Catching Up, Again

After the Forum, and the Hilton, we stayed in a cheap hotel in Caracas for another couple of nights, to explore the city. We took a cable car to the top of the mountain which separates Caracas from the ocean, which was great because you can look to one side and see the waves coming in, and look to the other and see the city spread out below you...and it was great because up there its easier to breathe. We both found that our lungs were hurting after so many days in the city; apparently the pollution gets trapped between the mountains, making the air worse than in many other places.

We decided to get out of town, and headed towards the Caribbean coast. We took a ferry to a little island called Isla Margarita, and stayed in a hotel on the beach for a few days. Little did we know that while we were there our VISA card was somehow copied at one of the bank machines, and someone racked up $2000 on our card. But, we wouldn`t find this out for a few weeks, so we were happy while we were there.

When we got back to the mainland we went to Merida, which is supposed to be the adventure tourism capital of Venezuela. I guess it must be true, because while we were there we found ourselves involved in such activities as paragliding (an awesome half-hour ride through the wind, although landing was nauseating), a four-day safari tour to the flatlands (sights: thousands of birds, crocodiles, river dolphins, and an anaconda!), camping and hiking in the Andes (beautifully deserted), and taking the longest cable car in the world (four different stations, and the air`s thin and hard to breathe at the top).

After we`d had enough adventure, we hopped on a bus heading into Colombia, destination: Juan`s family just outside Bogota. By this time we`d found out about the VISA fraud, and arranged for the new credit card to be sent to an address in Bogota, hoping it would get there a few days after we did, just in time for us to move on again...