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, unsurprisingly these looked the most dodgy areas. The sides were heavily eroded by rain partly exposing huge boulders. These bolders were pivoting on slender earth stumps that the rain hadn't washed away. However the numerous boulders on the sides of the road indicated that rock falls were frequent - scary.

We eventually arrived in Merida after 15 hours on the bus and a cool 28 hours since we set off. The place we are staying is nice it has an amazing view from the hamock of the highest mountain in Venezuela (once it is out of the clouds).