later somebody told me that many people died in these waters as there are very strong currents which come unexpectedly and they carry you far away. So the police is there to protect you, not to arrest you :)) and that they search for drugs as a routine.
We had a lazy night by the sea. The guys were drinking rum and the Colombian anise aquardiente, I had a beer and I was dancing a little bit. All the lights went off at 11 pm so people went to sleep and it suddenly became very quiet. I went for a walk on my own. I was a little bit upset because everyone was speaking Spanish as they didn't speak any English. They were laughing and I didn't understand why, and I wanted to laugh too. Jose' tried to translate some jokes for me but his English is bad so he was getting tired and I was getting tired of listening to him too. Anyway, thank you for trying, Jose' :)
So I went for a walk and it was wonderful. I climbed a hill in the dark, sat down on a big rock and I was staring into the space. I could see The Guys looking for me on the beach, I was waving but I couldn't shout as people were sleeping in the tents. They were looking for me for a long time so eventually I gave up waving and I went down. They were so relieved to see me!
The night in a tent was a nightmare: if you closed the tent it became stuffy and it was impossible to breath. If you opened the tent, there were hundreds of mosquitos with big smiles on their faces, ready to bite you. It wasn't comfortable either so I only slept for an hour. The next day we were swimming again (it was actually nothing else to do apart from swimming and sleeping) - Jose' and I naked on a beautiful wild beach, joined by the Spanish guy. We got back to Santa Marta yesterday after hours of hiking, I was wonderfully tired... I love these moments when you take shower and you lie down in a comfortable bed. You are so tired that nothing matters, you just wait for the sleep to come (not long of course).

Today, 30th of May 2010, is a very important day for Colombia: elections for a new president.

Yesterday I slept a lot again, I am having a great rest in C&C's house. In the evening we went to a bar/club with quite good music although they played too much reggeton for my taste (in the picture from the left: a new French Couch Surfer living with C&C, Cynthia, Mua, Rocio and Jose'). After that we went for a walk on the beach and then home as during the week all the bars are closed.
Tomorrow we are all going to Tayrona National Park where we will spend 2 days.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tayrona_National_Natural_Park
Here are my pictures from Caracas and Merida in Venezuela:
Caracas
Merida

Yesterday I met William and his friend from Couch Surfing (in the picture). He phoned me as I left my phone number on the CS website (I am going to do it in all the places I will go to, this way I don't have to contact people, people will contact me :)). We had a difficult task to do: C&C's dog Hillary ate two pairs of my earplugs (and got sick afterwards) so I had to buy new ones. The pharmacies don't sell them, apparently Colombians sleep well so there is no need for earplugs in this country ha ha ha.... - difficult to believe though considering all the noisy parties they make. William made some phone calls to his friends to get information where to buy earplugs and eventually we found a shop with health and safety equipment, and I got the precious earplugs :)
Then, a few hours later, C&C's friend Alex phoned me and I found out that The Girls set up a date for me ha ha ha ha.... So I met Alex and we went to Rodadero, a very beautiful beach located 15 minutes from the centre of the town (but with hotels nearby, I prefer wild beaches like Trancoso in Brazil). We had a very relaxing swim at midnight, in the rain. It was very quiet and the water was completely transparent, I could see my feet in the water even at night.
This morning I talked to C&C about my next host in Santa Marta, Ingrid. The Girls seemed to be upset and they asked "are you not feeling good in our house?" - so I am not going to Ingrid's house, I am staying until the end (almost 2 weeks in total) with C&C. Then I asked if I could wash my clothes in the washing machine and I wanted to pay for it (because there are so many Couch Surfers in their house and they all wash their clothes). The Girls looked upset again that I wanted to pay so I am not going to talk about money any more.
This weekend all the discos (in England we call them clubs, "discos" for me sounds like a place for teenagers, with some funny disco music) will be closed. There are elections for a new president on Sunday and there is a risk that guerrilla may put bombs in the clubs. William gave me a long history lesson yesterday about the guerrilla, it is sooo interesting!!!!
The current president, Alvaro Uribe who has been in power for eight years now, did a lot of good things for the country. 
"......in May 2002, the former liberal politician of conservative leanings Álvaro Uribe, whose father had been killed by left-wing guerrillas, was sworn in as Colombian president. He immediately began taking action to crush the FARC, ELN, and AUC, including the employment of citizen informants to help the police and armed forces track down suspected members in all three armed groups....."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Armed_Forces_of_Colombia
Thanks to the president the country is safe now, much safer than Venezuela (ten years ago Venezuela was much safer than Colombia). There have been many kidnapping cases since 1985 but the president put a lot of criminals in prison and he reduced the drug trade. I was told that ten years ago I would not be able to travel by bus from one city to another, as I do it now.

