fresh n juicy chunks of oyster :: RTW travel blog

Avid readers (if there are any) may have noticed that the site's been down for the last day or so - it's up again in limited form without pics and with ads, I'll see whether it makes it back in its old form soon. *Sigh*, technology...
Anyway, I'm in Santarém but taking a boat to Belem today where I'll be arriving on Saturday when I'll write more on the rivertrip, etc.

I have revised my initial opinion of Manaus somewhat, even though it is still a bit of a dump, but more on that later. I am absolutely exhausted. The constant heat, running around and moving has finally gotten to me.
It all started with the way here from Sta. Elena, even though it began well enough. Took some taxis (cheap, fast and crowded) across the border and made it to Boa Vista fairly early. There had a delicious eat-all-you-can (Brasilians really know how to cook their meats!) and then thought it'd be a good idea getting a ride with a truck to Manaus (popular trucking route, supposedly). To cut a long story shorter, I ended up taking a nightbus after waiting by the roadside in the blistering sun, by two service stations, chatting to 'friendly' (hmph) truckers promising they'd find me a good ride, etc... for a good 7 hours. I was a mess. Not that I got my deserved rest on the bus either, after I, out of the kindness of my heart or some such (naiveté?) agreed to share my blanket with a guy in shorts (a stupid thing to do on those buses as the air con is generally set to perma-freeze). At any rate, sleep became difficult every few hours after he'd start mildly molesting and cuddling up next to me, at which point I'd have to wake up and make it clear to him that I like 'chicas' and would like to sleep. Needless to say, I rejected the offer of a free place to stay for the night but arrived with an appreciation of what is meant by the 'persistance' of Brasilian men - and a renewed respect for what women are probably putting up with all the time. Stupid men, eh girls? ;)
Anyway, enough about getting here, more about here. Manaus is dirty, big and busy and that about sums it up for the city itself. There's an extravagant Opera house, holding its own against the best of the West End, built during times of excess about 100 years ago during the Brasilian rubber boom. Crazy rich Europeans.
The most interesting bit here IMHO is the market close to the harbour. Teeming with people, life (flies?), death (in the form of smelly fish and meats), great, fresh fruits and produce, lovely scents of spices and occasionally interspersed with a truly horrendous stench from nearby rubbish tips, et voila, you have a perfect example of how I'd prefer Harrods to be like a little more. Manaus also has tons of snack stalls and juice bars, all of which make real nice fresh smoothies with Guarana of which I am guzzling crazy amounts (Guarana, I am constantly reassured by vendors, is the natural Viagra of the jungle, although I'm still wondering if that's a good thing).
In the meantime, I have also decided against a jungle tour (too expensive, too exhausted and always plenty more jungle in Peru + Ecuador I hope) and will instead try and catch a boat tomorrow down the Amazon to Santarém if possible (very confusing and busy at the port, although many Portuguese-speakers are proving to be easier to understand than the fast and furious Venezuelans' Spanish). Two days of hammock on boat will be much welcomed over I'm currently sleeping on (literally, slidy, sweaty plastic mats covered with a sheet :).

My plans of movie watching have been somewhat delayed by a spontaneous jeep ride to a village in the Gran Sabana called El Pauji with a Franco-German couple and their potential father-in-law.
El Pauji is a great community, slap-bang in the middle of the national park, housing a mix of Indios, Venezuelans and a few Europeans who have moved their existence there and decided to build a hut/shack/roof/house in the wilderness ('planning permission' is given by the community as a whole after you live there for two years and they like the look of you, I assume... If they don't they burn your house down as apparently a cocky German who moved there wanting to create a touristic supercomplex found out a couple of years back).
In line with the aforementioned, there's understandably no police force or seemingly any real authority of the Venezuelan government. It is very cool really, as everyone I've seen lives in harmony with no problems like crime (if you exclude the victimless variety) and all affairs of import are handled by a council that is representative of the ethnicities there.
Utopia? Well, whatever it is, it's very beautiful there too. Nature of indescribable variety: dense forests, savannah-like plains, mountains, thick jungle, waterfalls, pools and streams perfect for swimming, tepuys (rocky mountains with flat tops), etc, etc... And I've only just seen a fraction of it.
We got invited to the shared 'house'/kitchen/workshop/farm of an Italian woman who's lived there for several years and makes pizza and cakes and sells them to the village shop and an Indio who makes amazing handicrafts out of local stones and the like. Dog, cats and chickens are running all around the solar-powered house and a cassette player is making it all feel very cosy.
So, we spent the night in El Pauji and got up early the next morning and climbed the El Abismo mountain - at the top a spectacular view of Brasil and neverending jungle directions.
After being attacked by hyper aggressive bees, two of which committed ritual suicide on my behalf after I started running (not too smart with these buggers), and climbing down again in the scorching sun I was exhausted beyond belief. Thus I headed back to Santa Elena that afternoon.
So yesterday, I finally got my deserved movie fix and in the interests of no-one in particular but myself I will proceed to give my 2 cents on two of the more interesting ones: Matrix Revolutions, even though not amazingly great, concludes one of the best trilogies around, IMHO, but then again I was one of the few people who loved Reloaded, so it is likely no one will give a damn about what I say anyway. Tarantino's Kill Bill, Part 1 has blood by the buckets and is quite stylishly shot but hasn't much substance to speak of - kinda good, mindless fun for a while though.
Anyway, that concludes another lengthy entry (anyone still with me?) before I'll probably make it down to Brasil tomorrow. That's if I manage to avoid the temptation of climbing Mount Roraima, which I hear is gorgeous. Grrr, too much to see, too little time... (and there are still sooooh many movies to see... ;)

