Typical Venezuela backpacker budget

hurricanebertha, dont worry too much...things will happen on their own. The thing with Angel Falls is that you need to get on a plane to get there, either from Ciudad Bolivar to Canaima or from some other village -sorry dont remember the name now- to Canaima. I dont think you can buy the plane tickets on your own AND save money, so in the end it pays off to go with an agency.

About not booking the hotel in advance...well, I never did the whole time I was there -and I was carrying one months' cash in my bra!! But never had any problem. I guess you'll only need to book in advance if you're planning on going to Caracas. Otherwise you'll be fine. Just try not to arrive into a town after dark and look for a hotel, and you'll be ok.

Hi Hurricanebertha,

I'm sure you'll do fine on your US $ 1300 budget, exchanging it at a parallel dollar market rate that is. The downside is that you would have to carry all that cash into the country in order to exchange it at the parallel dollar market rate. However, there is a way around it, and that is to book a few tours before hand with an agency that has a foreign bank account and that way give you the parallel dollar market rate without you having to carry all that cash around.

In addition, please bear in mind that some places will charge you a 30% surcharge if travelling solo.

Hope you find this information of use.

Travel safe!

All the best,

Thomas
Caracas
berry_venezuela@hotmail.com

Not sure about the 30% surcharge for travelling solo. the tour agencies didn't really seem to care for groups or couples, or have seperate rates depending on the number in your group. It was simply a case of them getting as much money out of each person as possible.( They would include a purple hat charge if you couldn't travell without a purple hat. lol :)
On our Angel fall trip there was eight people, most had paid a price from 1400BsF to 1800BsF. For the diffrent reasons which the tour opperators could inflict on people they extracted diffrent amounts. Talking to some fellow travellors before i paid, I paid the same price as them. 1400BsF for an Angel falls trip from Ciudad Bolivar.
Regardless of the price or negoitation techniques, the whole Angel falls and Canima Lagoon where fantastic. Highly recomended and the tourists are looked after extremmly well.

(Caracass is not a good place to visit for value and security reasons)

I don´t usually prebook hotels I just want the first night, but couldn´t find anything. I don´t like having anything planned beforehand as I never know which way I will be going so the tours thing wouldn´t work. Is there no way to just take a bus to the Canaima park and then book a tour there? Or does one have to do the tour from Caracas and then come straight back to Caracas? What about if I wanna continue to Manaus?, that looks like the best thing after the waterfalls.

Will I get the same good black market rate when I exchange Colombian pesos? Looks like I have to start in Bogotá, so then how would I get dollars? Go to Ecuador first, withdraw alot, then fly to Venezuela?

Hi Hurricanebertha,
Firt of all there are no buses to Canaima, you would have to get the nightbus from Caracas to Ciudad Bolívar and then fly out from Ciudad Bolívar to Canaima National Park. You can book tours in Ciudad Bolívar if you do not want to arrange things in advance, but you run the risk of wasting a day or so if flights are booked up. If wanting to continue to Manaus, you can get the night bus from Ciudad Bolivar to Santa Elena de Uairen after ending your trip to the Angel Falls. From Santa Elena you can then get the bus to Manaus.

As for exchanging money, it would be wise to bring and exchange US $, nobody in Venezuela wants Colombian pesos. However, neither Colombia nor Ecuador have exchange controls so you can get US $ without problems in Bogotá (Colombia), Quito or Guayaquil (Ecuador).

As for the 30% surcharge, this applies mainly to hotels and posadas, especially in areas such as Los Roques. Angel Falls is not a problem.

Travel safe,

All the best

Thomas
Caracas
berry_venezuela@hotmail.com