I stopped taking the malaria tablets. I took them every day for two months and I don't want to do it any more. The place with the highest malaria risk was the Amazon forest and now I should be ok (well, I hope so!!...). If I go to the deep jungle once more, I will start taking the tablets again.
It was Claudia'a actual birthday yesterday so we had a lazy day at home. I slept half the day and then some friends came over and we had a party (more Colombian rum..). C&C are incredible, they host a lot of people and they don't really care how many people are at home, and how long they stay for :)
Here are my pictures from Fortaleza, Canoa Quebrada, a boat trip on the Amazon River and Manaus, all in Brazil:
Fortaleza, Canoa Quebrada
Amazon River and Manaus

I had sooo much fun yesterday... I was tired after the birthday party (too much Colombian rum??) but when Cynthia and Rocio phoned and invited me on a trip to the beaches called Taganga and Playa Grande, I could not refuse. We took a minibus which was full of people (I had to stand up and bend all the way as the minibus was really tiny) but it takes only ten minutes to get there. The beaches are amazing, surrounded by hills and what I like the most - there were no hotels and no restaurants by the Playa Grande beach, just some huts to have a break from the sun. I was so tired that I lied down and fell asleep immediately. The Girls woke me up few hours later, near the sunset, as we had to go. To get to this beach you climb a hill and to get back you take a boat (well, you can climb back but apparently it is a little bit dangerous - good excuse for lazy people :)). On the boat I felt very energetic again; there were some Colombian guys drinking rum and sharing it with me all the time. They were singing and shouting.... one big party on a small boat :) In the picture: the boat before departure, next to me Rocio and Cynthia.
Cynthia works in a hostel in Taganga so we went there to take shower and to change. Then we went to a very beautiful bar called Mirador. You can see the beach and the town from the terrace where you dance (there are two more nice bars/clubs in the town: Mojito and Sensation).
We met my Colombian dance partner Jose' :) with whom I was dancing all the night... and his two very nice friends. From 9 till 10 pm there was a happy hour for ladies. I thought that the drinks were half price or buy one get one free but not.... all the drinks were free for ladies during this one hour!!!!!!! - I could not believe it and I asked about 20 times if it was truth, before swilling down 6 cups of rum and cola. I said to the guys that if the same deal was available in London, everyone would come to the bar and drink too much so the bar wouldn't have any profit.
Well, the music was really good in Mirador: a lot of Colombian salsa, vallenato, marange, and some good disco music (disco for me is everything apart from lambada, bachata and the dances above).
I had a lot of fun, I came back home at 8 am, very happy.

On Saturday I went to the downtown and to the beach of Santa Marta to understand where I was. The town is small, dirty and smelly but it has its character, and there is a lot music of salsa and vallenato everywhere: in the streets, supermarkets and buses. Just like in Venezuela - I immediately feel happy when I hear music full of the positive energy. For the first time in my trip I saw some foreigners, there are many of them actually, mainly English people. I haven't seen them in four months!!
I have to say I have been hassled here as never ever before in my trip. Men talk to me in the streets, whistle and hiss at me. But I feel safe and I smile at them when they do it (so they stop hassling me, it always works). Santa Marta is a very safe town, the only thing I was warned about are "rats" - people on motorbikes who suddenly approach you and steal your bag. However I would advise them not to approach me because I might get angry...
In the evening we went out to a salsa club called Comodoro: C&C, their friends, two girls I contacted via the Couch Surfing website and I. Again - it was me and 30 local people, how lucky I am to have this chance to be with the local people all the time. I had to practice my Spanish a lot of course, and in fact, I slowly start gaining confidence with the language. The girls I contacted via the Couch Surfing website, Cynthia and Rocio, came with a friend, Jose', who was very happy to dance with me all the time. He was very nice and beautiful but unfortunately his dancing skills were far from what I would like them to be. Actually, I could not find a single man dancing as well as my dance partners in London. I was a little bit disappointed but then the magic of being in Colombia let me forget about it and I enjoyed myself dancing to the disco music (which they put on later - I couldn't believe I was able to enjoy this music!!). In the picture with Claudia. It was her 31st birthday we celebrated in Comodoro.

COLOMBIA, In Santa Marta

Wow!!! I am in Colombia!!! Since I started dancing salsa four years ago, I always wanted to be in Colombia. So...... here I am!!!!!! :))
But let's start from the beginning. I was very sad to leave The Family I stayed with in Venezuela. Unfortunately Neo didn't make it on time to say goodby, he works in the middle of the Maracaibo lake and he couldn't come back in the morning because the tide was high and they had to wait until it ebbed (the lake is connected to the sea).
Neo's brother gave me a lift to the bus station and I found a carrito which was taking people to the Colombian border. Apparently it is the easiest and the cheapest way, Neo gave me detailed instructions what to do until I get to Santa Marta. I shared the carrito (the last journey by carrito...) with three other people, one nice lady and two non-speaking at all Indian looking older couple. As advised by Neo, I started a conversation with the driver if we could avoid paying the departure tax (10 pounds) at the border. The driver said it wasn't possible and we didn't manage to convince him not to stop at the tax office (a shed in the middle of nowhere). However, when we arrived at the border in Paraguachon, I understood why - I was a foreigner and they check all the foreigners if they paid the tax. If I hadn't paid it, the carrito driver would have had problems for not stopping at the tax office. The people I shared the carrito with had to pay the tax because of me...
We had to leave our luggage in the carrito and we went to the customs. The customs officer on the Colombian side was looking suspiciously at me while checking my passport for a long time (what can I do that I am blond, tall and with blue eyes??? - please don't discriminate me for this!! - I got a little bit angry at the border). When I got back to the carrito I immediately checked all the pockets of my rucksack, if there were no drugs put by the customs officers.
Eventually we got to Maicao, a small town in Colombia and I took a bus to Santa Marta (name of the bus company: Expreso Brasilia). It took us four hours to get there, much longer than I expected (distance Maracaibo - Santa Marta 281 km).
When I was sitting on the bus, suddenly.... I felt sooo proud of myself!! - for doing this trip on my own, for battling the feeling of loneliness so many times, for understanding what is happening around me no matter what country I am in, for being understood, for having no fear and for carrying on no matter what...

