Month: December 2011

We spent the day in Bolivar with a guided tour, ate lunch at a fish restaurant (the fish tasted very fishy) and at the evening we flew to Isla Margarita – a flight that takes around one hour. We arrived at the hotel pretty late and me and Olivia got to bed at once.

Today it was so nice to eat breakfast at a breakfast buffet – to be able to eat what ever you want, how much you want and at what time you want. And it was nice to not have these eggs and these arepas to breakfast like we’ve got almost the whole journey. After breakfast we went straight to the beach and we’ve spent the whole day there, greedy to get as much sun on our winter white Swedish bodies as possible. But I’ve already got a bikini line! 🙂

Here it’s almost five in the afternoon and in Sweden it’s almost 22.30 – one and a half hour ’til New Year and I guess you’re partying at the most right now. Don’t get too drunk folks 😉 Here the hotel staff is fixing for the evening and my Internet time is soon over so I will go take a shower and fix makeup and hair and so on for tonight, New Year! We’re celebrating it five and a half hours later than you in Sweden so I’m wishig you all a happy new year here and now – Happy New Year from a warm Venezuela and hugs from me!

//ALiCE med ICE

We all woke up pretty early – it’s not that comfortable to sleep in a hangmata. We ate breakfast at 5.30 (eggs and arepas again) and left the falls early and were back at the camp/hotel in Canaima before lunch. After lunch and a few hours waiting (always this waiting) at the “airport” we finally got with a flight from Canaima. This airport is really a little open house next to the landing area, where women sell necklaces and bracelets, and the airplanes are small ones with five to thirty seats or something like that.

It was nice to be back at the hotel in Bolivar which felt really luxury after the night in the primitive camp by the Angel Falls. We spent the afternoon in the sun by the pool and ate a very preciated meal of pizza in the evening, full of amazing images of the powerfall Angel Falls!

Angel Falls, picture from Google

//ALiCE med ICE

We were supposed to eat breakfast at 7.30 but it was at eight – this Venezuelan definition of time again. We were also supposed to leave for Angel Falls – the highest waterfall in the whole world – at nine but we left the lagoon at 10.30. The four hours boatride to the Angel Falls was dramatic – it was like Flumride or Colorado in Liseberg but ten times worse (or better?) – water that wet you down every time we drove up one “step” in the river, stones and sticks from the trees that the “captain”  skilfully avoided and lots of “steps” in the river to drive up through. The heart pounded pretty fast at those “steps”, boy it did.

When we finally got to Angel Falls we started to climb the long way up at once, because we wanted to be back at the camp before it was dark. Our local guide told us the climb would take one and a half hour, but we started at 14.45 and we marched over the roots and up the mountain in a high speed so we were at the view point 40 minutes later – totally wet of sweat but stunned by the breathtaking sight up over the highest waterfall in the world. It’s not that wide but it’s very high – almost one km high. After a little rest at the viewpoint we climbed up a little bit more to take a swim right where all the water from the fall lands, in a little “bowl” filled with cold water from the Angel Fall. Pretty cool to have swimmed in the water of the highest waterfall in the world, isn’t it?

We spent the evening playing cards with another Swedish family and slept in hangmatas – we slept around twenty persons in under a roof with open walls to the dark djungle and fell asleep to the sound of the water from Angel Falls, wind in the trees, birds and other sounds from undefinitioned animals.

//ALiCE med ICE

Finally I’ve got access to a working computer with Internet again!

The 27th of December we got up early to be at the airport across the street at six and eat breakfast there. After some waiting we flew over to Canaima in five seats-planes – a flight which took around one hour. It was really cool but pretty scary – and very noisy – to fly in such a small plane – it felt like the wind could catch the plane anytime and the start and the landing felt pretty scary… but we survived and we found ourself at the beach by the Canaima lagoon for one and a half hour before we got our rooms and ate lunch. The “lagoon” (which is not really a lagoon but looks like one) was beautiful with a beach, and the water – lake water – was nice though it wasn0’t deep at all. After lunch (a mountain of pasta and a little meat sauce on top, guess pasta is very cheap and meat expensive) we went by the boats to the other side of the lagoon to walk up to the top of a big waterfall. During the little walk the sky opened up and we practicly got showered in the rain. The sight over the waterfall was powerful when we after a fifteen minutes walk got to the top.

We walked down again and came to the bottom of a big waterfall – and now was the time for the coolest and most amazing, magnificent thing I’ve ever done – we walked under the waterfall. It was an amazing feeling to walk under the waterfall with thousands and thousands liters of water falling over you. We got totally wet but it was definitely worth it – I can’t describe how cool this was!

Picture from Google – I think it’s the waterfall to the left that we walked under!

Dinner – pretty strange one with omelett, rice and arepas (some venezuelan bread of corn that they serve everywhere and anytime) and then we slept well though our shower didn’t work…

//ALiCE med ICE

We started the day early to experience the river again at six in the morning when the sun hasn´t really gone up yet, and when the animals still are active. We slid through the water and split the surface very quietly – it was really peaceful and we saw the monkies much closer this time.

After breakfast we left the camp by motor boat and then from the marina, we were suppose to be picked up at eleven but our ride picked us up around one and a half hour later – the perception of time is pretty difernt here than in Sweden – it´s like they don´t have a clock and everything is very relaxed – you can never know when you actually are going to get your breakfast or be picked up et cetera…

Anyway, we went by the bus for four hours and then arrived at the hotel here in whats-its-name, but it´s close to the Angel Falls! We´ve spent the afternoon by the pool and soon I´m going up to the hotel room to was my hair (that will be so nice – the showers by the camp had water directly from the river) and then we´ll eat dinner. Tomorrow we´ll leave early to take a few planes over to the Angel Falls area. Yes, you read right, a few planes – the planes are so small with only five seats so our company will have to spread out in two or three planes. Very exciting! The Angel Falls are the highest waterfall in the whole world and it is very beautiful so this is going to be fun.

I have to finish now, I won´t have access to a computer again for at least two days but now you´re a little bit updated 😉 I´ll write again as soon as I´ve got a computer. Hugs!

//ALiCE med ICE

Hello people, finally I´ve got access to Internet!

The day before Christmas eve started at 03.30 a.m. with breakfast, and then Pierre drove us to the airport, the plane left Sweden around six in the morning. We paused in Frankfurt, Germany, for around three hours and had breakfast (again) and then we boarded the plan that would take us to Caracas, Venezuela – a flight as long as almost eleven hours!

When we finally got to Caracas airport we were of course really tired, but we had to wait an hour or two for a third plane that would take us a bnit further into the country. When we finally lay down in our beds in the hotel, we had been travelling for 24 hours and we were very, very tired.

Christmas eve, the 24th of December, started with breakfast (that took like one hour to fix) and then we took a bus and then a boat out to a camp in the delta that I do not remember the name of 😉 We had lunch there and then we experienced the delta by leaking canoes and a motor boat. We ended up fishig piranas and Olivia got the first one! The night was spent in beds covered with mosquito nets, in hotel rooms with palm leaves as doors and a view right out in the mangrove swamp, with no glass window between. We slept to the sound of barking dogs, screaming howling monkies and the birds´singing.

//ALiCE med ICE