It has been a tiring journey to get to this point and yet I still have not crossed into Venezuela. After three buses that took a total of 36 hours to get from Quito, Ecuador to Medellín, Colombia and another overnight bus that took eight hours to get to the town of Bucaramonga, I am poised to cross the final frontier to cross into Hugo Chavez territory.
In hindsight, I probably should not have spent so much time in Ecuador or stayed in the big cities to watch two weekends worth of NFL football, but well, no regrets for anything. I am paying the price, but it is such a small price to pay.
Why punish myself with so much bus travel? The goal is to get to Mardi Gras in Recife, Brazil. No, I did not choose Recife because of an article in MTViggy.com. I am going there because I flipflopped about where to end up and did not make hostel reservations until a week ago, thus limiting my options away from the major towns.
So the general plan for me to get there is quite a journey. Tomorrow I will cross into Venezuela (assuming the consulate on this side is able to process my documents quickly) and spend a few days checking out Angel Falls and the Gran Sabana. Then I will leave on the southern border and into Brazil. Due to the density of the Amazon Rainforest, I am going around it and heading north into Guyana to the capital city of Georgetown. Next stop will be along the coast to Suriname's capital Paramarimbo. After a day there, I will skip over to French Guiana's capital of Cayenne. Then it will be time to move south along the coast into Brazil again to get to the town of Macapá, which sits on the western opening of the Amazon river. A day-long boat ride will take me to the other side of the Amazon's mouth to Belém. And from there I will have a 33-hour bus ride to take me to Recife by February 6th.
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