HAPPY 2008

Hey everyone!

Just wanna wish you all in NZ a Happy 2008! I know as the countdown begins everybody will be full of excitement of what the new year will bring. I love you all and can´t wait to see you all in Feb!!! :)

This delicious photo was taken at the top of the Sugarloaf. Up here I saw a beautiful sun set with Copacabana beach stretching away in the distance. I am loving it here at my favorite city in South America!

It is a cold day in Rio!

NOT! Today was probably the hottest day in Rio too! As the temperature sore to 38 degrees... And the coconut (as shown) and other juice vendors were doing a brisk business.

But seeing this temperature reading cracks me up! I don´t know if it was deliberate due to the Pepsi advert above, or that it is broken (I believe the later!). As there are ad billboard with temperature meters such as these everywhere in Rio.

Havaianas

You know how these pair of jandals cost 25NZD and you can only get them at fashion stores like Amazon back home?

Guess what, in Brazil they cost between 7USD and 12USD, and you can buy them everywhere, even from local dairy and pharmacy's!

Apparently it is a bit of an institution here, and everybody wears it. From the mothers to the bums on the street. Very nice!

Update!!!

I have seen Havaianas for 3USD at a market street! So you can buy them from between 3USD and 12USD. Lovin it!!!

The most beautiful city in the world

Rio de Janeiro is the most beautiful city in the world and this is why:

The setting - Big bays, Bright blue ocean, kilometers of beautiful white sandy beach, hills with rocky tops and seems to bend at odd angles all over (and you can rock climb them!!!).

The people - The Brazilians invented thongs and the butt-lover bikini bottoms. The tan body, the beautiful face and the athletic body... Which leads me to...

The sports - Football yes... They have more World cup medals then anyone else, yes they have a world class Football stadium and yes they have a couple of heroes like Pele but for me, it is... 2 on 2 Beach volleyball! Yes where else are you going to find next to nothing costume (!!!) and model like players on the beach. Also, the men and women team are the reigning champs at this sport!

The buildings - Not quite Europe but a fine blend never less. The downtown area is full of majestic colonial buildings which has been left to age... It can do with a new lick of paint or the graffiti could be removed but it all gives it some kind of rustic charm.

The sports - Rock climbing (of course with so many beautiful rocks around!), cycling (nice and flat with a beautiful beach front - eat your heart out Mission Bay!), kite surfing, surfing, hang gliding and, the Brazilian capoeira (That is Eddy from Tekken in case you are wondering!), and not forgetting all that dancing which leads to...

The Music - Home of bossanova and the samba style drumming... It is also home of the biggest street party in the world - the Carnival in February!

I spent day 3, a beautiful cloudless day, wondering the streets of Rio, riding on my push bike, people watching, jumping in the clear blue ocean myself to cool down in the drenching 34 degrees heat, and then... at 7.45pm, watched the most amazing sun set over the big ocean on Ipanema beach, to a round of applause from the crowd around me. It was a wonderful feeling I tell you.

So I am in love with this city, and it´s citizens. I am here to see in the New Year, and plan to be wearing white in Copacabana beach alongside 2 million people. I cannot wait to see this!

Angel Falls Video

This is a short video clip I took of Angel Falls. I want to give you some idea of how powerful the fall is from where I stood. I was less then 100 metres away from the action. My group was bless to be able to see it on the day as it rain hard overnight, giving us the fall in all it´s finest. Though, I have been told during the rainy season the falls above gets as wide as 150 metres!!!

Cruising down the Amazon river

I am currently in the middle of the Amazon river, at a town call Santarem. I am only stopping over here until this afternoon, when I will board another boat for Belem out on the coast.

The boat trip has been fantastic so far! The boat I board was call Ana Vitoria, it has 3 level, with the top being an open bar area. The boat itself is tiny, but it was full of passengers! Me and the Aussies was on the second floor, away from the engine room downstairs. We slept in the ``hammock class´´, otherwise known as Rede class, for the last 2 nights.

And what an experience! The whole floor was filled bumper to bumper with hammocks. I did not sleep too well on the first night as there were just too many hammocks, I was touching hammocks against 3 other hammocks! I am guessing the boat is full as most people are going home for Christmas.

Despite the number of people on board (I estimated 150) the boat was kept surprisingly clean. The staff swept the floor and clean the bathroom regularly. There was also unlimited drinking water and the meals was not too grubby tasting. Meal time is fantastic, the crew would bang on a pot, and everybody would rush downstairs to queue up for dinner. But the dining table is small, accommodating only 24 people at a time. So you could imagine the wait! But the crew are very efficient, clearing out the table as groups of 24 people finish. It all feels very boarding-school like due to the rush to eat as much as possible, in as little time as possible!

