..here we are..

oh boy.. finally found an internet place and glad to write down some stuff, before I met my skydive instructor..

so I "catapulted" myself deeply into Venezuela, a socialist country that is still in pretty bad shape (30 millions living here and I´ve seen A LOT of brick houses, strongly looking like slums). The president and lots of citizens are not huge fans of foreigners or are just not used to tourism (so you are not very good received compared to other countries I visited.. actually, almost every country I visited exept for Vietnam ;) hehe :) well.. the experience might change or I might be back in Colombia soon.. always worth to take a breath of different air ;)

I had a beautiful ride over the mountains from Bucaramanga to Cucuta, just started 30 minutes too early. So I got into heavy rain and was wet (and freezing!!) while riding to the top of the mountain (3700 m.a.s.l.). But then finally the sun came out and I got dried and enjoyed the breath taking view over mountains and hills. I managed to change some money and find (finally) a place to leave my bike for 14 days. It´s an expensive hotel, where I got a good feeling to leave the bike. First I tried different parking lots and motels, but didn´t find a satisfying vibe or an enough attended place to leave my bike behind.. so I was driving back and forth until I completed my mission ;) would have been easier, if I would have known, that the bus I have to take to Caracas leaves in Venezuela and not Colombia. I almost passed the frontier without knowing ;) so I took a taxi from the hotel over the boarder to get all my stamps and end up at a place, where public transport leaves to the next bigger city (where the night buses leave). The taxi was 15 USD because still Colombia.. then here in Venezuela, traveling costs are super low! :) was 1 USD to get to San Cristobal (1.5 hrs) and then 10 USD to get to Caracas (15 hrs) where the biggest challenge was sleeping in the not too comfortable seats :-/
then I got checked by the police, had to get out and they wanted to see my backpack (was so deeply burried that they didn´t get it out ;) but were asking nasty questions about how much money I carry and what type of bills I have. Got somewhat upset.. never happened to me and I hope I don´t get bothered any more by the police. I think, it was a good idea to leave the bike in Colombia.. here they call it "matracar" and means, they`re looking hard to find something to get money of you :(((
then I had to take another local bus in Caracas to change terminal and another 2hr bus to get to Higuerote.. all in all like 15 USD ;) hehe :) then the taxi here in town charged me 2 USD for just some blocks.. next time I´ll be walking here.
I thought I will take some Ibuprofan 200mg to get rid of my back pain (feeling it since starting the trip into the jungle), but it`s a lot of drugs and so far I can stand the pain. So I keep the pill for another moment ;) in the morning I can´t even tie my shoes without warming up my back and finding some way to bend down :( but yeah.. don´t want to complain too much here ;) hehe :)

another nasty, nasty thing is lices in my hair :((( yes, somebody told me this 10 days ago, but I didn´t have time to take care of it, instead was scratching my hair like a lousy dog :( well.. another experience with dreads. No idea where I got those little suckers, but I started already the chemical warfare on my head and hope they will be extinct soon!! (yesterday in the bus I scratched out 2 eggs and 3 lices.. eggs are black small spots with a little tail that pop when squished between the finger nails and lice you don´t wanna see ;)
well.. that´s not all of it.. for not having taken care of my dreads for the last 3 months (too much work), they got in pretty bad shape and the lice-cure makes it even worse :( furthermore there are thin parts along the dreads because hair got probably pulled back, leaving weak parts. I lost a few centimeters in 3 dreads lately, but looks as there would be some bigger parts to fall off in the next weeks.. AAAARGH!!! yes, that what you get if you make dreads with a type of hair as mine (thin and pretty straight). So now I´m thinking about to make a last big effort (killing bugs and fixing it up.. means, going to a hairdresser to get the roots crochet together and the loose hair taken in). Yes.. the roots look also ugly, because if you don´t roll them from time to time and crochet them together, they get kinda entangled, but in a squished form.. so yes, having nice looking dreads takes a lot of time :-/
I really wanted to keep them until the end of this trip.. furthermore I just sent the bad-ass looking street fighter helmet home, because couldn´t waer it with dreads and I fear if I cut them off, the helmet I`m wearing now will be sitting very loose on my head :-//
so the plan is to make a last big effort to save my hair and then if this doesn´t work, cut them off and go back to easy-style ;) hehe :)

what more to tell.. so Venezuela is not the friendliest country, but met already really awesome people! (very helpful ones). Haven´t seen tough lots of pretty women. There are some, but very, very few and no really stunning ones ;) (and I thought there was a miss universe from Venezuela). Well.. gonna figure out more this week-end, how the ladies are here in Venezuela ;)
but the country is very conservative and yes.. socialist. Lot´s of police and control and because they don´t get their paychecks always at the end of the month, it´s even worse (they might try to get the money from somewhere else..).
the food isn´t especially tasty neither, but you get around.. the big coffees are small and the small ones are almost invisible ;) hehe :) it´s because I heard they drink a lot of coffee, but just very little at the time. (about the food: liked it much more in Asia.. I think Asian food is great!! :D

so yes.. up up and away to the airport and then I got an update for how long I will stay (have to stay) in Venezuela before I can get my bike and my stuff (left a lot in Bucaramanga, so I didn´t have to cross the mountains with all my luggage). Still missing Colombia, but I guess, it´s getting better here in Venezuela.. it´s always the same if you come into a new country you´ve never been before: it takes you some time to get used to it and start loving it. But then it´s also a great thing!! ..for you out there not knowing these countries yet, you still can experience the same thing, while for me it would be going back to a place that´s already connected to some experience and impressions.

ah yes.. changing money is an issue here.. apparently banks don´t sell dollars and change them to a very bad exchange rate (1:4/1:5 instead of 1:8) but there are some people interested buying dolars, so I should be fine to change some more money (of course still loosing a little bit in the exchange). And I heard if you get money from the ATM, they charge you a lot, but a lot of taxes on it, if you´re a foreigner.. so I don´t even want to try, to not have a bad experience checking my expenses online later..

thank you Mom for being back home and helping me with online payments for courses!! :D

ok.. hear from me soon.. live out of Venezuela ;) hehe :)
big hug to all of you and missing you!!