We had breakfast and prepared to travel back to Merida. Alan's dog knew that he was going and started to shake. The crossing was a lot calmer and we were rewarded with a sighting of some river dolphins. We took an alternative route back through the Andes to Merida, stopping at a river to observe the vultures. Liz was not feeling well and sat in the van. One good thing about Venezuela is the coffee. We went to a coffee museum to have some fantastic coffee and...

I got up early and lay in the hammock with coffee from Belize to watch the sun rise above the mountains and reflect on the Venezuelan experience. Some statistics suggest that Venezuela has the highest crime and Caracas the highest murder rate in the world. What makes Venezuela particulary scary for most travellers is the police corruption, you seem to be just as likely to be a victim at the hands of the police than the people. The fear of crime has affected our...

Merida is positioned at the begining of the Andes below the 5007m Pico Bolivar (highest in Venezuela). It attracts the outdoor enthusiast with a vast array of things you can do with mountains. However for the less energetic it also has the longest and highest cable car in the world (when it is finished being repaired). For us Merida is a safer cleaner place to relax after some long bus journeys. We have a nice clean room with an amazing view of the mountains (bl...

We packed a lot of warm clothes for the bus but it wasn't enough. For some reason they want to freeze us to death with the A/C. All the locals were feeling the cold going by the coats, blankets and woolly hats - why? The route took us into the Andes via lots of long tunnels. The road was littered with lots of little road side shrines similar to the ones that you see in Greece to mark the places that people died. The shrines were heaviest near deep steep cuttings...