Cruising along the Amazon is not just for tourist here, the locals use the river as their major highway. In fact, the cities within the Amazon river are connected by boats only. So it is a great way to meet locals. I spent my time on board sleeping, hanging out with locals and other tourist, listen to my iPod or read. It is all very relaxing.

My favorite part of the trip is during sun set, sun rise and when docking at a local port. That is when all the action happens. Yesterday, I saw a bunch of Amazon river dolphins, playing near our boat whilst docked at a local port.

So, I still have another 2 days of down river to go. Am looking forward to getting back on, but this time I will be doing it alone as I say goodbye to Richard and Penny. They are off to a little ``beach´´ town call Alter do Chao.

Brazil is $$$

I have made it into Brazil, after leaving Venezuela a day ago.

Coming into Brazil has been a bit of a shock, on the $$$ side of things. As this is the most expensive country in South America. And don't you know it!

I mean... my 13 hours night bus cost USD48! This compare to me paying around 1USD an hour on bus rides in Venezuela and 2USD an hour on bus rides in Colombia! Also, accommodation at my hostel cost 11USD a night. And that is in a 8 person dorm!

But I did expect this, so am prepare to bite the cost and carry on with me travels. :)

I am now in the city of Manaus, in the middle of the Amazon region. This city was once known as the Paris of the South America. Thanks to it's massive rubber boom in the late 1800's and early 1900's. So many massive and rich looking buildings were built. The highlight includes the Theater, the floating platform out on the docks and the market. However most of the other buildings are now in a sorry looking state. Something which can definitely be done about once more money pours in.

It is pretty surreal though, as at the river mouth there is a HUGE German ocean going cruise ship, which has entered the Amazon river and is now dock at Manaus's floating platform.

Tomorrow, I will be on a smaller cruise... a tiny boat, compare to the German cruise ship. And I will be making my way out of the Amazon river, out to the sea, to the big city of Belem. I am sleeping in "reed" class, meaning... I will be packing a hammock for the 4-5 days cruise.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Merry Christmas folks!

This is that mad Aussie which I mention earlier under Puppetry of the Penis.

Yup I met Richard again, this time without his mates, on the climb up Mt Roraima. And yup, Rich needed a partner and that guy was yours truely for this scenic view!!! :b

Trekking up Roraima Tepui

I just spent 6 days trekking in National Park Canaima. My trek took me up to the top of Mount Roraima. A big fat and flat table top mountain otherwise known as Tepuis. Mount Roraima is the highest of the Tepuis in Venezuela, at 2810 metres.

This is my favorite trek in South America so far. The first 2 days took us through grassy plains, towards Roraima's base camp.

On the left you have Mount Kukenan, and on the right is Mount Roraima.

Mount Kukenan, as taken at sunrise on the right, is known as the evil twin. It has been told that back in the days, the native people here, known as Pemon, would rather climb up Kukenan and throw themselves off rather then falling to enemy hands. Nowadays there are no tours that heads up there as no native people would ever lead tourist up. I suspect the real reason is that it is much harder to climb then Mount Roraima!

And on day 3 we climb up the mountain. It was a slippery afair, but less scary then I thought. We cross the famous Tears Crossing, basically a series of waterfall which falls over us. And then, we reach the top after 4 hours of effort.

Up on top of Roraima it is all about rocks. Re-incarnated in various formations. All in very interesting shapes and sizes. There are also amazing crystal to be found at many areas on Roraima. These rocks you see are vary old, older then the Himalayas, the Alps and the Andes combined! The top is also pretty wet, therefore there are more plant life then I thought. Plus some insect and small animals.

The Roraima frogs are the most interesting. They are very tiny, about the size of my finger nail. They have a black body and a yellow belly underneath. These frogs do not hop like their cousins, instead they walk on all fours! Very trippy!

The group at Roraima
Originally uploaded by benwoo

We did not have the best weather during the trek over the 6 days trek. At times our tents were flooded and we saw plenty of rain and fog.

So at times there was no view on top of the mountain at all! But I didn't mind, as running around and examining the rocks themselves was interesting enough.

We finally made our decent on day 5, and spent the next 2 days walking back out to civilization!

I had a pretty cool group too. From the left they are: Penny (Aus), Richard (Aus), Sarah (Eng), Barna (Hun), Fran (Eng), Camilla (Swe), Ryo (Jap) and yours truely!

We made our tour with Mystic tour, run by Roberto. And paid 770 Bolivars for the fantastic trek.