I live with two Colombian girls now: Claudia and Carmen (I will call them C&C in my blog). They are absolutely great and they don't speak a word in English. I sent them a couch request in Spanish (with many mistakes, I am sure), they replied, I replied, they replied, I phoned. When I arrived in their flat we sat at the table and we had a long conversation. I had to force my lazy brain to speak some Spanish as I don't like coming to my hosts homes and not talking, it is not polite. So... I speak Spanish all the time now. One of the first questions The Girls asked was about my sexual orientation. I replied that I liked men, so they said they were going to find a man for me (ha ha ha... are all Colombians the same??). Well, they didn't have to look a long time - I am sharing bed with two Argentinian guys who are hosted by C&C too (ha ha ha... sorry, it all seems so funny to me...).

Colombia appears to be much cheaper than Venezuela. For example my sim card with many free text messages and phone calls cost 1 pound 73 pence, a meal at the bakery 2 pounds, mototaxi to the town center 35 pence, internet cafe' 35 pence per hour. However a small box of milk is 65 pence (English price).

Yesterday afternoon I was watching Chavez giving a speech on TV. He does it every Sunday and sometimes during the week too, when he feels he wants to talk. Apparently he can talk for many hours without eating and what he talks about is insincere (I was told).
Then Neo invited me to Santa Rita; to get there we had to cross a very long bridge (9 km) called General Rafael Urdaneta bridge. Santa Rita is a lovely town, we had some local food there.
In the evening we went to the Vereda del Lago park (the most important park in the city where a lot of concerts and sport activities take place): Neo, Zoe, their mum, nephew and I. I did aerobic class with the mum and a dance therapy class with Zoe. The aerobic class was quite boring but the dance class was ok (although with no lambada!!).
Today I met Jose' for a drink, I did a yoga class in La Estancia and then we went again to see a French film with Spanish subtitles "Asessinas" (good film). After that Zoe picked me up with a friend who owns a music studio and rents it to bands so we went there to listen to some rock music. We also had great conversations in the studio. For example (I will never forget this conversation) we talked about the culture of "machismo" in South America and Zoe's friend said that it is all mothers' fault. When their sons are little, they ask them: how many girlfriends do you have? - and if the child says five for example everyone is laughing and is happy. The boys grow up convinced that having five girlfriends is something positive and socially accepted. So it is actually not men but women who created machismo...
Machismo
Neo has been working all day today as he works in an oil well in the middle of the Maracaibo lake and he does 24-hour shifts.
I have been so busy in Maracaibo... thanks to these wonderful Couch Surfers: Neo, Zoe, Jose', Luis, Lilly and Juan.

Tomorrow I am leaving to Colombia, to a small seaside town called Santa Marta.
Do I like Venezuela? - yes, very much!!
What do I think about the places I visited? - the three cities are very different.
Caracas: very beautiful and clean (I think the most beautiful city I have seen so far - beauty in a complex meaning), with many good salsa clubs.
Merida: small and boring unless you want to hike all the time as the mountains are very nice, kind of Lake District in North West England.
Maracaibo: there are beautiful places here but there is also a lot of rubbish in the streets.
I like people living in Venezuela and surprisingly I have felt very safe (comparing to Brazil). What I don't like in the country is that there are many great projects that have been started some time ago and never finished, or that there is so much potential in the country but nothing is done about it. For example: in Caracas renovation of the hotel on the Avila Mountain, in Merida repair of the cable car system, in Maracaibo many places where they started building something nice for the people (like a library or Parque La Marina) and they never finished the project.

I have spent 300 pounds in three weeks in Venezuela. I would have spent about 70 pounds less if I had brought more dollars and exchanged them on the black market. Do not make the same mistake I made.
I spent the money on travel between cities (43 pounds), public transport, food, occassional taxis and restaurants and it also includes my trip to Santa Marta in Colombia (30 pounds). Again, there is no accomodation cost.

Last night I tried to type few words in my blog but I was too drunk and I gave up quickly. I organised a Couch Surfing meeting in Plaza de Santa Lucia. It is a beautiful square but nobody told me that all the bars were going to be closed (well, I suppose nobody knew as the group is not very active and they don't meet up often). We were only five people but I had a great time. As everything was closed in Santa Lucia, we took our cars and we drove to another place, called Sarita near Bella Vista. It was a very nice and very famous bar with a lot of good Colombian vallenato music, which I like a lot now. I had such a good time that I hardly noticed new beers coming on the table and at the end it appeared that I drank eight (it is a miracle - I always drink two beers maximum :)).

