A weekend in paradise and my return to Caracas

The shouts of several dozens of fishermen woke me up and threw me right back into reality. A reality that I must admit was for once very pleasant - despite the fact that my sleeping bag was full to the limit with sand. Close by I could hear the waves hitting the shore and as I opened my eyes I could see the pink sun rising in the east. A flashback from the night before reminded me of rum, dancing to african drums, midnight swims and stars so clear I remeber thinking I must be dreaming. The weekend trip to Chuao (a thirty minute boat ride from Puerto Colombia in the north) was a huge success and together with some of my newly found friends I enjoyed total relaxation on the beach as well as hiking through the jungle to find a cacao plantation where we could buy cacao in it's purest form. Suddenly my Venezuelan life seemed so easy and care free. But it took me pretty much exactly a month to get to that stage. Unfortunately life in Caracas is far from the idyllic scenery of waking up on a wonderful sandy beach in Chuao. Quite the opposite, in fact, as Caracas turned out to be just what everyone had told me that it was before I left (but I had refused to believe) - big, dirty, smelly, noisy, polluted, expensive and dangerous.

The first week in Caracas hit me hard, with severe jet-lag, flu and homesickness. But I guess it's true what they say, 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger', and somehow I managed to leave the first-week-from-hell behind me and could start my Venezuealan adventure for real. Unfortunately though, due to the fact that I came here predominantly to work, my free time is close to nonexistant and the majority of my adventures have been of the everyday kind. Which, when you suddenly find yourself in a huge city without managing the language, can turn out quite interesting... One of the first days of me attempting to catch the bus on my own to get to work ended up with me on a bus going in the completely wrong direction. By the time I'd realised that something was wrong and that I was in fact not on my way to work but on my way downtown (where, according to the locals, you should never ever go), I had no choice but to try and ask around on the bus if there was anyone who spoke English and if they could help me. Unfortunately, downtown Caracs is not the best place to go if you're trying to find someone who speaks English... but luckily one of the women on the bus realised that I was lost, felt sorry for me and showed me to the nearest metro station. When I finally arrived at work and excitedly told my boss about my morning adventure and ending up in La Hoyada, he just stared at me and said "you ended up where?!" and then kept going on about how bad 'downtown' is and that I should never go there because someone will immediately rob me. There's an awful lot of talking going on here (among the locals in the 'better' parts of the city) about how high the crime rates are here. Either I have just been really lucky, or it's not actually as bad as many of the people here seem to believe that it is. Robbery and express kidnappings are allegedly the most common types of everyday crime around here (unless you go to the poor shanty towns in the mountains, where murder is frequent) and most people seem to have been affected by it somehow. When it comes to theft, ne big difference between Caracas and some other big Latin American cities is be the lack of pickpockets. If you go to somewhere like Buenos Aires or Mexico City, you're supposedly very likely to meet people who attempt to help you in someway but actually manage to steal all your valuables in the process. In Caracas the procedure is more straightforward - "Hello, I'm going to rob you, give me all your money right now". Why complicate things when you can keep it easy, right? That however, does not seem to be the general motto of Venezuela. It would in fact be more accurate to say (as I was taught within one hour of arriving at the airport) "Why make things easy when you can make them complicated?". Here in Venezuela everything takes time and people don't even seem to mind queuing up for hours to get things done. Although in general, chaos is king in Caracas (especially in the traffic), somehow queuing have ended up being the national sport. But I guess that just fits the profile perfectly, with Venezuela being a country of total opposites.

Despite the fact that this country is going down in so many different ways, the people here are the happiest people I have ever met. They spend several hours getting to and from work everyday, they work ridiculously long hours and they get paid very little. On top of that they endure occasional natioanl power cuts and water shortages. And still most of them seem very content with their lives. Maybe it's because the sun is always shining and there are plenty of beautiful beaches around to escapte to if city life gets too tough. So far, the people have without doubt been the best part of my Venezuelan experience. Wherever I go people have been eager to talk to me and offer to help me out. I think the reason is not necessarily a genuinely helpful nature, but a very very curious nature. You can find Venezuelans of practically any size, shape and colour (due to loads of immigrants arriving from everywhere and mixing very well with the indigenous population - there is virtually no racism here as it's impossible to separate people into groups). Despite this, the people here can somehow tell that I´m foreign from about a mile away. Long before I open my mouth (to reveal that I´m clearly not from here) they already know and start to ask me questions about where I´m from and what I think about Venezuela. Several times people have approached me on the street or on the bus or in the supermarket with the phrase "You´re not from here, are you?". It´s an interesting experience living somewhere and having a normal everyday life with routines etc., but still be stared at on the street because I don´t look as though I belong. Luckily though people are really friendly about it and want to know more about me, and I have never felt as though they single me out in a negative way. I guess they are just curious to find out what someone like me is doing here (there really aren´t many tourists here) and how on earth I ever ended up here. I question I must admit I ask myself sometimes...

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