Maho and Masai

Maho and Masai
Originally uploaded by benwoo

This is Maho and Masai. Two Japanese backpacker in my group out to the Angel Falls. Maho has been on the road for 1 1/2 years whilst Masai has been on the road for... 3 years!

Masai was cycling around South America when he bump into Maho in Ushuaia, Argentina 18 months ago. Together they travelled for 6 months and fell in love along the way. They are now engaged!

After a break of individual travels, they are back again travelling in Venezuela. After this, Maho plans to travel in Central America for another 6 months, whilst Masai has another monster 3 years of biking to be done. He plans to cycle through United States, Europe and Asia before returning home to Japan.

I tell you, Japanese travellers are some of the coolest and most hardcore of all travellers I meet along the way. They would travel into hot spots, without speaking the language, nor have a full grasp of English. I also respect them for their politeness and easy going nature.

Angel Falls

I spent 3 days out in Canaima, in South Eastern Venezuela. I flew to Canaima to view Salto Angel, otherwise known as Angel Falls. Name after Jimmy Angel, the discoverer of the famous fall. He discovered it on 16 November 1933.

Angel Fall is the highest waterfall in the world, at 979 metres there are no other waterfall that comes even close!

The day before we got there we receive a dose of heavy rain. Exactly what was needed for the big water experience. And so on the day we got there, it was mysty and cloudy. I love it though as seeing Angel Falls for the first time through the fog seem quite surreal!

But we ended up getting the best of both world as after noon the fog lift and the weather clear up brilliantly. However the fall was still too strong from the overnight rain so we weren't able to swim in the pool below the fall. The force of the water below created a wind draft that was strong enough to blow a baby off!

The trip out to Angel Falls is an adventure in itself too. We paid 850 Bolivars (170USD Black Market rate) for a "cheaper" tour. This meant that our group had to take a 2 hours car ride from Ciudad Bolivar to La Paragua. From there it was a 30 minutes plane ride on a 6 seater Cessna to Canaima.

And then in Canaima, it was a walk, followed by a 4 hours boat ride, and then another 1 hour trek to get close to the falls.

Along the way we got to view other water falls too, like this amazing El Sapo falls. The coolest thing about this big fall is that you can walk behind the fall, and see it fall in front of you like a curtain. The spray from these falls was awesome and the whole group was very wet when we eventually headed off.

The area around Angel Fall is also full of Tepuis. Otherwise known as the Table Mountains. These flat top mountains rises magnificiently over the surrounding countryside. They all seem to top off at about 2500 metres. The Tepuy that Angel Falls is on is the known as Auyan-tepui. It is also the biggest Tepuy in the world, measuring 700 square km.

For more information on this amazing fall check out Wiki!

The only poo poo from the trip out to the falls were that 5 out of 6 in the group had money stolen. We suspect it may have been the boat driver and his helper but we have no prove. However I only had 20,000 Bolivars stolen (about 4USD worth) but my friends had about 20-40USD stolen from them (all Black market rate of course!).

Still, it will not stop me from recommending the tour company that we went with or the tour guide that we had. The company was call Adrenaline and our guide was Gabriella.

Seph and Ben

This dude on the left is Seph, an American from San Diego. I met him in Ciudad Bolivar and together we headed into Santa Elena. He is an editor by trade and is in Venezuela to write about the country for the Rough Guide (a travel guide in direct competition to my bible).

I used to think this would be one of the coolest job to have, since you get paid to travel. But after hearing Seph's experience I am not so sure anymore! He is on a tight schedule therefore is doing a lot of night bus travels. He spends his days interviewing numerous people, agencies, guesthouse owners, restaurants etc etc for prices, tours, dates and what-nots.

Basically not something I would want since it would cut into my siesta time! :)

Petrol vs Water

Did you know, a litre of 91 Octane purchased in Venezuela cost only 70 Bolivars?

 

Which amounts to 30 cents on the offical exchange rate or about 12 cents on the black market rate.

 

A litre of bottled water here cost 2,500 Bolivars. Which amounts to 1.10 USD on the offical exchange rate or 50 cents on the black market rate.

 

Either way, with rising petrol prices around the globe here PETROL IS WORTH NOTHING!!!!!!

Los Llanos Caiman

This is a Los Llanos Caiman all! Don't the baby look cute? :)

There live in plentiful numbers in the Los Llanos region. They look like crocodiles from a distance. But up close you can tell the difference in it's pertrube snout (nose) and it's wider and shorter jaw. Caimans are very shy creatures, and would dive into the nearest waterway when approach by human. They feed on fish primarily, but would not hessitate to take a chunk off your leg if it feels threatened. ;)

Tony and his assistant Michael caught this big Caiman for us to have a close up look. This baby was pretty tranquil, and we were allowed to touch and grab hold of it for our Kodak moment.

