Santa Elena Venezuela

No, I didn't rob a bank! Santa Elena is just over the border from Brazil on the only road that links the two countries. I had a lot of Reals and had to change them into Bolivars, the currency of Venezuela, and I was an instant millionaire.

The problem was that they only had 100 Bolivar notes so I 4,000 notes as seen on the table which at home is worth a reasonable meal for two and a bottle of wine. A lot of weight and volume to carry about if you want to go shopping.

I had arrived at a wonderful hostel, more of a retreat and spa than a hostel, the outside of the building don its own track off a quiet road.

A view of part of the garden.

The communal dining and relaxing area.

The swimming pool and water slide.

Another view of one of the buildings in the grounds of the hostel.

There are an incredible number of old American cars on the streets, many very rusty and throwing out huge amounts smoke from the exhaust. They would not pass an MOT or any emissions tests but if there aren't any tests, no one cares. And when petrol and diesel is cheaper than water (it is heavily subsidised at only a single Bolivar per litre and on the black market there are 3,800 Bolivars to a US Dollar), no one cares about the fuel consumption!

The internet is intermittent as is the electricity and my access to both so this may be the one of the few times that I can post anything and I haven't been able to upload any more photos so this is really only half a post...so my apologises. But on my way north from Santa Elena, I went through Canada National Park and stopped at several waterfalls and this is the view behind just one of them.