A flying (literally) visit to Venezuela

Keen to add another country to our ever expanding list, we decided to make a quick detour out of Columbia and into Venezuela. With limited time now to cover a massive continent, we decided just to hit the town of Mérida in the Venezulean Andes.

Mérida is a beautiful city of about 300,000 people and is located on a wide plain in the valley of the Chama river, between the Sierra Nevada de Mérida to the southeast and the Sierra La Culata to the northwest. It´s fair to say that the huge peaks surrounding us made a stunning backdrop for the city (which we we soon to see in all its glory on the Téleferico). One thing we quickly noticed about Venezuela is that it appears that the country´s massive oil reserves flow deep into the economy as the people seem to be a lot more well off than their Central American neighbours and the cities appear a lot more modern and clean.

One of the draws to the city for us was that it is known as a bit of an ´adventure´ town. We were of course keen to add something new into the long list of activities we´ve squeezed into on this journey so far, so this time it was....paragliding !! With tour companies everywhere it wasn´t hard to line up a crew that could take us out the next day.

We awoke to our early 8.30am start to be presented with a magnificent day for flying....blue sky as far as the eye could see. It was just Lyds and I so yet again we felt like royalty getting our own private tour. It took just over an hour to get up to our flyzone in the nearby Sierra Nevada de Mérida. The vistas from the top were incredible and with some ¨awesome thermals...(dude)¨, our pilots kept us in the air to enjoy it for a good 45 minutes of so. It was smooth sailing the whole way...well mas or menos, because both of our pilots finished the ride with some gut wrenching rapid turns to descend quickly down to our landing zones. Having brekkie before the trip suddenly didn´t appear to have been a good option.

Here is a few vid´s from our Paragliding...

Lyds launching into space...


Linking up in the sky...


Doug making a smooth landing..


Anyway, thankfully we survived our post flight queeze because high on our list of local sites was to make a bee-line for the locally renowned - Coromoto Heladaria. The store is actually in the Guiness Book of records for having the most ice cream favours in the Wuuurrrrld (800 odd). Of course only 60ish are available on any given day, but it still provides a good range. Keen to ´have a go´ that day I managed to enjoy a full meal of Hamburger, Beans and a Polar Ice Beer....and okay, yes, I´ll admit it - the Hamburger flavour was pretty awful !!

During our stay we also took in the Mérida Téleferico (Cable Car) - clearly they love records here because it is the World´s highest and 2nd longest!! It certainly puts Vancouver´s Grouse Mountain sky ride to shame. The Cable rises from Mérida´s 1,640m base up to Espejo Peak at a massive 4,765 m !! Even though you go up slowly over an hour or so (on 4 different cables) the change in height certainly plays a bit of havoc with your mental systems. Lyds and I were pretty dizzy at the top and after only a short walk around at the peak, I felt it was appropriate to start heading back down when I started seeing stars and my fingers seemed to have a weird, freaky spacey line behind them as I moved my hand....All up though an amazing journey which hopefully the pics below give you an idea about.

Here´s some pictures from our time in Venezuela....

If you can´t see the above gallery, check out the link here - Merida,Venezuela

A classic side story about Venezuela. If you withdraw money from any ATM or bank, you get the going official rate of $2,150 Bolivares to the $1US. HOWEVER, if you change money with a money changer or many local merchants you get a massive $4,000-$4,500Boliviares to the $1US !! We heard rumours of this before we entered the country but personally I was a bit sceptical as officially its illegal for companies to use $US (no doubt due to President Chavez´s distain for the US). None the less I still had a sneaky little collection of $150US hidden in the backpack for emergencies. When things started to seem a bit pricey after withdrawing some cash at an ATM, we were happy to find our paragliding company gladly relieved us of our $US at the max rate. It certainly made what could have been an expensive few days into a relatively cheap few days !!