Mérida — almost perfect?

It shouldn’t surprise regular Wrong Way readers that we tend to find ourselves more at ease up in the hills as opposed to down by the ocean. 

That’s not to say we’re averse to sandy beaches, clear water and decent sun when we can get it – indeed, every now and again it’s very much called for – but we’re usually more comfortable inland.

Up in the hills.

Another thing we very much like and strive to find no matter where we are is value for money. It is always nice, after all, to get some bang for your hard-earned buck.

On both these important points (and more), the Venezuelan city of Mérida did not disappoint during a recent, unplanned visit.

Tucked away at an altitude of 1,600 metres-above-sea-level in the Andes Mountains, it is the highest city in Venezuela. Its setting is pretty impressive, surrounded by a host of higher peaks. 

As one of the country’s biggest student hubs, it has quite a relaxed vibe where, from what we could gather in the area we stayed, socialising at night is not a cause for much concern – something you can’t say for all parts of the ‘Socialist’ Republic.

Accused of being a CIA spy trying to bring down the current administration by a drunken local – he took all our details and then subsequently tried to sell us DVDs as well as teach us how to speak Spanish without the foreign accent – was as close to disturbing as it got on our nights out. 

In reality, it was amusing. The US intelligence agency would be pretty stuck if it came looking for us to engage in espionage for it in these parts.

Nice, if a little cloudy.

Now, while we really enjoyed our brief stop in the city itself and indeed there was plenty that we didn’t get to do or see, most of the more alluring attractions as far as we’re concerned are located on the outskirts.

Again, as our stay was limited, we only got to explore a fraction of what’s to be found. What we did see, though, did not disappoint.

On our first full day we made the short trip to La Culata. The main entrance into the national park is at an altitude of about 3000 m, with many peaks further in getting as high as 4,800 m plus. Alas, our time in the region coincided with the rainy season so the panoramic views were frequently blighted by all the dense cloud. 

That aside, the rugged, rolling landscape is pretty stunning, dotted with the abundant cactus-style plant, the frailejón (or espeletia) – a shrub that is renowned in the area for its medicinal properties.

Lots of frailejónes.

You could walk for hours there, as long as you don’t get lost. Perhaps it was just the time of year, but we seemed to have the whole place to ourselves – a nice spot to get away from it all.

On the second full day, invited by our newly made Venezuelan friends, we hit for Lake Mucubají, nestled at, what was the day we went anyway, a pretty chilly 3,500 metres into the sky, 60 kilometres east of Mérida in the Sierra Nevada National Park.

Again the views here are quite spectacular (words just can’t do it justice – the pictures help to do that somewhat) and there are numerous treks to wander along. For those wanting to spend more than just one day in the area, to be ‘at one with nature’ for a bit longer, you can camp there once you obtain a permit.

Lake Mucubají.

Before we returned to Colombia, we wanted to avail of the various bargains to be found in Mérida with our ‘converted on the street’ Colombian pesos (you’ll get an exchange rate to bolívares at least four times better this way than by going to the banks – for more on that see our previous post: http://bit.ly/102xdsi). So our final full day was spent shopping in the city, satisfying our value-for-money fetish.

On the activity and sightseeing front, though, we just scratched the surface as regards what this region has to offer. Indeed, the posada/hostel we stayed in, Guamanchi,* also doubles up as a tour operator and from what we could see it has plenty of decently priced excursions available (as well as having cheap, quality rooms).

Alas, partially self-imposed work deadlines saw us return to Bogotá a little earlier than we ideally would have liked to.

However – and as we stressed in the last post – this brighter, lighter side to Venezuela has certainly given us some food for thought.

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*For more information on Guamanchi Posada and Adventure Tours check out www.guamanchi.com or email: info@guamanchi.com

Venezuela: A necessary reappraisal

Back in 2009, on our first visit to the Ecuadorian capital Quito, we heeded the well-intentioned advice of some fellow travellers and opted to stay in the ‘safer’ north of the city – an area home to many backpacker hostels.

"Do you want to go ahead with this?"

What we encountered there, however, was anything but a feeling of security, reinforced by hostel and restaurant owners’ warnings not to venture out alone, if indeed at all, after dark. 

The fact that the majority of people we spoke to in the hostel we stayed in had been mugged on the streets right outside our lodgings obviously did nothing to ease concerns.

As a result, our stay in the city was short-lived; we were quite happy to leave in all honesty.

Two years later, in a less-planned stop in the city and being led by an Argentinean bus companion, we found ourselves camped up in a mediocre ‘hospedaje’ (hostel/hotel) in the historic centre of the city – dodgier territory than the north of the metropolis according to many.