If you look closely though you will notice that Tony has wrapped it's mouth shut tight with another piece of rope just in case! A rope has also been lasso around it's neck, and was used by Michael to subdue the animal at the beginning.

Los Llanos and my wildlife safari tour!

I had a brilliant 4 days out in Los Llanos, on a wildlife safari tour.

Los Llanos is located in the South Western part of Venezuela. It is a vast tropical grassland, and many parts of it stay flooded during the rainy season. Therefore it supports a rich collection of wildlife. There are giant rats call Capybaras, big snakes like the Annaconda, river dolphins, pirahnas, and a whole lot of different bird spieces.

Our tour took us through different mode of transport. We did tours on horseback, van, boat and we also went out for a night safari by foot. We also did different activities on the tour like pirahna fishing and tubbing down a river. My favorite activity was pirahna fishing. I mean, they were SO easy to catch! I caught like 5 pirahnas within 45 minutes.

The pirahnas are fierce creatures allright! They spot very sharp teeth, and over on the right you can see the result of their frenzy attack. Kerrin caught this fish 5 minutes ago, chucked it back into the water as bait and within 5 seconds, half it's flesh has been bitten off. Crazy shit!

We gutted our fish and got it ready for dinner. It was deep fried with salf and it was delicious!

And here is Tony Martin, my guide with his catch of the day. A mighty Anaconda. It was amazing to see him work as he was amazingly fast with his hands. You need it to catch this creature by the neck, and to hold it still to stop it from biting.

I was happy to see the giant snake caught, and to hold onto one as I haven't played with them since my snake keeping duty in Bolivia. The Anaconda skin is smooth and beautiful to touch. It has scary eyes from up close though as it is all hazy with no pupils showing.

And here you have another spectacular sunset at Los Llanos.

We did a lot of the overland tour on top of the roof of our van. The view from above over the plain are superb, with lots of birdlife seen.

Our guide Tony was pretty good. He definately knows what he is doing and is very knowledgable about the animals. But he is also impatient and a little ego-tistic. But the last day bought him back down to earth, as he cut himself bad on our little white-water adventure. After falling out of his tube and smacking head first into a rock down the rapids. That requires 10 stiches and you can see the big bandage over his left eye on the top photo!

Rahhhhhhhh I am still ALIVE!

Los Llanos
Originally uploaded by benwoo

Yes, just came out of Los Llanos, the low lands of Venezuela on a 4 days safari tour. I saw lots of animals, lots of birds, did a few exciting things and generally had a great time, and will blog about the trip soon! :)

Am right now about to step on a 13 hours night bus across Venezuela out to Ciudad Bolivar. Get ready to hit the freezer!

Jake Meyer

I must make a special mention of this person here. His name is Jake Meyer and he has set the record as the youngest person to have climb all 7 continent's highest peaks.

Starting at 15 he started off by climbing Mt Kilimanjaro, and finished his 7 summits expedition at Mt McKinley in Alaska, at a tender age of 21!

He is now 23, and is traveling in Northern South America to you summit a few peaks. I just can't believe how young he is and that he is on holiday just to climb more peaks!

For more information on his achievements visit his website http://www.jakemeyer.co.uk/

Puppetry of the Penis

I met these Mad Aussies from Melbourne at the Guesthouse in Merida, and foolishly decided to follow them up the mountain to see Pico Bolivar. As this is their favorite past time, posing naked where-ever they go. Including this in front of Venezuela's highest peak.

From the left we got Penny, Richard, Ben and Merrrrrv. Way to go Aussies! :b

Climbing Venezuela's Highest Peak

This is Venezuela's highest mountain, Pico Bolivar, at 5,007 metres.

Getting there to take the following photo was no mean feat. I had to dorn on my winter woolies, shades, hiking boots and the rest. Climb on board the world's highest cable car system, and made my way up.

The cable car starts from Merida at an altitude of 1,640 metres, before winding it's way up in 4 stages, to the dizzying height of 4,765 metres!

From there, I tried climbing the rest of the way up, before being stopped by this silly sign along with it's yellow tape, intended to put wanna-be's like me off.

Well they succeeded. I could not go on. I was too tired, too out of breath, too under equipped and lack the stupid thing they call a permit to reach the summit of Venezuela's highest peak! *sniff sniff*