[the picture above is the pet of a girl at the hostel I'm now staying at. It's an anteater or something and waddles like a cross between a 4-legged duck and a crocodile. Very endearing!]

Since I've last written I took a day off to recover from my brush with death, then made my way out of town on the next nightbus. Got kept company on the bus by a young Indio and an Argentine who's been traveling the world for the last four years straight. Phew... Also found out a piece of trivia:
Q: How long does it take the Guardia Nacional to hand search the luggage of a busload of passengers?
A: Half an hour. Hmph... :)
Anyway, half-way to Santa Elena the Indio tells me about a beautiful waterfall and little village, Kama Meru, by the side of the road. So I was let out of the bus on the side of the road (try that with an English bus...) and, true to his word, it was gorgeous. A good 40m drop of water continuing along a picturesque river flanked on both sides by luscious, rolling green hills with patches of dense forests. Wow...
So, I slung up my hammock in a shelter by the road and spent the night there. A small dog from the village guarded me and kept me company through the night, Undoubtedly drawn by the boon of being fed morsels of Saltine crackers. Yumm...
The next morning I washed my clothes by the fall (dirty from trying to find my way back to the shelter in the dark, stomping through thigh-high mud).
After unsuccessfully attempting for two hours to hitch a lift to Santa Elena, I finally figured out the secret. Hide the dog behind the backpack (she'd stuck to my heels incessantly the whole while) and wait at the top of a steep hill: by the time most Venezuelan cars reach the top they've slowed to a crawl and are huffing and puffing so it's much harder for them not to stop!
And indeed, a friendly family drove me to St. Elena and, leaving behind a wildly disappointed bitch, here I am. Santa Elena is a cute little border town with Brasil with a lot going on and tons of hotels. And so it has come that I've taken my first hot shower since in Venezuela and will have the luxury of spending the night in a bed (a double even!) at a lovely but surprisingly cheap hotel (plug: Hotel Michelle).
I'll probably stay here for a few days and relax a little or do minor excursions (the surrounding area, Gran Sabana, is gorgeous - possibly a cross between the American Great Plains and the Wild West, but with palm trees). There's also a 'cinema' (more accurately a video store with private booths with VCRs) so I may get the much needed movie fix I've been craving recently, although my official excuse will be to brush up on my Spanish... :)
Just in time before entering Brasil soon where it'll probably be pretty much useless... :)

I don't know if I can quite do justice to Rio Caura at this moment as I'm recovering from a nasty jungle bug or something. Suffice it to say there's been a lot of unpleasantness going on today for me but luckily I seem to have weathered the brunt of it, i.e. I can keep fluids down and in recent developments also solid food has stayed put!
But anyway, since I have nothing better to do right now except for drinking water, gagging on nasty rehydrating solution and sitting around, I may as well recount some of the Caura experience now.
Rio Caura is a long long river about four hours drive South-West of Ciudad Bolivar, snaking its way through thick rainforest and by settlements of the indigenous population. Tourism is fairly limited there, especially when compared to the Angel Falls, also near to here, where an airplane lands every few minutes carrying those eager to see the world famous trickle of the world's tallest waterfall. But anyway, I'm sidetracking and being bitchy so I will instead continue with what I did see.
Part of the experience were hours and hours of riding by motorised canoe down the river, jungle everywhere, occasionally a hut or tiny village passing us by. Lots of jumping into the river from the boat when the sun would get too unbearable. Realising how difficult it is to sleep in a hammock with a sunburnt back (ouch). Unsuccessfully fishing in the rapids after clambering over rocks for half an hour (this kid who was our part-guide and cook, Elio, of course caught a huge catfish within 10 minutes - there must have been some trick he wasn't telling us...). Amazingly impressive waterfalls rewarding a three hour hike through the jungle (the most impressive, close-up pictures of which are unfortunately unavailable after I took my digital camera river walking in my pocket - not a great idea - however, I'm happy to report that it is back amongst the living again after an extended drying session).
The two Spaniards' command of the Spanish language and talking about football landed us an apparently rare invitation to hang around with the Indios (Yekwane in this case), consuming considerable amounts of the local alcoholic beverages made of Yuca (Yerake in its unfiltered, chunky, vomit-like variant and Soquruhute (or something like it with weird weird spelling), which is the clear filtered form. Both quite potent...)
Also spent several nights in various beach huts and swam lots (or 'washed' depending on definitions). Also got a great view from a granite plateau over the seemingly infinite expanse of rainforest and the Caura winding through it (no digital pictures yet again as they fell victim to the temporary casualty of my camera).
On the way back by boat both motors broke and parts from one were butchered to make the other one work. We also ran out of gas resulting in us having to beg the few passing boats for some to get us back. After that a bridge giving 'easy' access to our departure point from the river had washed away so we had adventurous jeep and taxi rides to get us back over partly 'paved' roads that looked like meteorite storm impact sites and through rainy darkness where you could barely see the road.
And then, as crowning glory the next day, I get to experience that favourite bane of alltravelerss: stomach 'issues'. I guess I can go home now. But at any rate, I'm feeling much better now and if fully rested may still proceed to Santa Elena tomorrow as planned. As ever, I remain sickly yours. (pity me! :)

