Puerto Columbia to Merida
From Puerto Columbia we took the bus via Maracay to Merida, a Venezuelan city sitting at the foot of the Andes
Day 5
After the beach in morning, we caught the bus to Maracay (6,000 Bv each 2 hours), joined forces with a fellow backpacker and booked a bus to Merida at the station that was due to leave later that night(40,000 Bv). Not a lot to do in Maracay so caught a taxi to the shopping centre and watch Saw II (9,000 Bv) as it was the only film in English, it was awful! Back to the bus station we waited around for the bus, eventually getting our bags on shoving and pushing with the Venezuelans, before being told the bus was full! After getting our bags back from the disgruntled luggage man we managed to get on a bus an hour or two later.
Day 6
Arrived in Merida frozen to the bone from the air conditioning on the bus, we found a nice posada Jama CHia and the four of us got a room for 15,000 Bv each.
We then had a traditional Venezuelan breakfast in the only cafe open for 6,000 Bv. We then rented mountain bikes and attempted cycle up the Andes, bad idea!
After cycling back down we visited an ice cream palour that holds he guinness world record for number of flavours.
The evening was spent around the scare drinking beer and strange local wine. We had BBQ’d meat on a stick and hame and cheese pancakes for dinner.
Day 6
Got up early to go on the teleferico, the longest cable car in the world, followed by an interesting local bar and more meat on sticks, we just couldnt get enough of them, Venezuelan meat is amazing!
