Between Ciudad Guayana & El Dorado

After spending some quiet and relaxing times in Puerto Ordaz, I decided to move south towards Santa Elena with my bike. I biked in magnificient landscapes but there was so many days of rain (tropical downpours). Althought the road was not as magnificient as the segment between Cumana and Maturin, it was quite interesting. I saw many nice cult sites and road signs "pierced by bullets", as you can see on my flickr account.

Amongst the worst thing I experienced on that road, beside the wounds I developped between the legs because of irritation is the El Dorado city. The worst and most ulgy ramshack town I never saw in my whole life. A central place with a lot of lazy latinos drinking beer all day long, watching at you when you arrive with the bike. The hotel was a kind of poor-place house with available rooms for rent but already inhabited before and full of graffitis, coffee and food traces on the walls. The hotel was filled with dirty smilling prostitutes and there was no showers nor lavabo in the room. To conclude, the corners were full of big spiderwebs. Everything to develop a passion about the city. I promised to myself to never return there.

To prevent my wounds to get infected and to avoid sleeping in other crappy places like El Dorado, I decided to take the bus until Santa Elena the next morning. Probably the best decision I took in my life.

Santa Elena and beyond...

After some 5 hours of suffering, freezing in the air-conditionning bus to Santa Elena and after asking many times to the driver to stop the air (but always without success), I finally arrived in Santa Elena, at the bus terminal. I took the bike and went in the rain to the center of the city, at the beginning of the night. I finally found the Posada Michelle. The best place I stayed in all Venezuela, without any doubts. A nice youth hostel with many travellers and clean rooms! The prices were also much below the expensive Venezuelan "standards". I was finally able to meet at least 1 traveller and drink a beer, not alone this time. A true improvment in a country empty of hostels.

Santa Elena is a real nice border town with many Brazilian shops and flags everywhere. I began to feel the passion about football here. I really enjoyed watching the games with the people of the hostel everyday. You can feel a real stress about scores and rivality between countries. People are really involved in that and it is just great.

I met so many nice people at the posada during the 7 days i spent there. There was the Czech couple, Jan & Sylva. Altough their laptop was stolen in the bus, they were always smily and friendly, and Jan watched the football games and played cards with us in the nights. Sylva wanted to go at the same tour than me, the Gran Sabana 2-days tour, so we talked to Richard Mata (a tour guide) and decided to do it. The first day was a sight-viewing day with the Toyota truck. On the second day we went to do some horseback rides in the Sabana. Really funny! There is some pictures about that on my flickr account. The first day was rainny, all the time so I was not able to take amazing shots of the "Quebrada de Jaspé" and other sighs, unfortunatly. The second day was sunny and amazing. We saw at the middle of the horse trip a nice waterfall where we went to swim. The water was just OK, not too hot or too cold. I enjoyed a lot!

There was also the crazy guy from USA called Rob, at the posada. This guy had a long resumé of everything. He went to Slovakia to work there, was knowing a lot of famous people in the showbizz and knew many dice and card games. He was very humoristic and its was always fun to speak with him and spent time with him too. AND HE WAS TRAVELLING WITH HIS 2 CATS. Lots of problems he had, especially when taking the plane or buses. I realized how simple it is to carry a bike, compared to this!

There was the Israeli girls, stucked in Santa Elena, waiting for their papers to be completed to be able to return in their country. They were not speakiong good english nor spanish, but we were always able to communicate wih them. They were most of the time on telephone, to deal with local authorities. Tal liked a lot oreo cookies and she could eat that, because it was Kasher food.

I will not talk about everyone, but I met many nice people. A french couple, some switzerland guys, England blokes, etc. Most of them were leaving for the 6-days Roraima trek. I was too lazy to do it and prefered to heal the injuries of the legs, instead of making a trek, although it could have be fun.

Manaus the nice city

I am now in Manaus (BR). This city is so amazing. I trully feel the football fever here. There is hundreds of Brazil flags everywhere in the street, shops and houses. People are really proud of their country and they are happy and lively. Much better than Venezuela at the moment! The city is really humid and hot but i enjoy it at maximum. The architecture is more pleasant and complex and the building have something more like the "Havana" style.

I am sure i will spend a lovely time in Brasil. I plan to take the plane soon to Fortaleza directly, (instead of the boat to Belem, and bus from Belem to Fortaleza). It will be less assle and more direct. From Fortelaza i will bike until Porto de Galinha (50kim south of Recife) where i will meet my little pretinha from Salvador, Natali. After that i should continue to bike until Salvador. Probably around 1500km of distance. So around 1 month of bike i guess.

JS