Fully Booked
10 August 2005 (Wednesday) – Boa Vista, Brazil to Santa Elena de Uairen, Venezuela
At Boa Vista, early in the morning, I jumped off the bus and ran to buy the bus ticket to Santa Elena de Uairen. Piece of cake, and it saved me R40 too!
It took us another 4 hours or so before we stopped for a break and some guys climbed onto the bus, asking us if we wanted to change money from reais to bolivares. The going rate was 1:1000, which sounded fair. I changed all my remaining reais and was given hundreds of thousands of bolivares in return. Wow. OK, in a way, 1:1000 meant that I could still think of prices in Venezuela, like in Brazil. Just remove the zeros. But having so many zeros as well, made me totally confused, mistaking the 20,000 bolivares note for the 2,000 bolivares note. Argh! I wondered how I could calculate change on the spot in the coming days!
We soon crossed the border and reached Santa Elena. I went to 2 hotels which had to turn me away because they were full. They just shrugged, too many tourists here in Santa Elena now. But I was lucky at the third hotel – Hotel El Cesar – which was run by a rather unassuming little family, nothing too touristic, which is good. The price was a little higher than what I would pay, but if there were really too many tourists here, then I would just stay here.
Santa Elena is not much of a town. It is very small, and very frontier-feeling. I guess the point of stopping by here is to visit the sights out there – way out there!! And that meant joining a tour.
The first tour company I asked, told me they were fully booked til 22 August!! What?!?! Are there seriously THAT many tourists!?! I wandered around the town for a while, and got to chatting with a few guys and they seemed to agree that there were no places left for tours tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. They suggested that I return in the evening to ask around. OK.
I walked blindly around the town and came upon a travel agency at the far side of the town (which frankly, is not that far out) and it seemed they had 1 place left for rafting tomorrow. Rafting? I certainly had not planned on doing this, but hey, although I was still nursing a cold… why not? I signed up and so, it appears that I am going rafting tomorrow!
Tags: 05) Merchants of Little Venice
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