And then there was one...

Ok, about a week ago we got the classic scam we had been warned about in Ciudad Bolivar. We were at these particular atms where the posada people had warned that guys hung around there trying to "help" you work the atm and some way or another copy/clone your card. Well, we really didn't fall for anything. One of these guys basically took my card out of my hand and scanned it through their own magnetic strip reader that they put on one of the atms. I could see him reading over my shoulder to try and get my pin, so i cancelled the transaction and we left. Back at the posada this english girl told us that they used that scanner and took it back to their place or whatever and had my info. I had to cancel my card and now i have to wait for my mom to send it to bretts sisters boyfriends house in Recife. Ive been in this situation before and it sucks. You have to solely rely on one card and pray that the atm works or else youre screwed and since no one out here takes credit cards, it makes things harder. Pain in the butt.

Yesterday in Boa Vista, we went to this guys house who runs a boat from his house out to small secluded beaches across the rio branco, among other things. We had this whole beach to ourselves complete with some beers, books, and a very warm river to swim in. It felt like a lower class corona commercial.

We're here in Manaus after another fun overnight bus trip. It really wasnt so bad. No police checks and no broken down bus. Tomorrow we leave for a 3 day amazon trip where we'll go piranha fishing and alligator spotting. By friday, i'll try and post some new pics. Until then..

Falo um poco de portugues

So we made it to brazil. It was an adventurous ride. We decided to opt for the 'carrito' option, which wasj ust basically this guys dumpy sedan instead of the bus. It cut an hour off the trip (2 hours) though a bit more expensive. Like my mother predicted, tons of crosses on the sides of the road due to the crazy driving and our driver was no exception. Made it safe and sound.

Anyway, rolled in on a sunday which is never good. It's practically a ghost town here in Boa Vista. Lots of empty stands, jplazas, and closed restaurants. However, it's given us a great opportunity to study up on the area where we're in/going to and our portuguese. We've done alright so far with the hotel and cafe personnal. Thankfully, everyone's been nice and patient with us.

We went to this small restaurant overlooking the Rio Branco for some beers and I thought to myself, never thought i'd be sitting in a remote town in northern brazil listening to my humps, foo fighters, and jay z but there we were. After an early evening storm, we walked to a grocery store in search of some batteries. Brett had a moment where he realized that nobody stared at us like we had four heads like they did in venezuela. They also didn't look at us like they were itching to rob us. Very nice. So we browsed the aisles and walked out with drinkable yogurt, apples and oreos. Dinner fit for a king.

...Bienvenidos a Miami

These next few pictures are from our weekend in miami. Nothing too significant. Jen lost her cellphone so the only time we saw her was when she drove us from the airport to our hotel.
Made it just in time for the 15 degree drop in the weather
Our weird 50s style hotel, Deauville
Nate´s friends kush and catalina
Brett getting fresh with the colombian Catalina
Bongos nightclub

Brett just bit my face

1-28-06 (brett says:) We had four bus options headed from ciudad bolivar to the small border town of santa elena, two in the morning and two at night. we thought we´d save money on a hotel and take the night bus. this was a mistake. the bus itself was probably the nicest sleeper bus i´ve ever seen. the seats reclined almost completely flat and they even had leg rests that folded down from the seats in front. everything was fine until just after midnight. first we were stopped by the police and everyone had to take all of their bags off the bus and dump out the contents in front of this make-shift police station. that took about half an hour. Then as we were falling asleep again the bus pulled over at a rest stop and killed the engine. almost everyone filed off but we figured it must just be a routine stop for food so we didn´t bother. after almost two hours in and out of sleep i figured something must be wrong and we got off to find out most of the other passengers had hitched a ride on another bus a while back and we were stuck with a broken down bus in the middle of nowhere waiting to thumb a ride the rest of the way. disheartened, to say the least, we went back to our seats. The venezuelan slow jams playing way too loudly on the bus didn´t help and i sat awake waiting and sweating watching ruby sleep soundly next to me. luckily, another bus came by and we ran ahead of the others and got the only available seat for two. despite the new bus being a serious step down in comfort we fell asleep for a few hours until a screaming baby started its work before daylight. Between that and the recklessly fast driving pitching us from side to side, we didn´t get any more sleep and finally arrived about 830 am in the Santa Elena bus station, exhausted.

