Los Llanos

After the totally spontaneous trip to the beach, my friends and I decided to explore the more southern part of the country - Los Llanos. It is in the heart of the country and significant to Venezuela's culture with music called joropo (track #4 on the play list) as the main contribution. We signed up with one of the local travel agencies for a four night-three day package, that included an ultra professional guide that caches anacondas like worms.

Los Llanos is a region of tropical grassland that covers vast part of central Venezuela stretching from the Colombian border from the West up to the Orinoco's delta in the East. Due to the extreme climate, Los Llanos has hot and arid summers and rainy winters that floods a huge part of the terrain, this huge grassland is sparsely inhabited and the main source of incom is a cattle farming.
This has helped preserve the natural environment and allowed ecoturism to become an important part of the local economy.

My trip to Los Llanos took place in the middle of the dry season, which made all the water animals gather in close to the remaining sources of water. Every single pond was packed with caimans (relative of crocodile) and our safaris did not require extensive efforts. The trip followed the standard pattern of the "Los Llanos tour": boat trip on the local river, piranha fishing (rivers are full of them) horseback riding and of course chasing anaconda so everyone can have a picture.

Before going I heard stories from my Venezuelan friends about the -"tour guide type guy"- that were not really admiring and with my luck our guide fulfilled those characteristics by one hundred percent. Basically all the bad attributes of the machismo, condensed and accompanied with the lack of respect constituted his manners.
Three nights of sleeping on the hammock, an hour of horseback riding with no formal training and infernal temperatures made me want to come back to Merida. Besides, those three days were enough to see and understand "Venezuelan tour guide" in action; just one more could have ruined my reputation of goodwill ambassador.

Choroni

Finally came that day when after all those weeks of hard studying I was able to go to the bus terminal and buy a ticket to do some bigger traveling. Obviously (as the northern type notoriously harassed by the winter) I got tempted by the fact of proximity of Venezuelan beaches and therefore my first big trip was to the playas of the Caribbean.

I didn't have much of the problems with the company, since the word "beach" is a key word here in South America too. We decided to go to place called Choroni-small, totally relaxed place beautifully located on the shore of the Caribbean Sea in the scenery of Henry Pittier National Park. Good (cheap) way to travel here in Venezuela is a bus; and indeed buses here especially on the long distance routes are very comfortable with the exception of it's well known air conditioning overuse. This is one of those things here that everyone knows that is not right, but nobody does anything to change it. So every single person in Venezuela will warn you that it's freezing in the bus and you need a sleeping bag or at least a blanket. It is even common to see people wearing hats and glows.

It was eight hour drive from Merida to Maracay - capital city of Aragua state in the north-central part of the country with quite unpleasant face of heat and uninteresting architecture. From there we took a buseta (small bus working on shorter distances), which took us to Choroni.
The Maracay-Choroni ride was one of the most spectacular I have ever experienced. The road sneaks through the mountains covered with tropical forest of the National Park. Stunning views accompanied by race car like buseta driving at an elevation of the 7000 feet provided both breath taking views and the irresistible feeling of being the next day headline news in the local paper.
Buseta's drivers here in Venezuela are in a category all by themselves. Because public transportation is provided by private and independent bus drivers, buses function more or less like a taxis. They have no real schedule or firm stops. They are just assigned to a certain route and the rest is open. Moreover, in la buseta you can expect to encounter playboy looking driver, loud music (usually reggaeton) and overall atmosphere of the night club with black lights sometimes accompanied with stroboscope. Some would say that these guys pimp out their ride to the maximum. If there is a competition of racing an overloaded buses Venezuelans would be the champions.

Right after arrival and settle up in the posada we went to the beach. To my big surprise the waters of the Caribbean Sea happened to be cold. With my iron rule "I don't go swimming unless the water temperature reaches 76F" I couldn't enjoy the Choroni beaches in one hundred percent. Fortunately I was making up this inconvenience every night with my friends and a bottle of guarapita - famous local mix of rum, passion fruit, coconut and sugar.
Despite the fact that Choroni is a very popular beach destination, the town didn't lose anything from its fantastic, relaxed atmosphere. isolated from everything with mountains from one side and sea from the other, this place lives its own life and only national flag on the main beach reminds that we are still in Venezuela.

Do you know?
About 50 km. (30miles) away from Merida on the altitude of 3.600 meters (12.000 feet) above the sea level we can find one of the most important astronomical observatory in South America. Due to its location-close to the equator- this facility benefits from access to both northern and southern skies. Llano del Hato national Astronomical Observatory is one of the few that is open for public and is known for its cooperation with the local community working in partnership with Universidad de los Andes in Merida.