We took a bus trip up into the Andes, to Merida, Venezuela. The bus itself was the worst part of the trip - comfortable enough to look at, a double decker with reclining seats. But - like all buses in Venezuela, they crank up the air conditioning to frigid levels and make all the passengers freeze. It felt like a meat locker for 18 hours, even with all of our cold- weather clothing on and a blanket. Just another Venzuelan idiosyncrasy - when we complained we were told that's the way it is.
Merida itself is a beautiful city up in the mountains, at about 1,700 meters. The teleferico (cable car) was not running, and would be out for another year (!) Here are the idle cable cars, complete with a poster of Hugo himself below.


We took a city bus to a small town (Jaji) one day, and a tour with another cruising couple staying at the same posada as we were (Gioia's rooms). The hikes in the mountains, especially in the national park, are spectacular. Every turn in the path reveals a new vista, sometimes resembling northern California, sometimes Minnesota woods, or like the Appalachians or Rockies. Since it is so near the Equator at about 8 degrees north, the tree line is much higher than the Rockies, and people farm up at 3,000 meters in altitude.







Here we found a farmer plowing a steeply sloped field using oxen, probably much like his ancestors did hundreds of years ago. Potatoes and even bananas are grown up near Merida.