Our EPIC journey from South Africa to Venezuela!

Wow! What a crazy colourful 3 days it has been!

We departed SA on SAA at 6pm and flew through 2 time zones which resulted in our first flight from SA to Sau Paulo being 12 hours. We then waited for our connecting flight on TAM airlines which then took another 6 hours to get to Caracas.

On arrival in Caracas it took 4 hours to get the local tourism desk to understand our route! Spanish is the language and the Spanish don't speak English at all! It was too funny! There are soldiers everywhere! It was both relieving and scary at the same time.

The legal exchange rate is $1 = 6Bolivar. The black market exchange rate is $1 = 20 Bolivar! But its a chance you take, you have to make sure you speak with the right people or you will end up in the slammer!

From the airport we walked down to the internal departures where you buy bus tickets and flights. Another mission to get the people to understand our route but finally we got our bus tickets and soon were on our way through the hussle of the city centre to Hotel Alba Caracas or better known to the locals as Bellas Artes.

From there we caught a taxi to the Terminal de Oriente. There we booked our bus tickets on the Expreso Los Llanos to Guiria de la Costa, the closest town to Trinidad. This bus ride was 16 hours long!! We travelled along the coastline, through the most amazing local villages, towns and part of the jungle!

We booked into a hotel here in Guiria de la Costa for the night. The heat in this place cooks you from the inside, no jokes! The locals can't believe that we are from South Africa as they are under the impression all Africans are black... Lol!

The locals all drive old cars! Fords, Valiants, Dodge, Crysler and Jeep.. All OLD cars with large tanks! Cars that we would never afford in SA as the petrol would be ludicrous! Here the petrol is .80c for a gallon! No wonder they can afford the petrol!

The local transport is quite affordable, you can even hire a 'moto taxi' which is a scooter. They however drive like maniacs with only mountain bike helmets so that is not an option...lol!

No one here drinks tea, only espresso's which are 5 Bolivar each and they are guaranteed to get your tummy going! Breakfast is all meat which is also proving to be difficult as we don't eat meat!

Venezuela is known as one of the most dangerous countries in the world! So we have eyes on the back of our heads! It turns out that Guiria is known to be one of the most unsafe towns in Venezuela!

We are taking a ferry to Trinidad today and then hoping to fly to Grenada tomorrow. The ferry costs $330 for the 3 of us and flights are $495. Our budget has just become so much smaller but we are just focusing on getting to Grenada and once there we will focus on earning some money.

Joshua is having an awesome time, he is loving everything and is handling the journey like a true champion! The local women adore him. We have him attached to us at all times as I am sure they would steal him in a heartbeat!

If you are able to sponsor our adventure to the Caribbean that would be wonderful! 100bucks in your currency will buy us another week :-) and it would be most welcomed! Please message us for our banking details.

Our new comms device doesn't work here so we are relying on the local internet cafe's. We will get it up and running when we arrive in Grenada, where the locals are friendly and are able to speak English!

Speak again soon!

Toni, Baz and Joshua