Before the meeting Neo and Zoe (his sister) invited me to a trip to Sinamaica lagoon, desert and salt lake. It was absolutely amazing!!! It took us two hours to get there, first we had to get out of the city. There are many engineering schools and universities in Maracaibo because the region, called Zulia, is very rich in oil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Maracaibo
We passed by six dead dogs, one cat, one fox and one donkey!! - all of them hit by vehicles and left on the road to rot, even the big donkey... We also saw a carrito on fire, Neo jumped off his car with the fire extinguisher and helped the carrito driver to extinguish the flames.

Sinamaica lagoon was wonderful and so peacefull... I switched off my phone as I didn't want anyone to spoil the moment. We had an hour ride on a boat; you can observe people living in the houses on the water called palafitos, such a simple life!! In the picture with Zoe.
On the way back The Guys were giving me tips what not to do on the Venezuelan - Colombian border. Apparently thives will not be interested in me, the ones who will try to get as much money from me as possible are the police and military officers. So... do not give your passport to anyone, even if it is a police officer as they will demand money for giving it back to you. Just go to the custom office and show it to the right people. It happens that they put drugs in your rucksack and then they demand money for not reporting it. Be very vigilant.
The Guys also told me that in Venezuela often happens that if somebody dies, people throw the corpse on a driving car on a road and then they accuse the driver of killing the person. They demand money for not reporting it and not putting the driver into a big trouble. Oh my god...

I moved in with my second host in Maracaibo, Nehomar (aka Neo) and his family: parents, sister, brother and his girlfriend, their 3-year old son and..... a guinea pig :) They live far from the centre, in a district called Sierra Maestra, but they are such wonderful people that it doesn't matter. Neo has a car and he drives me everywhere, so kind!! My previous host Dayana was nice too but I didn't feel secure with her, I never knew what was going to happen in the next minute. With the family I found the feeling of security again.
In the late afternoon I met Lilly and Luis in La Estancia and I did a yoga class with Lilly (I was surprised to see this yoga class and not prepared at all so in the picture I am in a miniskirt :) and Lilly is behind me). It is so great that in Brazil and Venezuela they do free yoga classes, many people come to the classes and enjoy them a lot.
After the class we went to a theatre where you can watch films too. It is a French festival in Maracaibo at the moment so we watched "La hora cero" - film based on Agatha Christie's novel. The film was in French with Spanish subtitles so I decided to read the subtitles and learn new words in Spanish. I was surprised by how much I understood and indeed, I learnt some new words.

Yesterday I met Luis, Lilly and Stefan from Couch Surfing and we visited some places in Maracaibo (in the picture). After that we spent an hour in Susan's flat. Susan is Irish and she works as a chemistry teacher. She will be leaving Venezuela in a month time to work in China. She told me that the country has changed a lot (for worse) since she came here two years ago. It was twice cheaper and there were no electricity cuts. Regarding the blackouts, it is really annoying sometimes... You want to check emails... you can't - no power. You need to wash your clothes... you can't. You want to put air conditioning on... you can't. You have to take out money from a cash machine... you can't... All you do every day has to adopt to the electricity cut off times.
Usually a blackout lasts for two hours; it used to be four hours a day but people from Maracaibo protested to the government. It is very hot here, much hotter than in other parts of the country because it is a basin, and they desperately needed air conditioning.

Yesterday I had a very lazy afternoon, I did shopping and I had a chat with guys living with Dayana. They are heavy metal/rasta types and they play music in rock bands.
In the evening I met some Couch Surfers and we went to a very beautiful place where people dance. It is called Carribe Concert, a very high standard open air club with a swimming pool. They played salsa for about three hours and I was dancing. Although it wasn't the best quality dance, my dancing partners put all their hearts into the dance. At one point I got really sick and I had to run to the toilet to vomit, I think it is because of the heat and I also didn't drink much water. I like fizzy water and it is very difficult to find it here so I didn't bother with still water. However, I got scared after yesterday and I started drinking a lot of still water.
I felt sick for about 20 minutes and then I started dancing again. There was one lambada song (by Kaoma - the most popular in the world) and I was the only person who knew how to dance to it... Right before the club closed, Jose's friend Francisco and I jumped to the swimming pool in our clothes. It was forbidden but we decided to do it... just like naughty children :) As soon as we jumped, the security guards run towards us and told us to get out. We did, and before leaving the club we appologised to the owner who at the end was laughing at us.
I was given lift home and we started another party with the people from the flat and their friends. Marco made arepas for me (I am going to make them for my friends in London - you just mix special corn flour with water and salt, form the dough into flat shapes and put them in oven, although here people use electic arepa makers).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arepa
Then we started dancing salsa and then I was talking to Marco until 8 in the morning (by the way, Marco doesn't speak English, I had to speak Spanish!! :)).  I went to bed at 9 am, Dayana came back from a pub right before I fell asleep.... Dayana and I have completely different tastes when it comes to clubs and pubs so we go out seperately.

