One big thing I have learned being outside of the United States is that we do have many lazy people, many people that litter or don't recycle, and many ignorant people BUT so does the rest of the world. When I get home if people start freaking out how our pollution is dooming the world or we need to stop forest fires, I will just point at other countries. There are many countries where the pollution is much greater and forest fires are natural daily occurrence. I have friends in America that love our country and never want to leave. People think they are ignorant but there are many people just like that in Venezuela and other countries.
Example---- While on our trip in Los Llanos, our resort also had some guests from Germany and a group of 20-some boys from Netherlands (Dutch) that were there on a trip for their fraternity. After talking with quite a few of them while partying a little bit on Saturday I as shocked so see how narrow minded and ignorant their views of the United States were. Majority of them were shocked we were skinny. They firmly believed all Americans are extremely lazy and that we worship and eat at Mcdonalds every day. They said that majority of our country is obese and overweight and lazy. This made me laugh hysterically considering that I hate Mcdonalds. They also didn't realize the work ethic for jobs and athletics in America is unbelievable Hence why we have one of the world's greatest Economies and blow out every other country in the Olympics every four years.
Another perspective on being here is the hard times Venezuela has been and still is going through. I was sitting on the bus one day and just like many bus rides, a young will hop aboard with a bunch of cheap snacks and pass them out to everyone. He then gives a spiel on them (which I don't understand since its in Spanish) and then sees if people will pay for them and eat them or give them back. I was always amused by these street vending kids and asked the girl sitting next to me how old she thought he was and why he wasn't in school. She responded with the answer that in my ignorance never thought of; he was out selling goods on the strees because the economy is in hard times and his parents can't bring home enough money. This experience made me extremely thankful for what I have and the freedom I was born with in America.
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| Showing our support for Chavez while raging |
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| Dinner one night |
First off I forgot to charge my camera for this trip so I only snapped a couple of pictures.
Los Llanos is a vast tropical grassland plain situated to the east of the Andes in Colombia and Venezuela, in northwestern South America. It is an ecoregion of the Flooded grasslands and savannas Biome.
The Llanos' main river is the Orinoco, which forms part of the border between Colombia and Venezuela and is the major river system of Venezuela. Los Llanos is one of the two biggest trips we will be making this semester and was an experience of a lifetime.
We had a 12 hour bus ride to where we were staying which was a sort of ranch in the middle of the plains with a farm and animals. They had various buildings for guests and we all got to stay in rooms full of hammocks which was pretty sweet.
At the farm there were baby chickens, ducklings, and puppies. We even were able to pick up and hold ducklings, which were very, very cute. Being classic Venezuelan, which is known for having ice cold beer (its their country's staple and pride), they only had warm drinking water in jugs but had two big ice chests full of beer, Polar specifically (the official beer of Venezuela). This was interesting considering they didn't have a television much less a refrigerator but had ice cold beer.
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| Standard beer here |
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| Snack I had on the bus ride |
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| On the 12 hour bus ride home we passed the time by finishing over 100 beers and playing drinking games |
On our way there we drove through many poor and poverty stricken areas with people living in huts and shacks selling various things along the side of the road.
We had a whole weekend planned out at our stay and did some fun activities. We went on a couple safaris and off roading and got to ride on top of the jeeps. We many native animals such as Cayman (crocodiles), Capybaras (large rodent that looks like a giant guinea pig), iguanas (as big as my leg), and macaws (big parrots) up close. We went Cayman hunting and one of the guides caught a couple for all of us to hold. Later a couple of us went out with him at night to catch our first Cayman. I got to catch one with my bare hands right out of the water. That was sweeet!! But it was actually pretty easy and I only caught a baby to be safe.
The next day we went horseback riding on some trails and later went anaconda hunting and after a couple hours the guides caught a couple of anacondas for us to hold and take pictures with.
The last day on Sunday (we got there Friday and left Sunday we went a long boat ride on one of the rivers. It was absolutely breathtaking how much wildlife we saw in their natural habitat from Cayman to Capybaras, to iguanas, and big hawks and birds. At the end we went Piranha fishing and all got to catch a couple. It was pretty fun and easy catching the piranhas using meet. Although it was a bit tough because we were given huge hooks when the fish have small mouths so it was hard to set the hook. I don't think everyone realized that but that was something I had learned about fishing with my Dad. The smaller the hook, the easier it is to hook a fish and set the hook; small fish, small hook.
The fishing part was tough for me because it really made me miss fishing at home with family and going up north during the summer and spending the whole day on the lake.
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| On the Safari |
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| The Plains |
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| Sunset |
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| On the river |
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| Another Sunset |
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| Friends |
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