Advertisement
Published: October 13th 2005
Back to having a personality, a meaning for life, an identity...(and a bit scary) getting back in the saddle after such a long break but feeling whole again!.
And please indulge the odd typo as this keyboard has most of the letters scratched off the keys!! so its a bit off guesswork on the hunt and peck....
And the tyres are here, somewhere, stuck in customs, stuck in the warehouse...who knows but they're stuck...so we headed off to the beach at Puerto Colombia...first the traffic of Caracas to contend with, always congested but we manage to slip the lanes even with our fat arsed bikes...then a couple of hours on the autopista to the turn off...ahhh, this is more like it, a one-and-a-half lane concrete road, poured in 3 meter slabs and striated, luckily, as its pretty steep and winds up and around this mountain before dropping down to the coast.
I saw from the plane coming in from Panama that all along the Venezuelan coast the mountains just rise up out of the sea, never realised its sooo mountainous, and hundreds of little beaches and coves all along the coast. Trouble is, how to get to them?...I reckon if
you had a boat you could get to some v isolated places...for the rest there are these small windy roads that get you down from the inland highways.
By the time we get to Colombia I am getting back the feel for the bike. And this is a tres cute little fishing village-cum-tourist spot....a few dozen fishing boats crowding up the creek, lots of fish!!...several little trucks full of ice that take the fish back to Caracas I guess....a lovely malecon boardwalk with gardens, palm trees, the inevitable grubby pelocans and frigate birds....I was sitting having a morning coffee, watching the sea, when a little hummingbird starting working over the hibiscus bush right beside me...gradually working his/her way around from flower to flower, ending up in some blossoms only a few inches from me...unreal!!
(Photos of this and more on Ted's site)
OK, we decided to head off to >Merida for a change of scene, up in the mountains, university town, v safe, hiking, rafting all that healthy stuff.....we got as far as some non-descript city, industrial shithole, went to 15 hotels, all full, but finally got a room for all four of us at the last minute...before we cracked
it!
On the upside tho', the place was full of bikes and we met a number of the riders and got some club stickers...the wonderfully named ¨Moto Rutas Motorcycle Club¨next morning they did a bit of a film and interview for the club. Then my first BMW failure!!...oh no!..oh yes!...rode out of the hotel and the thing just died on me!...cranked it over...nada...thought it might be flooded so waited 10 minutes...still nada..fcuk!..checked the fuel lines and mumbled some incantations...voila...she ran...so now I don't know what to do as she's been running perfectly since!...might get the mechanic to cast his beadies over her when we get the tyres!..Ha, when we get the tyres indeed!
Having thought we might have gotten over gum trees as I'd not seen any in Vene so far...but, there they were again!..and a few different varieties for a change, riding along besides a river, smell of eucalypt, ahh...
So, the road started getting more into the mountains..stoppoed at a couple of spots and just gaped at the sights, really Swiss alps stuff, green, steep sided valleys, the view across at one spot brought on the same vertigo as in Mexico, altho' this was not that big, the
mountains are high, like 5,000 metres or so!...serious high. The patchwork quilt of crops and grazing farms, speccy.
We cruise around the curves, small straights, endless curvery, roads in pretty good condition, up over the ridges, down to the rivers below, sweet country..little farms, some cultivated ground is on near-vertical land...can't believe they can plow it!...looks like any shower of rain and the whole lot would wash away!..land is at a premium so everything possible is cropped.
Then we get above the tree line!...just low scrub and gravel...small wildflowers the only colour...anywhere else you'd be saying this is the snow line..and look!, up there!, the tops of the mountains are covered in bloody snow!!...and the air is getting thinner, when we stop and walk around we can feel the lack of oxygen...fortunately the oxy deprived lungs of a dedicated smoker cope better in these situations!..hah...this must be 4,000 meteres or so...
Merida is a nice little city, nice seems about the best word for it...old spanish influence, churches, statues, parks, alongside some fabulous newer architecture and some really slummy, rundown dumps....just off the main street there's a doorway and steps leading down, down, down into some shantytown...a chica tells us
very clearly not to go down there!!...no need to tell us twice!
I'd been hanging to get to Merida as they have the biggest, or tallest, or longest..I'm not sure how you compare teléfericos (cable cars) in the world...actually its in 4 sections and goes up to the 5,000 m level..serious oxy deficiency there!...but the bloody thing is shut!..Not happy, Jan!...
In the morning Grant's rear tyre has succumbed to the second nail!..so he gets both fixed and we get away by lunchtime. We take the other road back towards the coast and its definitely less touristy. The road curves around and ups and downs the same...little block box houses perch precariously to the mountainside...as does the road, its like its just been glued on...regular rockfalls are apparent!...don't know if I could sleep here....some residents have built a retaining wall above their house!! ...from time to time several houses make a village stretch over a few hundred metres, the road weaves thru' the colourful painted house fronts and walls, occasionally a stand-out with fabulously ornate stonework, high walls, wrought iron accoutrements. Down on the valley floor more substantial towns.
Still high in the mountains we come to a high point,
Don't go there!
Pathway to shantytown! Peligrosamaybe 4,500 metres...air really thin...the clouds pour up the valley, spookily silent, and wash over the road...thru' gaps we can see the road spiralling away down the mountain.... We head off and soon are right in the thick of zero visability fog!...just able to discern the switchbacks as we get to them, following what we can of the dotted line, cattle loose on the road!, a bunch of cows contentedly eating the roadside grass not realising the peril they place us both in!.... a bus stranded on a corner with passengers milling about, cars and trucks with limited, or no, lights coming both ways, and its only 4 in the arvo...its like midnight!!...finally find a farm with accom and restaurant...looks good.....looks like a Swiss chalet!....we get a couple of cabins...and light the fire!!...its not all that cold, maybe 5 degrees, (its at 3,000metres altitude) but having afire seems just too weird being only a few degrees off the equator!! ...and the little restaurant has fresh local trout..ha...