Spent the morning delirious putting together our brazilian visas at the "consulate" which basically amounted to a converted back section of someone´s house. The whole town is tiny and reminiscent of something out of the old wild west. I´d call it a one horse town, ruby would too if she knew expressions in english. The most curious part of this town is that it functions as the center of operations for brazilians who come across the border to buy cheap venezuelan gasoline to resell down south. There are lines hundreds of cars long at each of the two military controlled stations in town and people wait for hours, possibly even a half day or more, to get gas. i guess it makes sense at about 20 cents a gallon here and over $2 just a few miles away. Anything to turn a buck i suppose.

( ruby says:) Going to Brazil tomorrow. I´m not quite sure these portuguese cds are going to quite cut it.

Caracas

These pictures are of the first week when we were in Caracas. We started out in a decent (although Lonely Planet described it as "upscale") area called Altamira. The hotel we stayed in was too expensive and wasn´t that great. Then we moved on to a cheaper but seedier area called Sabana Grande. Our room was technically clean but nonetheless, felt gross. It was basically constructed out of concrete and had an extremely dull bulb to light the room. The mattress was covered in plastic and the sheets kept falling off so i´d wake up on gross plastic. we called it our jailcell.
View of "upscale" Altamira from hotel room
Pro-Chavez propaganda puppet show
Plaza Altamira
Sambil - largest mall in south america
cement nightstand
passport-money hiding place
depressing light in depressing room
creepy bathroom in our jailcell
plaza venezuela

teleferico (terrifying gap over valley)
Te comiste un perro con todo? Piensa rapido. -Smirnoff Ad
stands all over the place
dog on a roof
Barrio on a hillside

Posada Don Carlos

Salto Angel

Our lovely craft
Salto Sapo - walked behind this one
lunch break waterfall on the way to salto angel
me swimming at base of salto angel
neat green snake
camp
dinner
salto angel

Back to reality (oh, there goes gravity?)

Ok, so enough of the past. Time to move on to real time. We just got back from 3 days visiting Angel Falls. It was glorious. Here´s what brett wrote about it (we still can´t upload from his palm pilot):

We just returned from a very enjoyable 3 day trip to Angel Falls. I was a big skeptical about taking a planned tour to the "world´s highest waterfall" (see the indian village, buy their junk, etc) but it turned out to be really great. The tours depart from a small town in a national park called Canaima in the middle of the Venezuelan amazon. No roads even approach the town so we flew in on a small cessena (cindy you would´ve died). The flight was fine despite our concerns about venezuelan aviation safety standards and it was a bit nerve-racking watching the guy eat his breakfast with no hands on the controls while balancing his juice in his lap and chatting with another passenger while turned around facing the back of the plane. In addition to his cavalier appraoch, we were flying most of the way through thick clouds with nearly zero visibility. Luckily he had his little Garmin handheld GPS on the dash. Landed on a tiny potholed runway. The area is famous for its "tabletop" mountains or Tepuis which made for dramatic scenery on the way in. Dropped our things off at the posada and met the guide and the boat drivers. The boat was essentially a dugout canoe with a 50hp outboard on the back. We spent the next 4 hours speeding up the river enjoying the scenery but in ridiculous pain from the hard wooden seats. We were on of the lucky groups to get a camp witha view of the falls and it was dramatic. The water starts out at the top as a single stream and by the time it has dropped the 3,000 plus feet to the bottome it is nothing but a huge sheet of mist. Quite a sight. Camp was basic but the food was surprisingly good. Whole chickens roasted over a fire pit. Slept in hammock which were alright but i didn´t sleep much.

Everyone, including the guide, had been giving us a hard time about how little we packed for the trip (just ruby´s little marmot bag) so when we headed out on the jungle hike to the base of teh falls in the a.m., we were determined to show them all it could be done in flip flops. So while everyone put on their hiking gear, we stood there hoping we hadn´t made a mistake. The terrain turned out to be a bit rough but nothing we couldn´t handle. I did get bitten by some fire ants which was nice. Finally got to the top and had a great view of the falls. Hiked down a pool at the base and swam in the cold water. Saw a neat green snake. Got annoyed by the 6 other germans in the group.

