Well so soon into the trip and i've already changed plans! Plan 'A' was to head along the coast up to Coro stopping at various places along the way. However, given that i'm still full of a cold and would want to dive at these places (not a good idea with a continual cough!) ive decided to run to the hills. I was having a bit of trouble getting out of Catia La Mar for any reasonable price if I wanted to head west along the coast - lots of mountains in the way.

So what i've done is caught a flight out to Merida up in the Andes. Seems to be a very chilled place to hang out and a VERY different feel than Catia La Mar (read: it feels safe). First thing that caught my eye was the number of VW Beetles knocking around the places (can't be all bad then - check out the Car Photo Gallery for completed pictures of mine! ) and the large number of huge gas-guzzlers that look like a cross between 'Pimp My Ride' and 'Scrapheap Challenge'.

Not made any firm plans here yet, but i'm thinking that quite a bit of work on my Spanish wouldn't go amiss and Paragliding is pretty popular here so i'll probably give that a go too.

Its only day 1 in Merida but its made a favourable impression so far, might just hole up here for a while. I'll probably head back to the coast later in the trip when i'm fit to dive.