Venezuela #3: adventures to and in Merida

According to Lonely Planet, the best currency exchange rate in the entire country is found at a particular street corner in Santa Elena. We dutifully head there, and after some negotiation with a guy recommended by our orange juice seller, settle on a rate of 1USD: 8.1 Bolivares. Not bad, considering the hotel rate is 7.5, and the 'official exchange rate' at the banks is 1:4. There's something that feels really shady about receiving 5650 Bs at a Santa Elena street corner. It doesn't help that about 3000Bs was given to us in 20Bs-notes. I had thick wads of cash stuffed in my sling bag, and was counting a stack at a time. I would then pass them to SQ, who would try to remember how much he had in his hand, while trying to look inconspicuous. By the way, it is impossible to look Chinese and be inconspicuous in S. America. In Peru they were pointing at us in the street. In Venezuela they are content with occasional stare.

Finished counting money, continued walking around Santa Elena (dusty border town with mild backpacker vibe). We were looking for Picante de Hormigas (ant salsa), but none of the supermarkets had any. Lunch on the way back from Roraima trek was at a Pemon fried chicken restuarant, and the chili sauce was excellent! Later we learnt that the fiery kick was due to the addition of fire ants. Large scale ant harvesting occurs when the rains flood ant nests, and the virgin queens fly out to mate. It's an important source of protein for the Pemon tribes. Learn more here (for English) and here (for the original website in Spanish. this one has a picture of the ants). Finally found our picante on a table at a roadside restaurant and begged the cook to sell us a bottle.

Next step: overnight bus to Ciudad Bolivar, then flight C.B.-> Caracas -> Merida. No problem, right? We load up luggage, get on bus (Occidente Express). Very nice reclining seats. Go to sleep. 1+ hour later, wake up to angry shouting. Bus not moving, at the side of the road. EVERYONE was outside. There were a few soldiers with rifles, but the bulk of the shouting was directed at a few ladies wearing red jackets and blue caps. Turns out, they are customs officials looking for bootleg whisky smuggled in from Brazil. They want to search every single bag on the bus. The aunties on the bus are very angry and refuse to be searched. Eventually, the officials agree to only check a few bags. The entire bus follows them to their tent to watch the search. As they pull out a closet worth of clothes from a duffle, the crowd triumphantly announce every non-whisky article. It was fascinating to watch. And pretty fun. I wish I knew some Spanish swear words.

That was not the only adventure to befall our bus. We stopped at least 2 more times due to mechanical problems, until finally, an hour before our destination, it stopped entirely. It is very disorientating to stand by the side of a Venezuelan highway with one's backpack, with little sleep, a full bladder, and a plane to catch in 2 hours. We arrive by taxi to the airport, with 30mins to spare! And found that of course, they did not have our plane reservations. Hm. Turns out our agent issued our 2 tix under one code. This generated an error, which cancelled both tickets. Not a problem. We get tix on the next flight, and can still make our transfer to Merida.

10pm that night, we take a taxi from El Vigia airport to what Google Maps (and LP) tell us is Posada Suiza. (We shared the cab with 2 Germans going to Merida for a wholistic tribal healing conference!!?) The building had a Swiss flag painted on one side. The sleepy guy we woke up said 'Si.' when we asked 'Posada Suiza? Tengo una reservation.' We had pre-booked a Los Llanos tour with Colibri tours, and they gave us a good rate on their guesthouse.

Mountain village near Merida

We were not impressed by the accommodations. The room was small, the place felt old. Next day, we tried to ask the lady sweeping the floor about our tour. She said she was only an employee. The boss and lady boss were not in. Maybe 4pm? But yes, they had tours. Look at these folders.

We go out to explore. The church at Plaza Bolivar (every town had a Plaza Bolivar) had very nice stained glass, and a very haunting statue of Christ on the crucifix. Christ was composed of masses of writhing bodies. Plaza Bolivar also had multiple tables/stalls selling handmade jewelry, local wine/honey/oils, wooden toys etc. Some very unique items. Back at posada at 4pm. Still no boss. 3 kids arrive. They run around shouting. 8pm, still no boss. I take a nap. SQ goes out to explore. 830pm, SQ runs back to room, wakes me up. He found the real Posada Suiza! It's 2 blocks away! It has a Colibri tours sign on it! He talked to the owner there and we still have our reservation! Pack now! Let's go! 

So confused. We throw everything into our backpacks. We walk out, no one is around. We escape the fake Suiza and practically run to the real Posada Suiza. Apparently, we were at the Posada Vene-Suiza, run by the ex-wife of the original owner, who re-established Posada Suiza 2 blocks away. We encounter the boss of the Vene-Suiza on the street the next day, and he demanded to be paid. We were relieved to conclude that very strange incident. According to the posts online, this has happened before, with Vene-Suiza happy to confuse everyone.

A Mucuchie, an Andean breed which was a faithful companion to "El Liberator", Simon Bolivar

While waiting for the Stanford gang to join us at Merida, we took a tour to the surrounding mountain villages and the Merida Observatory (Observatorio Nacional de Llano del Hato). It is the highest major observatory near the equator, at 3600m and 8 degrees north, with good access to both the northern and southern skies. It was cloudy that night, and we nearly didn't get to see anything! Thankfully the sky cleared up later, and they trained one of the telescopes onto Jupiter. Jupiter was very cool. I was surprised to find that it looked exactly like the textbook picture, with cream and orange bands, like an orange-cream flavored lollipop. I saw 2-3 of its moons-- little black dots next to the lollipop. It was very cold up there at night. I don't know why it didn't occur to us that night time at 12,000ft would be cold.