On the boat ride back it poured most of teh way which made it unpleasant. Everyone was exhausted by the time we got back to the posada, so we ate and crashed. Unfortunately we were in the room nearest the villages dining area which doubled as a disco at night. And some frenchies decided to give their asian friend some english lessons right outside our window. Got bit by mosquitos and didn´t sleep well.

Today we went to see some nearby waterfalls where we were able to walk behind the water. They were a good size and it was neat to see the force of the water from teh backside. Got completely soaked and dried off in the sun on the other side with a great view of the huts and basic farms surrounding the town. Finally went back adn said bye to our guide Jose and german guys were nice but stank like shit. Thunderstorms made the return flight more hair raising. Ruby wasn´t having fun at all.

We´re staying at a great posada called Posada Don Carlos. The german owner if very friendly and the place is built around an open air area in the center giving it a very pleasant feel. They also have german-syle bar witha serve-yourself beer fridge which spellsl trouble for thirsty travelers such as ourselves. Had a fun night with 4 irish boys last weekend sitting around drinking and shooting the shit. Nice to be with other travelers. Great change of pace from Caracas, that´s for sure.

Day 2

1-15-06 We spent our second day in miami waiting for our bags and exploring our ridiculously bizarre hotel. To our surprise, they were delivered in the morning so we could go on with our plans for the night. Took off around dinner time with nate and his buddy kush to an all-indian party first (hilarious) and then weaseled our way into gloria estefan´s club Bongos managing to avoid the stupid $20 cover. It was a good time until ruby and i started fighting which lasted through the night and well into the next morning on the flight. We were slightly intoxicated and didn´t get to bed til 5am and then back up at 7 to meet ruby´s dad for a ride to the airport. Delerious on the flight and finally landed in Venezuela.

What´s the worst that could happen? The airline loses our bags again and we spend an hour in line waiting to fill out the claim form. May have been a blessing in disguise however because we met this lawyer from Caracas who offered to have his driver take us to the city. This was a great relief as we had been worried about getting a taxi since the main road is closed making the normal 30 min. drive a 4 hour ordeal over the mountains. The traffic turned out to be worse than anyone expected. For most of it, walking would have been a quicker option. We sat parked in a huge line of cars on a windy two-lane mountain pass sucking exhaust from a dune buggy we were behind. Got quite a view of the "other" side of Caracas on the way in. Drove through an amazing shanty town precariously perched on the steep slopes of the hills. Finally got into the hotel; turned out to be a pretty decent place though the room is a bit dilapidated--somewhat reminiscent of the good ol Deauville. Went and got some tough steak and good fried cheese at a place across the street and came back to finally sleep off the punishing hangover

Greetings from Ciudad Bolivar

Ok, so it´s been almost a week and we´ve written a few entries but we aren´t able to transfer it from brett´s palm pilot that he bought. Now, since we didn´t bring the CD for its software, we have to find a place that has wireless internet. That may not be so easy. So, just so we don´t get too far behind, i´m going to rewrite what we wrote a few days ago. Here i go:

1-13-06 Our trip got off to a rough start. After a long night of stressful packing, we missed the alarm this morning and finished things up in a frenzy. I had to go to the post office to mail tyler his books. Then saby, chica, and dad (ruby´s family) came over to see us off. Rushed to the airport during the first serious snow of the winter and just made our flight to ft. lauderdale. Then things got worse when we got off the flight and found out that our bags weren´t there. Friday the 13th lived up to its reputation -- they had lost our bags somewhere between midway and florida. perfect. So after filling out the clima form we met ruby´s friend jennifer and she gave us a ride to our ¨hotel.¨ Traffic was bad so she dropped us off somewhere in south beach and we took a cab the rest of the way to the Deauville. Sweet spot. Found out what $375 buys you in miami --a crappy room with moldy ceilings, rusty fixtures, and some gross little hairs in the soap dish. Frustrations aside, Ruby´s long lost father made the drive up here and picked us up for some dinner at ol johnny rockets. Sorted out some family resemblences and moved on toa rain storm and a bar with ruby´s friend nate. had some lovely conversation about his job for teach for america and went back to the hotel. With no positive news from the concierge, we went to the room and passed out.

Check this out...