Having planned to spend 4 or 5 weeks in Venezuela and eventually spending 9, the urge to move on to a new country has been getting stronger and stronger. So now at last i’ve crossed an international border and I find myself in Brasil. Glad to say that nobody even asked to see my Arrival/Departure card on leaving Venezuela, so no problem with extending my visit there :-)

I’ve covered a lot of ground in the last couple of days with over 16 hours bus travel from Santa Elena across the border to Boa Vista and onwards to Manaus (where I arrived at 7am this morning). I was at least prepared for the ‘ice box’ conditions that you find on all the night buses here (Two fleeces required!) What I wasn’t prepared for was the ‘rally driver’ behind the wheel (of a 42 seater bus). Slipping and sliding, swerving all over the road. Extreme braking that sent the whole bus into a high speed snaking motion and i’d swear he got two wheel of the ground at one point! So, I Didn’t get much sleep on the journey to Manaus!

However, we did (currently travelling with a Japanese guy – Yoshi) find a decent hotel with a superb buffet breakfast included. The big plus was that the nice lady at reception allowed us to have breakfast this morning AND tomorrow even though we are only staying 1 night. We made it to the buffet breakfast 20 minutes before it was due to finish today and so it became something of a speed contest to get as many courses in during 20 minutes (quite successful i’d say). Should be a bit more leisurely tomorrow!

Not wanting to hang around too much, I have already arranged a 4 day trip out into the Amazon. I leave tomorrow at 7:30am. I’ll report back in 4 or 5 days.