Ciudad Bolivar (August 10, 2006)

We were at the bus station by 8:00 this morning to catch an early bus to Ciudad Bolivar. There are local buses leaving every 15 – 30 minutes (whenever they are full) so we had no troubles getting on one. This is much more what we are used to – show up at the bus station, hop on a bus and pay along the way. We were running short on bolivares and wanted to change some US dollars, but of course now that we needed a money changer there was nobody around. We had enough to get the bus to C.B., so we decided to go there and find a money changer. We arrived in Ciudad Bolivar around 10:00 and here as well there was nobody asking us to change money, so we asked the taxi drivers, thinking one of them might want to change some. Instead the driver took us to an actual money changing place, wow. Next started the hunt for somewhere to stay. We again tried three places before we found one with availability. The room was big and had a tv, fridge and air conditioner. We later found out that this hotel is often “rented by the hour” if you know what I mean, and in the back there were drive-up rooms with garage doors so you could hide your vehicle…hmmm…

We had to wait for our room to get cleaned so in the meantime we ate lunch at the restaurant next door. We were in desperate need of a Laundromat so after checking in we went off in search of one based on the directions of the unfriendly reception lady “(just walk down the road and you will find one”). Eventually we did find it but it was closed until 2:00 so we had to wait for it to open. Luckily we could get our laundry back by the end of the day. Yay – clean clothes! (It doesn't take much to make us happy).

Next stop was to go to the airport where most of the Angel Falls tour agencies have their office. We were able to find a tour leaving tomorrow (for US $290 per person), but they only accepted cash or traveler’s cheques and we had to let them know within two hours of we were going or not. We then took a cab to the main square (which is really nice, and all the buildings in the downtown area are painted in different bright colours, making it very picturesque but I hadn’t brought my camera – d’oh!) to check our bank account at an internet café. Unfortunately the money transfer hadn’t gone through yet, we certainly didn’t have enough cash on us, and we had used the last of our traveler’s cheques in Ecuador. Disheartened, we decided we would have to miss out on the Angel Falls tour, which was disappointing after we had already decided we would skip the Roraima trek as well.

We took a walk along the waterfront close to the city centre which made us feel better. There were several people out enjoying the day, a little market, and lots of fishermen in their boats selling their catch of the day. Again I wished I had brought my camera with me! Eventually we caught a cab back to the Laundromat but our laundry wasn’t finished yet so we walked up to an ice cream/snack bar and had something to eat while we were waiting.

Back at the hotel, happy to have clean clothes, we decided we would leave early the following morning to go to make our way to Merida, in the North-western part of Venezuela, in the hopes that our luck would soon change.