Not looking forward to today - an early start 5:30am to get to the bus station for 7:30am departure and a 11 hour journey. It is feeling like the start of Central America again - ie not much fun.

The bus station was a bit like an airport you had to check your luggage in and then wait to be called for boarding the bus (they even scaned you for weapons). There was the usual last minute issues to sort out namely getting water. The restaurant had some and they said that they opened at 7am. Unknown to me our watches were 30 minutes fast. I just couldn't understand why they refused to serve me when my watch showed it being well after 7 and getting too close for comfort to the expected departure time. A local clicked and showed me the time - ah that's why. With that sorted and it being after 7am I decided to have a coffee - it was pure bliss and as good as I heard it was.

We are having a lot of communication problems here, the bus being delayed didn't help. You fear the worse ie we missed the call to board and our bags were speeding away from us. Even when we were called to board we had to keep checking with the locals that we were on the right bus.

The bus moving put our minds to rest as it was now too late to do anything about it. The slums of Caracas went by and we were soon in countryside and freezing from the air con.

Eleven hours later after one stop for something to eat we arrived at Cuidad Bolivar pretty knackered.

We dodged the locals trying to sell tours and headed to a lovely but expensive posada called Don Carlos. The strange Belgium owner Paul was in a joking mood, he gave us a figure 6 times the real price to stay and then watching our faces drop.

Two beers each and bed without anything for dinner.