And So It Begins...

It´s funny how life tends to work out. Of course in order for life to¨work out¨life usually had to have thrown you a few curveballs...and probably beaned you with one or two of them...

But since I´ve resolved to be the glass half full type this morning, I´ll focus on the good stuff - namely that I have finally embarked on an escursion. SO! sans sense and sensibility - and the major working of a plan - i find myself in Venezuela. I wish I could say that I am well prepared and have planned this to the hilt, but that just ain´t me. As it stands, all I´ve got is a backpack, two cameras and a lonely planet guide that has already gotten on my bad side (me and lonely planet are beefin´right now...)

And here is the story so far...

Caracas

Remember that time some bombastic fool blew hard about how it´s easy to travel anywhere since English is the defacto language of tourism...and how that bastard continued to regale you with stories of being able to communicate in every country he´d been in without any sort of trouble? Well Caracas has tried it´s hardest to prove that fellow wrong. I didn´t hear a single word of English in the city. In fact, even the touts and tour agencies screwed their face at me when I innocently asked ¨¿Se habla ingles?¨. I know...you can chastise me later for trying to take the easy way out. I spent the next day thanking my lucky stars for Shahima Chalela and Ricardo Ballon of ¨Go Spanish Now!¨else that day would have been alot more frustrating.

Caracas reminded me of a mixture of San Jose and Mexico City on steroids...except the people drive even crazier than in D.F. Crossing the street was an exercise considered imprudent by at least 7 out of 10 doctors...and I think the other 3 had been run over crossing the street to the poll. Caracas isn´t the prettiest city, but it had some bits of flair. It didn´t feel the safest either. Especially after my Bolivian/Venezuelan kickboxing buddy told me not to walk South..or West... or East for fear of my life. I guess North was the sea? Jokes aside though, I wasn´t any more paranoid than I am in any city. Only one Caraqueña looked at me with deep concern and said ¨cuidate...

So far I have felt like a rank travelling novice when it comes to paying for things...at first I thought that I had forgotten my numeros, but then I realized that there is just another series of currency that was recently introduceD...so if a clerk says 10 Bsf, she might mean 1,000 Bs. (which is about $4.60 US in case you were wondering).

I got out of Caracas fairly quickly to see go to Merida. I took my first long (13 hour!) bus ride. It was as comfortable as I could probably ask for except we had to change buses twice (once at 3am and once when I was too bleary to look at a clock...).

Merida!

Merida is known as the City of Gentlemen, but they let me in anyway.

Since everything closes on Sunday in Latin America, I took the world´s longest and tallest Teleferico to Pico Espejo and promptly experienced my first bout of altitude sickness at 4,765 meters (15,630 feet). The world looked funny through the stars I saw...




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"Against logic there is no armor like ignorance."

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