VENEZUELA and T&T 2009

After our last blog, we set out on what we had planned to be a quiet, chilled out meal. How very wrong we were... We ended up in a small cafe with an insane waiter who was determined to use us to practise his English insisting, with many leaps, bounds and smiles that we let him take a photo of us before asking seriously "do you LIKE it??" and the question "Do you love me?!". After we returned, slightly hysterical from our experience, we chilled in the posada with Chris and the group of English boys we had termed the 'GBG' or 'Guide Book Guys' in Caracas due to their helpless, bewildered and disenchanted manner as they wandered blankly around Parque Central.

The next morning, we woke up early to go horse riding in the Andes. After a slightly traumatic journey involving a taxi driver who had as little idea of where we were trying to go and an exhausting uphill walk, we arrived at a beautiful, isolated farm. Jackie, the owner of the farm is originally French and passionate about his job. We set off, me slightly terrified of my first time on a horse, along the narrow, winding mountain trails. The scenery was breathtaking with lush, green mountains interspersed with the clouds that drifted between them. We stopped for lunch once we were out of the valley - homemade cheese, bread and salad, before setting back along the same route. When we arrived back at the farm, Hannah spent a while bonding with the cat whilst we chatted with the Spanairds who had accompanied us before beginning our return journey. When we had finally returned to Merida, we ate dinner at a restaurant in the south of the city which was probably the classiest place we`ve been so far! We had the best salmon we've ever tasted, and literally buckets of pina colada whilst a jazz band played in the corner. We followed this up with more cocktails in a slightly less classy place called Bananas...

Yesterday we visited Heladeria Coromoto, in the Guinness Book of Records for having the most flavours of ice cream - including meat, beer and shrimp! And now we are just about to leave for a four day safari into Los Llanos, the plains of Venezuela...

Love Alice and Hannah