Yesterday I went out with Dayana. First we visited her mother who lives in a town outside of Maracaibo (Dayana drove her car). Then we went to a bar in the town, to celebrate birthday of Dayana's friend. Hmmm... how can I say it??... I hated it. The bar was small, full of cigarette smoke and loud music (no salsa music of course). I tried to speak to somebody but I gave up very quickly because of the music and I went outside to the terrace. I suppose I looked miserable but I didn't care, I just wanted to leave this place and go home. Then I started talking to some Venezuelan people sitting next to me. They didn't like the place either but they said that there was no much choice of bars and clubs in the town so they were "forced" to come to this one. When Dayana joined me outside, I apologised for being miserable, I was not going to pretend I was enjoying myself.

In Maracaibo

Distance: Merida - Maracaibo 400 km, time on the bus: 9 hours, cost: 11 pounds. It was very cold on the bus again, I was equipped with two extra pairs of socks and three extra summer tops under three jumpers and a jacket. I could not sleep anyway because the cold air was blowing in my face so I used the same tactic that before: I spoke to the drivers and I told them that I had a medical condition and if they didn't switch off the air conditioning, they would have to take me to a hospital. As before, they couldn't switch it off but again, they invited me to their cabin, to sleep on the seat next to the driver. Looks like I will have to lie like this for the next eight months of my trip.
Before I went to speak to the drivers, I had a three-hour conversation in Spanish with a beautiful guy from Bolivia sitting next to me. He was constantly asking the same question: "....but how can you pack all you need in one rucksack for a year???".... ha ha ha..... I was asking the same question myself, before I left London.

My host Dayana picked me up from the centre of Maracaibo, took me home and cooked a very tasty lunch. For the first time I saw somebody in Venzuela eating vegetables as it is very rare to see it here, people usually eat very greasy food and no fruits or vegetables. It is really scary what they eat, I sometimes observe people in the streets eating fried food and they put extra mayo or a lot of olive oil on it. It is really hard to spot a skinny person here, unlike in Europe. On the other hand they look good, tall big men (wow!! :)) and women with proper curves here and there.
In the afternoon I met Jose'. I put a message on the Couch Surfing website with my phone number and he rang me to say hallo and to arrange a meeting. We had a great time and I met some of his friends. We took a carrito to get to the shopping centre where we had a dinner, this is just unbelievable. Carritos are public transport cars, very very old cars, almost felling apart on your eyes, no windows, doors not closing properly, no air conditioning and wobbling wheels. When I got on the carrito, I started laughing and I couldn't stop. I love them although they pollute the environment a lot. You can see a lovely carrito in the picture.
Jose' told me that many thieves steal carritos and then they demand money for returning them (kind of a car kidnapping).
We also talked about the old hotel on the Mount Avila in Caracas (where I went by cable car) and why the government doesn't invest in the rennovation of the hotel. One of the reasons is that the last Venezuelan dictator's girlfriend (one of many) had an affair with a cook working in the hotel. The dictator (Marcos Perez Jimenez) found out about it so she jumped from the window and killed herself (because she knew that he was going to kill her anyway).
We also talked about death of the Polish president in April. Jose' said that there is a joke in Venezuela - people would like to employ Polish pilotes for Chavez.....

Yesterday I went to a club with Cesar, it was supposed to be a salsa club but instead they played reagge. Apparently there are no good salsa clubs in Merida, they play mixed music all the night.
I moved out of Cesar's place. His girlfriend was coming from Caracas and she was unhappy that I was staying in the flat. Hmmm.... Before, in my trip, I met a lot of girlfriends of my hosts and we got on very well straight away.
Actually, everything went wrong in Merida:
1. Cesar was going to host me until Thursday and then another guy was going to host me until Sunday.
Cesar kicked me out this morning; the other guy confirmed twice that I could stay in his place and then he changed his mind. Cesar was very apologetic but he was more scared of his girlfriend. He wanted to bring me a present to the bus station in the evening (to feel less guilty) but I didn't want to see him.
2. There is a longest in the world cable car system in Merida (I did read about it in a guide from 2004 and I was so happy to experience it) however it broke down in 2005 and it is going to work again in two years time (apparently). See the picture.
3. I haven't found anyone who would like to do hiking with me (I sent many emails to Couch Surfers) and there are no paths so you have to know the way to the first cable car stop. I can't go on my own.
4. The most important thing - there are no salsa places!!
I am feeling upset today for the above reasons and I am not staying here any more, I am travelling to Maracaibo this night. I have three hosts in Maracaibo and a lot of Couch Surfers want to go out for a drink with me.

This morning Cesar and I exchanged information about lambada and salsa dance and music and we had a look at some videos. I know that my salsa friends read my blog so I decided to list songs I like very much (there will be more to come):
Mark Antony (Puerto Rico) "Valio la pena"
Celia Cruz (Cuba) "La vida es un carnaval"
Jorge Celedon (Colombia) "Che bonita es esta vida"
I also listened to vallenato music which I thought was salsa but it is a completely different kind of music. Vallenato uses acordeon a lot, example: Diomedes Diaz (Colombia). His music is very similar to Brazilian forro' but I prefer forro' to be honest.
Here are some Venezuelan salsa singers:
Oscar D'Leon, Gilberto Santa Rosa, Los Adolescentes (band).
Then we moved again to the subject of Cesar's political activity, called Movimento 13 (called after 13 of March 1987, when a student was killed). Tomorrow and after tomorrow 14 Universities in the country will go on strike, demanding from the government a change of its attitude towards Universities (not to be against them as it is now), to give promotions to teachers, to employ new teachers and to provide Universities with money.

