Day 48: Mérida, Venezuela

Two days ago, I said goodbye to Susanna, who left Venezuela this morning to begin her long, roundabout journey back to Hong Kong. I got a ride from a member of the China Club in Caracas, they were all quite nice people and really went out of their way to make sure I had a good trip. I was dropped off at the bus station, where I had previously gone to purchase my ticket. On my ticket it said my bus to Mérida would leave from gate 8. I waited a long time, in a ridiculously long line, only to find that the bus at gate 8 actually went somewhere else. I asked someone what to do, and he said that since my bus wasn´t at gate 8, it must be at gate 16. I wasn´t sure what his logic was, but I suspect his suggestion was based on the fact that 16 is a multiple of 8, and thus would be the next logical choice.

Fortunately, on my way to gate 16, I was skeptical enough to keep my eyes open and saw that in fact my bus was at gate 13. I ran over to the side of the bus, worried that I may be late, only to find another line of people waiting to stow their luggage underneath the bus, a task I am always hesitant to do, but it must be done.

There were three compartments to stow the luggage in, and the attendant seemed to have some sort of system to decide which bags went in which compartment. Through my observation, I deducted that he was putting all the backpacks and soft bags in the rear, which seemed like a good idea to me at the time, so that all the hard luggage wouldn´t crush the contents of the soft luggage. I proceeded with my smaller back pack into the bus

Then began the "12 hour" journey.

As you may guess from my use of quotation marks, 12 hours was sort of a rough estimate. Unfortunately, due to ridiculously long meal breaks, and no less than 2 flat tires, we didn't manage to arrive in Merida until a good 16 hours later, during which the insides of my small backpack experienced a PINKSPLOSION of generic pepto/bismol all over my stuff.

I finally got off the bus, just happy to have reached my destination, and was lucky enough to be the first person to get my luggage back. It seemed a little damp, but I didn't really think twice about it, since I remembered the ground outside the bus when I loaded my stuff was a little wet. I put on my big back pack


Dammit. I just wrote this whole long story, and this stupid computer lost the whole thing. I´ll try to rewrite it when I have a chance.

Anyways, here´s my agenda for the next few days:

Tomorrow and Sunday: take a 2 day trip with a tour group to Catatomba, the valley of endless lightning and no thunder

Monday: Paragliding, then overnight bus trip back to Caracas

Tuesday: Hang out in caracas

Wednesday morning: leave for Minneapolis. After a transfer in Houston, TX, I arrive in minneapolis Wednesday, Aug. 23 at 4:50 pm.

And that´s it! Hip Hip Hooray!