This time, though, we experienced a completely different, far friendlier side to the place. Within hours after arriving (we got there late in the evening, in darkness, at that) we found ourselves drinking beers in a rough-and-ready house of some local. In another context, considering the area we were in, these guys would be seen as people to be avoided. 

This set the tone for what turned out to be a hugely enjoyable, trouble-free few days in Quito.

So while first impressions of a place or a person can at times be a good guide to the whole picture, this isn’t always the case. Very often such things are context and time-dependent.

Bearing that in mind, we made no secret of our negative introduction to Venezuela last year (see: http://bit.ly/OLR2Ev). 

In many ways, our experiences back then sat nicely with the accepted Western narrative that the place is dangerous, politically insecure and best avoided – even though we did enter the country rather excitedly and with an open mind.

Thus, this time it was with a bit of nervousness, tempered by stubbornness and a sense of some adventure, that we hit for Colombia’s eastern neighbour for a visa run. The rough plan on departing Bogotá was to get in and out of the place as quickly as possible.

Our anxiousness increased when, on arrival in the city of Cúcuta on the Colombian side of the border, the guys who exchanged our pesos for Venezuelan bolivares gave us plastic bags and told us to stow our cash in them and put them in our shoes for safety. (The biggest problem in the end was that this practice almost rendered the notes unusable from the damage inflicted by being wrapped up in our sweaty runners.)

Yet practically from the get-go, the coldness of the citizens and feelings of insecurity that prevailed during our first visit were replaced by very helpful, friendly people and a relaxed general atmosphere.

To the left ...

... and to the right

Yes, the physical signs of the recent, highly contentious general election (for a recap, see: http://bit.ly/Yy86zJ) narrowly and controversially won by the late Hugo Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro, are there to be seen. 

But it’s not – at least openly and at ground level amongst the populace (at a political level and below the surface for some citizens we spoke to, deep divisions are apparent*) – a case of a dangerously divided country where opposing sides don’t mix.

What we found in the two places we stayed, firstly San Cristóbal and then Mérida**, were easy-going people (the small bar brawl we witnessed on our first night aside – sure a beer bottle being hurled at somebody is nothing unusual to us) going about their daily business.

Wherever we stay we like to be able to venture out at night feeling relatively safe, sampling a few beers and chatting to the locals in little ‘tienda’ bars. Thankfully, that was no problem this time, unlike Maracaibo last year. 

OK, our hotel in San Cristóbal did have a 10.30 pm curfew, but that was more an individual choice rather than a rule from what we could gather. Plus, considering the times we tend to retire at night nowadays, this lights-out policy wasn’t a big issue.

Of course, we did learn from our first experience in the country as regards the currency. 

So this time we had plenty of cash to convert into bolivares as opposed to going to ATMs where the value is at least four times less than on the street (Colombian pesos are fine to exchange along the border and that’s where you’ll get the best price). Hence, in most aspects, it’s much cheaper to get by compared to Colombia.

On that theme, practically every shop/restaurant displays the prices of its goods – prices that are trustworthy and accepted across the board from our observations. In other words, haggling isn’t really done or needed in the majority of places – the price is the price and it’s usually satisfactory. 

Now, we don’t mind haggling, but in many street stores in Colombia you can’t help but wonder if they are charging you a foreigners’ price no matter what you pay. The aversion here to publicly displaying prices always leaves you in a bit of doubt.

"Sorry, where would we find some chicken?"

You will still find what seems to be official Venezuelan suspicion towards foreigners – again in sharp contrast to the usual Colombian experience. 

On the internal bus journeys where the National Guard did ID checks, as foreign passport holders we were the only ones taken off and given a pretty decent interrogation with our bags thoroughly checked. With nothing to hide it wasn’t something that bothered us really.

That was, of course, taking for granted that the officers were genuine – in this case, they seemed to be. Considering, though, the pronouncements coming from the country’s leader as regards some foreigners’ intentions in Venezuela (mostly aimed at the USA, albeit), you can never rule out a bent military official doing something untoward in the name of patriotism.

If, however, at heart they are in the same mould as the vast majority of civilians we met in San Cristóbal and Mérida, such a scenario is unlikely. 

In any case, going by our adventures this time around, the rewards far outweigh the risks.

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* Some Venezuelan politicians take very seriously the idea of ‘fighting’ for your country, as this video shows: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKUVdw9mgeY

**Mérida is something of a hidden gem from what we experienced. We plan to bring you more on that next.