In Merida

Yesterday Hernan was going to give me a lift to the bus station, unfortunately he got stuck in the traffic when he was coming back from his mother's house, as it was raining a lot. He phoned and advised me to get the tube. It was only one hour to the bus departure so I got stressed. I quickly put my rucksack on my back, grabbed two other bags, took off my flip flops and run outside into the heavy rain. I was running for about 15 minutes until I got to the tube station. I was soaked to the bone and sweating all over my body. I got off at the Los Dos Caminos tube station near the bus station and I asked for directions. A man told me to take a bus as it was too dangerous to walk, however I just shouted "gracias" and I run. There were some bus stops on the way and as the word "dangerous" was ringing in my head, I adopted this tactic: I run to the first bus stop, hide behind it, looked around, waited 20 seconds and I run again to the second bus stop, waited 20 seconds, checked if everything around was ok, run to the next bus stop...... until I safely arrived in the bus station.
On the bus I met two Venezuelan girls (one was sitting next to me) and we had a long chat in Spanish. In the first ten minutes I got very upset how crap my Spanish was but then.... suddenly... magically... Spanish words started coming to my head and I started to understand what the girl was saying... So a year of learnig the language hasn't been wasted :)
After a few hours it got really cold on the bus, people were shaking and coughing, including the girls and of course - myself. At one point I could not take it any more, my patience finished. I went downstairs to the drivers' cabin (it was a double decker coach) and I told the drivers that I had a special medical condition and alergy to cold (ha ha ha...) and if they don't switch off the air conditioning, they will have to take me to a hospital. They told me that it was impossible to regulate or switch off the AC but they invited me to their cabin to sleep on the seat next to the driver. It was much warmer in the cabin however they put on very loud music, but at the end I prefered laud music than freezing cold... I thought about asking them to turn down the music but then I changed my mind as probably the music helped them not to fell asleep behind the wheel.

Distance: Caracas - Merida 680 km, 13 hours by bus, cost: 18 pounds.
My Couch Surfing host Cesar picked me up from the station, took me home, made coffee and arepas (traditional Venezuelan food), showed me around the town and told me a lot of stories about Venezuela and its people. Sometimes I can't believe how much I am learning during my trip and it is not like reading boring books, it is sooo interesting because I know the people and I am in the country I hear about. I just wish I could remember all the information in the future as I am not able to write it all down in the blog.

We talked about politics of course as Cesar is an anti-government activist at the University and he was shot twice during confrontations with the police. He showed me places on his head where doctors had to take out the bullets... He still has some bullets in his leg. In the picture: one of the demonstrations his University (ULA) organised in Merida.
We also talked about the shortage of electricity in Venezuela (and cut off in all parts of the country apart from Caracas as the president lives there, many schools and hospitals are based in the capital, and it is visited by many foreigners). For example Merida: the University doesn't have electricity from midday until 2 pm every day (consequently - no access to internet). The rest of the city doesn't have electricity from 2 pm until 4 pm or from 4 pm until 6 pm, et cetera. It was extremely noisy when we were walking in the streets today as people used big generators to light up their shops or houses, as a result of a cut off.
There are two big hydroelectric plants in Venezuela (in Caruachi and Guri) but the level of water is very low in them and this is the reason for the electricity shortage.
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5071

I am leaving Caracas today because it is a big city and the eight days I have spent here were enough to see all the main attractions and to do some dancing too :) I am heading to the mountains of Merida today (Sierra Nevada National Park) where I would like to do some hiking.
http://www.theworldwonders.com/southamerica/sierra-nevada-meridia.html

Today I have done the last bit of visiting as I went to the Avila mountain (El Avila) - 2765 meters above the sea level. You get to the top by a cable car (in the picture), it takes about 20 minutes each way. I liked it very much but it was not a good day for this kind of trip - it was a little bit cloudy, Sunday and also Mothers Day in Venezuela so there were too many people. Apparently the best time to visit the mountain is around 4 pm so you see the city during the day and you can wait for the sunset and until it gets dark. Unfortunately I was in a rush as I am taking a bus to Merida this evening.
Here are my pictures from Natal, Brazil:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/37219358@N07/sets/72157623900957777/detail/?deleted=4493774579

Today we have been to a beach in La Guaira. We drove about one hour from Caracas and through the second biggest favela (in Spanish: barrio) in South America, called Petare Barrio. Apparently the first one is Rocinha in Rio but the websites I searched show different information so at the end I am not sure which one is officially the biggest.
The beach was really nice, surrounded by green hills. The Carribean Ocean was wonderful, the water was transparent but very salty, much saltier than the Atlantic Ocean. I loved fighting with waves, drinking Venezuelan rum and generally I had a great time.
I was in a big trouble earlier today because I couldn't withdraw any money from cash machines, they just didn't accept my cards. Hernan drove me from one cash machine to another and finally, when I had 4 pounds left in my pocket, we went to the International Hotel and I managed to take the money out. Such a strange feeling - not having any money.... I made a big mistake of not bringing more dollars to Venezuela. Taking money out of a cash mashine exchanges it at the official rate so I am loosing a lot. If I had dollars I could exchange them on the black market and consequently I could be better off (my friends know how much I suffer for this reason).
In the evening I washed my clothes in a washing machine!! - such a luxury!! - it is the second time in three and a half months when I used a washing machine (on the first day I met Hernan he asked me if I would like to use it).
In the picture from the left: Hernan, Aura, Saskia, Aga, Maria (aka Latibu) and Ramon.