ps: Yes, I do look incredibly scruffy right now (yes, I guess I'm just inviting in the obvious jokes with that comment).

I have just come back from the jungle in one piece but alas I have prepared no jungle blog and everything in Ciudad Bolivar closes very early, including internet cafes...
Suffice it to say, it was an eventful trip and I'll bore everyone with details tomorrow or so.
For now, i have uploaded the pictures from the trip, so check out the link on the right and enjoy the silly pictures.

Several days have yet again passed by and I have yet again used them to constructively lie in hammocks. I think I'm starting to prefer them to furniture like beds or sofas. Whenver I'll get back to civilisation I guess I'll have to drill a lot of holes in walls and attach hooks or something. However, bad thing about hammocks: my feet and legs are very itchy from mosquito bites jostling each other for space (no worries, no malaria here!)

Apart from counting mozzie bites (and taking pictures of the cathedral across the road - see picture :) I've been brushing up on my Spanish a little which will be put to the test for the next five days when I'll be going on the Rio Caura with two Spaniards. It should be fun and I'm very excited about the jungle and cruising down the river, Heart of Darkness style.
And on that note I may as well end with a literary quote from a short book I found in the hostel 'library':
"It is a good thing to experience everything oneself, he thought. As a child I learned that pleasures of the world and riches were not good. I have known it for a long time, but I have only just experienced it. Now I know it not only with my intellect, but with my eyes, with my heart, with my stomach. It is a good thing that I know this." (Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha - thoroughly recommended, Paolo Coelho eat your bleeding Alchemist's heart out!)

I am safe and sound in Ciudad Bolívar on the Orinoco River, South East of Caracas.
It is muy muy beautiful here: a dreamy town with colonial style houses in bright colours, always sunshine and always a hammock to hang around in (ha!). (see pics)
I arrived two days ago but time seems to have stopped for me (no watch) but probably also helped by the cathedral clocktower which chimes hourly but is always off by several (I haven't yet been able to figure out by how many).
From here it is also possible to cross the Orinoco by 'ferry' to get to the tiny but very cute village of Soledad, mostly sustained by fishing and people hanging around on the streets it seems. The main (only?) attraction is a ruined mansion overlooking the river, making it a great, atmospheric picnic place. My personal highlight was of course the incredible fish restaurant, serving delicious grilled fish, straight out of the river and posthumously laden with garlic, herbs and butter. Mmmmm... It almost made me cry when I ate it, it was so good, no kidding. And like everything in Venezuela, it is very cheap - if you have US dollars in cash. Every since the exchange rate of the Bolívare has been frozen recently there has been a thriving black market in cash dollars, going at up to 2/3 on top of the official rate. Like every other foreigner here I'm hitting myself for not bringing more $$$ - if only we had known...
But anyway, life is good, I am staying at a wonderfully laid back hostel with a great owner (plug: 'Amor Patria' if you're in the area).
So the current plan involves possibly staying here until Friday and then heading down the Rio Caura into the deep rainforest for 5 days with a couple of others and the hotel owner guy guiding us.
Until then time will be passed with reading, writing, eating fish, moderate amounts of partying and general hammocking around.
Nice.

ps: I forgot to mention previously that, in its favour, Caracas has a great, great Metro system.
pps: I have managed to upload random pictures and added a picture of LA to an earlier one. For those who want more pics there are all the pictures I took with the digital camera here, no sign up required.