Neither of us slept particularly well, as it was windy all night.  So as soon as it was light enough, we got out of bed.  Justin went for a walk, and Crystal read on the deck.  On the walk there were a couple birds and some interesting reflections, but not much else of note.  The sun comes up, and sets, quite early here, the opposite of Tenerife.  We packed, and did one final charge of our electronics.  Andrés had no idea there was an election today, or even who was running - we were quite jealous.

We left Mavecure at 08:00, and stopped at an indigenous village called La Ceiba at 09:00.  There we met Hector, who is the head beekeeper in the village.  He told us about the history of beekeeping in the area - best as we can recall it started with some Europeans doing a study or research earlier this century, and the indigenous community continuing with the endeavor after the research grant money ran out or the study concluded.  The bees don’t sting, but we still wore mesh hats just to avoid any sort of annoyance or inconvenience.  There’s a lot of work that has to be done to keep wasps, ants, and other critters out of the boxes Hector makes for the  bees, and he showed us how he constructs and checks on the boxes he’s built.  At the end we got to try some of the honey, and it was quite citrusy, by virtue of the bees feeding a lot on citrus tree flowers in the village.  He thanked us for visiting, and also told us that climate change was really impacting the weather, not only the seasons but also the river level.

Back in the boat, right near La Ceiba there was a small cove where oftentimes there are river dolphins.  We saw a couple, but it was tough to see them because they came up only very briefly and we seemingly were always looking in the wrong direction.  Further downstream, the local equivalent of AAA came to give us more gas just before we got to Inírida.  In town, we had 45 minutes in our room at the Toninas Hotel before lunch.  At lunch downstairs, we saw the same Frenchie we’d seen at the restaurant with the birds on Sunday.  Justin got to pet it when it walked by the table.  Lina saw some election coverage on the TV and asked us if she was crazy for wondering why the election was so close.  We just shrugged - who knows any more.

We left the hotel just before 13:00 to go back to the river and our boat.  To get in our boat we had to carefully walk over about 4 boats to get to ours.  We had to bring our passports since we’d be right by the Venezuelan border on the river, and there was a slim chance we’d encounter some border patrol agents.  We went downstream a bit to the intersection of Inírida and Guaviare rivers.  The Guaviare was much more brown, full of sediment.  Apparently the Guayabero, where La Macarena is, eventually becomes the Guaviare.  Considering we were on the Guayabero on Saturday, three-five days ago, we literally could have seen the same exact water, depending on the speed of the current.  That kind of threw our minds for a loop.

Almost immediately after the merger of the two rivers (the merged river keeps the name Guaviare), we started to see Ceiba trees and other different plants, which we assume need more fertile soils and more nutrients.  Just a few minutes later we arrived at another intersection, this time with the Rio Atabapo, right at the border.  A dolphin jumped out of the water right as we arrived, giving us a one animal welcoming committee to the border.  We turned left and went just a titch north, where we joined yet another river, this time the Orinoco, where both the Guaviare and Atobapo end.  So in the 45 minutes or whatever it took from Inírida, we’d gone from the Inírida to Guaviare to Atabapo to Orinoco rivers.

We stopped on some rocks in the middle of the Orinoco for some photos.  We noticed on Google Maps that we were on the Venezuelan side of the border for just a bit, but maybe that’s just international waters and we hadn’t made our second unofficial border crossing.  We stopped at a convenience store on the Colombian side of the river and each drank a common Venezuelan beer, Polar.  Then we headed a bit south on the Atabapo River to stop at an old military base that was abandoned several decades ago.  We walked around for a couple minutes, then went in the water (well, Justin and Andrés and Lina did).  The water seemed even redder than the day before at Caño San Joaquin.

It was just before 17:00 when we headed back towards town.  Except it wasn’t, it was apparently only 16:00.  Somehow our phones and watches had jumped ahead an hour, despite being in airplane mode (as we assumed data rates in Venezuela would be obscene).  All we can think of is that the GPS had noticed we were in Venezuela, and had changed the time even in airplane mode.  We were flummoxed, but hey, our afternoon had another hour.  Then again, today we just wanted the time to fly by.  

We got back to Inírida around 16:30.  We went with Lina to the ATM, and this time we were able to decline the exchange rate thievery.  In the lobby with the ATMs, there were two dogs literally chilling on the floor.  At first we assumed they were with someone, but then realized they were street dogs smart enough to find the coolest part of the city.  After getting our cash, we went to a local store to get some more toothpaste and shampoo.  Back in our hotel room, we got cleaned up with a real shower (sort of).  Shortly after we arrived, the hotel had a brownout, so there was no AC nor Wi-Fi, the two things we’d been itching for the most the last couple of days.  We went down to dinner at 19:00, and this time it was just us.  The employees were setting up Christmas stuff in the lobby and common areas.  We ate quickly, then went back upstairs and looked up restaurants for tomorrow night in Bogotá.  We don’t recall when we tapped out for the night.