I went dancing salsa yesterday with Hernan's friend Will to a place called El Mani. I liked the place a lot and I could see that Venezuelans can dance!! :)) Such a good feeling - I am positive that I will do a lot of good dancing in the Spanish speaking countries and that I will not have to look for ages for a dancing club like I did in Brazil due to lack of information. However, the music was so laud that I had to leave the place after three hours as my ears hurt. There is also another thing - for the next eight months I will be dancing surrounded by the cigarette smoke... so horrible... I remember times in London when I was coming back home, my eyes hurt and my clothes did stink of cigarettes. Then England introduced a ban on smoking in pubs and clubs in July 2007, and it all changed for better. Now I am back to the same situation from years ago. Well, there is nothing I can do about it so I just need to keep dancing.
I want to dance a lot as Venezuelan food is very greasy and I have gained few extra kilos....
Today I met Alejandro and we went to Plaza Bolivar and then I went again to the place where Hernando works (in the picture, Hernando on the right).
Alejandor told me a story from his life, it sounds like a Venezuelan soap opera. He found out that he had a daughter when she was 4 years old and he met her when she was 15. He is actually not sure if it is his daughter but he pays money into her account. He recently went to see her and her mother (they live in Miami in USA) as they both had liposuction done. The daughter a standard belly fat liposuction, the mother a more complicated procedure (fat taken from some parts of the body and put in the bottom....).

I hate Venezuelan mosquitos!! They bite you and at first it itches, then it burns and then it is painful. I scratch my legs until I see blood, I just can't help it.
However, the mosquitos are the only thing I hate here :)) I can't even describe how much I am enjoying myself in Caracas.
I live with Hernan and his girlfriend Aura now, right in the centre of Caracas, near Plaza Venezuela (the main square). I met Hernan yesterday morning and we went for a lunch to a place where he works at the moment. I met his two colleagues, two very cute dogs and two cats, and I had a great time with them. In the evening I met Alex from Couch Surfing and his friends, they invited me for a drink and I had a great time too. I will be dancing salsa today and at the weekend!!
I was talking to Alex about how dangerous the city is; there is a lot of kidnapping going on. The gang follows you when you drive back from work and they kidnapp you in front of your house (so they know where you live). Then they find out how much money the family owns and on this basis they demand a certain amount of money for releasing the victim. Alex has two friends who were kidnapped in the past however he told me not to be scared because they will not do it when I am walking in the streets.
In the picture with Alex and David.

I woke up at 6.30 am again today but it was different. I was not sleepy like yesterday but very happy that I had the whole day ahead of me. I suppose I could get used to getting up that early.
Yesterday I did the Italian class, it was great. We did some exercises (quite easy for me :)) and then we were talking about different types of Italian coffee. I was surprised to find out that there is caffee called "corretto" o "al'orza" or "leccese"... (although nobody knew what leccese was).
Today I went to a hairdresser and I let a very lazy lady to chop off a lot of my hair. Before I came to South America I was nervous, asking myself: what do you do if you need to do something? The answer is sooo simple!! - you need to go to a dentist... you go to a dentist, you need to go to a hairdresser.... you go to a hairdresser... you need to buy something particular... you buy this particular thing.
I am meeting Alejandro today and we are going to the ZOO. I love the idea of going to ZOOs in South America.
My new discoveries about Venezuela:
food in supermarket is very expensive, there are same prices that in cheap supermarkets in London and prices go up every month as a result of huge inflation
when you go to a restaurant, cheap bar or even when you buy food in a supermarket, you always have to show your ID national number
Venezuela broke up the business relationship with Colombia so the two countries don't trade any more
you will  not buy a new car in Venezuela as they do not import new cars any more

This morning I had to wake up at 6.30 am as I have to leave the house with my host when she goes to work. She rents a very beautiful flat with three other girls but the landlord doesn't like the Couch Surfing idea. The girls still participate in the project but they ask their guests to leave and come back home with them. I do not mind doing it for few days as the girls are great but on Wednesday I am moving to the house of my next host (the one whose phone was switched off when I arrived in Caracas) so I will sleep a lot then :)
I got up at 6.30 am and I decided to do some visiting until 6 pm when I go to an Italian class!! Yes, Italian class in Caracas!! :) - my host Laura learns Italian so she invited me to do the class with her. 
So... in the morning Alejandro from Couch Surfing phoned me and asked if I would like to meet up. I contacted him a few weeks ago and I asked if he wanted to go out for a drink. Today we went to a beautiful botanic garden, then to the University of Caracas and to a place where you can see church, synagogue and mosque next to each other (meaning: how tolerant the country is!! - it would never happen in Poland).
I also found out the origins of the world "mafia" (while talking to Alejandro): Morte alla Francia Italia anela. I never really thought that the word had a meaning....
Mafia 
In the picture with Alejandro and his friends.

