Merida - Hellish Journies and Parachutes

Parapunting
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Getting to Merida in Venezuela was a bit of an adventure in itself.  It is too dangerous to cross the Columbian/Venezuelan border by land so we had to take 2 flights to get to Caracas and then an overnight 15 hour bus back on ourselves to end up in Merida.

Unfortunately one of our flights was delayed and we almost missed the last bus but our Tour Leader ran like a ninja to hold the bus up otherwise we would have been sleeping in a most unsavoury and unsafe bus station for the night!

Parapunting
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Our bus was super air-conditioned and we arrived totally freezing and exhausted  24 hours after leaving Cartagena.  That afternoon we decided to get through the tiredness by trying out paragliding with the experts.  It was surprisingly unscary and peaceful up there and we got amazing views of the countryside.

On the way we passed preparations for the official opening of Chavez´s new transport trolley-bus system and hordes of people strolling around in their red socialist t-shirts.  There were rumours Chavez himself was due to appear but he didn´t show.

Parapunting
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Over our first few days in Venezuela we got alot of information and opinion about Chavez.  About 2 weeks before we arrived there had been riots in Caracas as he refused to renew the licence of a popular TV channel who were anti-Chavez.

havez has changed the constitution so presidential elections are only every 6 yers and so that he can pass any law without the backing of the government.  He is creating huge anti-Bush / anti-US feeling across the masses and alledgedly people are afraid to vote against him for fear of losing jobs.  His social policy appears to be throwing as much money as possible at the poor to keep them on his side.  All in all a dictatorship in all but name.