Puerto Ordaz

So we left Puerto la Cruz as planned although we ended up on a different bus. This one was air conditioned but a bit dirty and smelly. Once again we fell victim to a tout as we turned up at the bus terminal. When the guy asked us if we were going to Puerto Ordaz we told him we were but we were using a different company. It was 7.40am and our bus was due to leave at 9am. He followed us to the office where we were going to buy a ticket and of course it was still closed so he sold us a ticket for his bus. Oh well at least this bus left at 8am so we'd get there earlier.

The bus journey was fine and seemed to fly by even though it was 7 hours in total. We caught a cab at the bus terminal and showed the cabbie the address of the posada we were going to. We arrived not knowing quite what to expect as we found this place in the Lonely Planet and it was the first one on the list. Fingers crossed then..........

As it turned out we made a great choice. The place belonged to a German guy named Wolfgang (or Lobo) and it seemed ideal. Lobo had built the place himself and it was his home. He'd been in Venezuela for something like 30 years and had some great stories. Apparently he was a bit of a celebrity after traveling all the way along the Rio Negro in a rubber dinghy from Ciudad Bolivar in Venezuela to Manaus in Brazil on his own. He rents out 4 rooms in his house and it has a little veranda complete with bar and hammock. We sat and had a few beers with him there, glad to be somewhere safe in another new city.

Later that evening Lobo went to pick up another English guy who had just turned up at the bus terminal. He brought back a guy named John who had just returned from a tour of Angel Falls. This is where our plans changed as he told us it had been a bit of a nightmare. It's the dry season in Venezuela and apart from the fact that there's not much to see at Angel falls at this time of year it's really quite difficult to get to because of the water levels. John was black and blue from jumping in and out of the boat in order to push it over sand banks. Hmmmm........perhaps we'd give Angel Falls a miss then. After chatting with John he told us he'd arranged a tour into the Orinoco Delta. This would mean an hour's cab ride to the camp which would work out cheaper between three so we agreed to come. Lobo made a call to his friend Roger (another German) and we paid him for the 2 day trip then went to bed after another cerveza in order to get up nice and early for the 8am cab. It felt good to have met up with some people at last and we were looking forward to our little unplanned adventure.