At 6:00 AM, we buzzed the caretaker of the Guamanchi Posada to let us in. They were expecting us early, and they had rooms set aside. Wes and Andre each got their own rooms, while Patrick and I were escorted to the last available room in the place. It had a single full-sized bed and a big window that opened out to the city. Tropical birds were singing in the trees and in the dim morning light it looked like we were in a hilly paradise.

I had the ailment known to tourists as Montezuma's Revenge. My stomach was aching and churning and I felt nautious. The caretaker immediately noticed this and carried my luggage up the stairs to the room, where I crashed on the bed immediately.

Patrick slept for a short time, but I think he got up to explore the town around 8 or 9. I remember lying in bed in agony, tossing and turning, until the ciprofloxacin ("cipro") I had taken when we arrived seemed to do its work. The long, mostly sleepless bus ride hadn't been good to me, and I slept until 2 or 3 PM.

While I slept, most of the rest of the group had gone canyoning, which amounts to climbing and rapelling in canyons and under waterfalls. There was some controversy about this, because Guamanchi had reserved spots on the excursion for everyone but Patrick, Andre, and Wes were not interested in going. Guamanchi was going to charge us all $50 whether we went or not, because they said they had turned people away based on our reservations. I was too sick to care, so I said I would pay but I would stay back and sleep. Patrick and Andre stayed back. Wes decided to go, and later said it was worth the $50.

I got up around 2:30, in time for a meal and then the paragliding excursion. Patrick and I walked into a sandwich place thinking it was a fast food joint, but one of the workers directed us to a table. We ordered sandwiches and waited at least a half hour for them to arrive. I was finding that the service in Venezuela was really slow. Excruciatingly slow. How can a damn sandwich take so long?

Andre was the only one who didn't want to join in on the paragliding, but I convinced him he should go. He would have been charged $60 for it anyway, so I think that fact helped to convince him. He said he was afraid of height, but he later thanked me for the encouragement because he really enjoyed it.

While we were organizing for the paragliding, I saw Rishi, Roger, Mike, and Luis again. Another dude, Juan, who I had exchanged a few emails with before leaving for Venezuela, introduced himself. With him, the group who would be going paragliding was up to 11 strong, all Americans.

Joelle, the Swiss woman who, with her Venezuelan husband John, ran the tour company and posada Guamanchi Expeditions, asked us to pay in full for the posada stay and the canyoning, paragliding, and the rafting we would be doing two days later. Her prices were in US dollars, which I was expecting but Andre and Bryan were not. The total was something like $255, but anyone using a credit card would have to be charged in bolivares at the official rate of 2,150/dollar plus a 10% surcharge. I didn't follow all the math, but for Andre this amounted to a $450 charge to his card. He and Bryan were steamin' mad about the extra cost, and Patrick was fuming about being charged for the canyoning.

I offered to pay for Andre and Patrick's canyoning because I felt a little guilty that they had not understood that we had reservations. I told them in email that they could pick and choose which excursions they wanted to participate in, but I had never clarified that with Joelle. They refused my offer, and seemed more satisfied just to be pissed off at Joelle.

I had brought $600 cash with me, all stashed in various places on my person and in my luggage to mitigate the risk of being robbed of all of it. Because of the flight delay and having to pay for taxis and a hotel on Wednesday, I had spent more cash than I had expected. I had only $240 left, so I applied $200 of it to the Guamanchi bill and asked Joelle to charge the rest to my credit card. The $55 difference amounted to a $96 charge when I checked my account back home. Worse than that was the looming problem of finding another source of cash for the trip, but at least the payment to Guamanchi would cover all of my sleeping and meal arrangements for the next three days.

After several minutes of arguing over bills, we finally got everything settled and climbed into the two Guamanchi Toyota Land Cruisers for the ride up the mountain. People started getting nervous as the vehicles climbed the dirt road at 45 degree inclines and with no guard rails. As the city below got smaller and the drop off the edge more treacherous, I felt a little dizzy from the back-and-forth motion of the truck. It seemed to take forever to get up to the top, and when we finally did, the driver announced that we were at 3,600 meters.

I was not nervous or scared at all, even though I would be jumping off a mountain in a few minutes. The solid ground and the fresh air helped to clear my head and settle my stomach. I think the sickness was mostly behind me, but I was worried I would throw up or, worse, soil myself.

One of the guides was appointed to me, and he strapped me into the sort of chair thing that would be strapped to him and to the parachute. After watching a couple of people go through false starts, I wanted to get going and get it over with. They'd lay the parachutes out on the ground and then the guide and the tourist would run off the edge in tandem. It was a windy day, and this was causing trouble with the take-offs.

Without much instruction, my guide positioned us at the edge of the mountain and told me to just start running when he told me. Then, without warning, he counted "1-2-3" and pushed me toward the edge. I ran three steps and the parachute took to air and pulled us back. Our first attempt failed.

A minute later, the parachute was back in position and we tried again. This time, when the parachute pulled back, I kept my balance and strained forward like a sled dog. It all happened in half a second, and then we were airborne and there was only the sound of wind. 2,000 feet below was the valley and the road that had gotten us to the mountain.

I took it all in for a few minutes, then pulled out my camera and began snapping pictures. The guide was manipulating the cords on the chute to lift and lower us and take us around the area. What seemed like only minutes was actually nearly an hour.

I started to feel a little motion sickness, so I asked the guide to take us down. He calmly asked if I was feeling sick, to which I replied "yes." He handed me an Avior Airlines barf bag before I knew I needed it, and then a second later I had the humiliating experience of puking my lunch in front of someone else, 2,000 feet up. After a few minutes of ralphing, all was better and we started heading down.

It probably took a few minutes to descend. As the ground got bigger, we circled around a clearing and I saw several kids moving into position. We made a soft landing and they collected the parachute. I got out of the riggings and sat down to collect myself. I was the first of the group to touch down.

Everyone had big smiles as they came down. We all got back into the Land Cruisers and they drove us to a small "liquoreria" in a town outside of Merida. We had beers there with the locals until dusk, exchanging stories about the day. This was the kind of experience I had been looking for, relaxing and hanging with the locals and sharing a few beers. The Venezuelans, I was finding, were very friendly and happy to have us as guests.

Beer in Venezuela is pretty much monopolized by a company called Polar. They have several brands, including Polar Ice ("ice" for cold and not for high alcohol, as with Molson Ice or Bud Ice), Solera, and Polar Light. Not once during the trip did I find a foreign beer, not even at the TGI Fridays in the Caracas airport. Ironically, Pepsi and Coke were available everywhere and there was no local competitor.

We headed back to the posada to get some sleep. The Land Cruisers would depart at 7 AM the next morning to take us to Barinas, where the second USA match would take place and where the rafting expedition would begin.