Caracas surprised me so much... The city is beautiful, surrounded by hills, it is clean and people in the streets wear nice and clean clothes (such a change after spending three months in Brazil...). It doesn't seem to be dangerous at all (although I am sure it is), you can use your camera and not get anxious that you are going to be killed for doing this. So far Recife in Brazil was the most dangerous city I have seen. In Recife people don't go out after 9 pm unless they have a car (for this reason I hardly did any dancing in the city) as there is no police, the level of crime is unbelievably high and you can see scared people in the streets, people scared of other people....
I have done some visiting today, I went to Centro Storico and the house of Simon Bolivar.
What I found out about Venezuela so far? As my friends know I like counting money very much :) so I did few calculations. In Venezuela there is an official money exchange market and black market. To exchange money on the black market you have to know somebody, otherwise you may get into trouble for buying fake money for example. My hosts helped me to exchange money on the black market, the rate is much better than on the official market.
So....
it costs 8 pence to take a tube (yes, 8 English pence!!), no matter what distance you travel
it costs 30 pence to take a bus (more than tube, incredible...)
petrol costs 15 pence a litre
1 litre of bottled water costs 1 pound 20 pence (!!)

These are the official market rates..... Venezuela is much cheaper than Brazil.
Other discoveries:
Venezuelan men are jaw dropping :))
there is a lot of control in the country, if people want to travel abroad they have a limit of 250 dollars which they can take out from bank per month. They have to ask permission to leave the country a month before they travel and when they come back to Venezuela they have to prove how much they spent abroad, what did they spent it on and where... oh my god!!...
Venezuelan people do not do much sport, they prefer to watch competitions on TV or talk about sports
Venezuelan coffee is veeery good, much better than Brazilian

There are two things I hate about Brazilian buses: firstly, it is too cold on them. People cough, sneeze and put lots of clothes on but nobody protests. I had a fight with drivers on the bus from Manaus, I politely asked to switch off the air conditioning, they said ok but they didn't switch it off. So I came back twice, I was very impolite, and it worked. I understood that the situation on the bus represented a nationwide political and economic problem - Brazilians don't protest, they accept what comes and say nothing, even if it damages their health.
Secondly, when drivers stop for lunch or break, they leave the engine switched on, working during the whole break. I got really upset about it and I told the drivers to switch it off as they were polluting the environment. They did it for me but I am sure they will not do it the next time. Polluting the beautiful Amazon forest in this stupid way, it really makes me sad...

On the first day in Caracas I tried to contact Hernan, my first host, with no success so I phoned my second host Laura. She was busy but when she heard that I was on my own, with no working phone and no money as my cards stopped working and I needed to phone my banks, she cancelled all her plans and she picked me up from a tube station. I am staying with her and her flatmate Betsy in a district called Marques (La California tube station) . They are just won-der-ful and so Venezuelan!! I didn't like the energy in Brazil, here everything seems to be sooo different... I saw a TV programme about Caracas about a year ago and they showed the city in the worst possible way, a lot of crime and generally the message was: never go to Caracas. I like the city very much.
The picture: in Poland squirrels are red, in England grey and in Venezuela..... black!!

VENEZUELA, In Caracas

I am so happy with my decision to cancel the flight to Caracas and to take the bus instead. You can see how dramatically the landscape and the vegetation changes, as soon as you cross the border. The bus replacement arrived within five hours and my fellow backpackers got off in Santa Elena, on the Venezuelan side, as they wanted to do some trekking in Gran Sabana.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Gran_Sabana
On the way to Puerto la Cruz we saw Mount Roraima (2810m) and a chain of mountains separating Venezuela from Guyana. There was no rainforest any more - just green hills and the high mountains.
In the picture: drinking rum while waiting for the bus replacement at the Venezuelan border.
I suddenly felt very very lonely when the guys (backpackers) got off the bus and I left all my friends in Brazil behind. I am on my own again, in another country, and I have to learn from the beginning how to survive. There was no phone reception for three days when I was on the bus in the Amazon forest so I felt very isolated for this reason too.
I arrived in Puerto la Cruz where I saw the thickest people in the world, working in the bus station. There was no tourist information whatsoever and everyone was giving me different information about buses, fares and times. Eventually, somebody explained to me that a bridge had been damaged near Caracas and instead of 5 hours on the bus you had to travel 12 hours as all the buses were on diversion... So I found a taxi (cars could cross the damaged bridge) which I shared with a Venezuelan family, it did cost 15 pounds (320 km, 4-hour drive to Caracas). I wanted to talk to them so much (to the family) but I was so tired that my mouth just didn't want to open...
Caracas represents all I expected to see in South America and how I imagined it. It is sooo different from Brazil and it seems to me that there is more positive energy here than in Brazil, although there is a high level of poverty and Caracas is apparently the most dangerous city in the world. But they play salsa music everywhere and I felt so cheerful when I walked through the market with my rucksack and bags (one would say that I am crazy walking with all my stuff in the middle of Caracas...). I am in an internet cafe' now, waiting for my Couch Surfing host to wake up and answer the phone...