Monday, July 26th

First, I'd ask anybody reading this to keep the other traveling group of students in their prayers. The bus they were in while returning from the beach last weekend missed a curve & rolled a few times. From what I've heard, it sounds like there was nothing more than minor injuries - bumps, bruises, maybe a few fractures, but nothing requiring hospitalization. Thanks. 

OK, enough of the serious stuff. Saturday morning we left Mérida heading (more or less) North toward Lake Maracaibo. We made a few stops on the way: lagoons, sugar cane farm/refinery (briefly there), a few markets & restaurants, as well as driving through miles and miles of fields. The fields here are a bit different than in the states. I did see some corn, though very little, no soybeans at all. Mostly bananas, but quite a few palm oil trees too. Later that day, we stopped at a river that feeds into the lake (I don't remember which river - there are a lot of them & names are something I've never been too good with). This was a fairly small town, the pier seemed to be the busiest place from what I could tell (even saw an offshore oil drill that had put in for some reason). From there, it was down the river by boat - very interesting trip & beautiful scenery. We saw a few families of red howler monkeys, but I really didn't notice much howling...

It wasn't a tight river, but I don't have any idea how that drill made it through. Anyway, after awhile - really not sure how long, we made it to the mouth of the lake. From there it wasn't far to the house we would be staying in. It was on the lake, but not like the houses in Minnesota are on the lake - this was on the lake, stilts instead of a basement. If you would have rolled out of bed, instead of a thump there would have been a splash. Actually, no, there weren't beds - we slept in hammocks, details...

Uh-oh, it's 3:45 already. Sorry, but I'm going to have to be a little more concise. Safari, trip around (part of) the lake, night safari, Italian roommates - & Hungarian (Euro version of Peace Corps), woke (too) early, back up the river, more driving - more bananas, spelunking, chewing coffee beans, didn't do the trick, had to stop for real coffee, through a cloud forest, insanely dense clouds, couldn't see the painted lines on the roads (where the roads were paved), washed out road was open again, saved a long detour, more mountains, even less visibility, and eventually back into Mérida. Very interesting, time well spent. Lots of homework & finals next week, so I should do something a little more productive. Later!