In the morning the bike's reluctant to fire up...don't know if its the same problem or just the lack of oxy.
Head off early in the morning to try and get back to
Fireside in Merida
Who would expect a fire in Venezuela? 3,000 metres asl Cracas for the tyres....more fantastic cruising around the precipitous mountainsides..stopping for photo ops .....higher up the mountains above us the grasses and rocks are dullish brown with some little bursts of wildflowers....... down below in the valleys the fertile land is a patchwork of greens and blues, along the road the liitle houses are usually coloured, whatever paint was on special that week?....lots of shitty pastel greens and blues, but also rich orange and yellows and browns, some have flowers in the gardens, great frothing masses of bouganvilleas pouring over the walls, intense scarlet poinsettias...it all boggles the eyes as we race past.
A mind and bum numbing ride back to Cracas...720 km day...mostly autopista and just fanging...get in after dark after some hairy moments on the last sections...gotta keep going fast or you get cleaned up!...no lines, lights coming the otherway blinding, overhead lights suddenly cut out altogether, tunnels full of black wet crap and thousands of crazy-driver cars!
Back to our old hotel, its uncomfortably like coming home!!...wake this morning and watch the rooster chasing his hens around the gardens...but its all sooo quiet!...hmmm.very strange...then discover that we have raced back to get these fcuking tyres and its
a bloody public holiday!!
Still if Ben ever comes here he'll enjoy a public holiday to mark his birthday!..its the day Chris Colombus set foot on Venezuela in 1498, I think!...(don't bother!)
So its quiet day...maybe a street hamburger, couple of cleansing ales and a little lie down..
Fantasic how aftera few days in a new place, couple of conversations in spanglish with a couple of cabbies, one can become an expert on the socio, politico, economico, culturo and everythingo and blithely spout the facts(?) to reinforce your views...then with further investigation more becomes known and everything changes....and one of the best sources of factual information is the bloody CIA world stats site!.... But then, what is the basis for our comparisons and judgemnents? What realities have we constructed to measure others against? and have we measured or checked the validity of our realities? or do we even comtemplate the possibility that there might be more?. I see some people just live in the bubble, others in a harsher environment see more, some see the world thru' rose coloured glasses others have tunnel vision, some are blind.....questions to improve the vision from the pinhole to the wide-angle, from the
kaleidoscope to the single frame.....aarrgghh..forget it..rambles, rambles.
Like Salome and her 9 veils, Venezuela is gradually revealing more of herself to me and with each new discovery I'm amazed at how this fascinating and variegated country and culture have remained such an unknown destination for travellers....(maybe its the lack of surf hehehe)...but seriously, its the big surprise..maybe the political instability put people off but its no worse than most of the region...I must say I have never given Venezuela much thought myself until now...its like its sort of stuck between being part of central america, (being on the carribean), and also south american, but dominated by brasil and the others.....curious...
Isla Margarita was certainly fabulous, and Caracas has turned out to be no more dangerous than anywhere else (its always a case of not taking chances and you could get mugged in any city of the world if it comes to that) and after getting soo many warnings about the 5 minute life expectancy of the tourist wallet (and life!) but the restaurants, shops, life, everything is fantastic here...and now the beach at Colombia and merida..and soo much more that we'll be seeing on the way east and south.....and
Memorial to someone who went over!
It takes a while to pull up down there! with beer, smokes and petrol soo cheap..hey, why not?
Without getting into the politics of it all (see last ramble?)...there is a socialist government in Vene at the moment bringing some reforms that have had the expected reactions...the rich are bleating... but there's a pretty fair freedom of speech as far as I can see and everyone is more interested in 'stability' than anything else.....and altho president Chavez is often on the TV and is always out and about spreading the word...they don't have the degree of obsession of the old marxists with dialectic materialism and many of the reforms seem to be aimed at relieving the appallingly unequal distribution of wealth ...and the president's view for a united latin america would be huge if it were to get up......and for all these projects around the country there should be enough $$ to get it all done as its the 4th biggest oil producer I think...and now the $$ are staying in the country and being spread around a bit.....but to get rid of the entrenched corruption is a major job...being an oil producing country the analogy of turning the giant oil tanker around comes to mind....our experiences with the
Down the valley
Ventana, 3,000 metres ASL customs made us v aware of how deeply entrenched the corruption is!...also the police force is being 'humanised' and again, our experiences with the thin blue line have been v positive.....here's hoping they can pull it off before someone does something silly....and it feels prosperous!!... lots of action, buildings, business, shops lots of bustle and action...and/but the 'burbs of Caracas, on the way out of town, the mountainsides covered up to the highwater mark with endless stacks of little brick shanties, one on another, (how anyone finds their way home is a mystery) where there is extensive poverty and danger for the likes of us...and stories of brazen holdups in traffic by scooter crooks, pull up, point the gun, ask for the watch and the $$..ride off!.....
Contrasts always contrasts..where is the truth?
OK. time for some photos.....and if you don't like these, I think Ted has updated his site as well....www.tedgrambeau.com it takes a bit of working and waiting but its worth it for his pix are fantastic....check out September, Venezuela 1 and 2.....Love to you all....
PS I did this yesterday so here's an updato...the bikes are at the BMW place and getting the full 20,000km service
Our Swiss chalet home
You can just se the fire thru' the doorway and a check up...the tyres will be there this arvo' (yeah, right!) so we may be ready to roll by tomorrow arvo' ...don't hold your breath....only a month behind sched...but hey, who's counting?
Advertisement
Tot: 0.179s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 18; qc: 107; dbt: 0.102s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.4mb
