It's taken us the best part of a day to get to Ciudad Bolivar, crossing back to the mainland by ferry and then by road. In true Venezuelan style, the bus broke down en route and we had visions of having to camp out in the middle of nowhere. However, the passengers piled out and got to work on the engine and within 30 minutes they have changed the fan belt and we were off again. Bolivar is on the Orinoco river and is named after 'El Liberator' Simon Bolivar who with the help of the British army liberated Venezuela, Columbia and Guinea from Spanish rule in the mid 1800's. Amazingly Ciudad Bolivar is the location of the only bridge to cross the Orinico river along it's entire 2150km length. We arrived in time for the annual Sapora festival when the annual appearence of the Sapora fish means they pass by here and are caught in abundance by the fishermen. They are gutted, weighed and sold on the riverfront and having had a grilled one, we can testify the are mighty nice. Sunday was the date of the Presidential referendum so we kept our head down as the place was prevelent with a military presence here, enforced with AK47's. There was concern of civil isruption but as the existing President, Hugo Chavz won things were relatively quiet although some people were killed up in Caracas. We based ourself here in order to arrange our three day trip into the jungle to get to Angel Falls. We depart on the 15th.