Venezuela

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We did not spend much time here, but managed to spend a Christmas. We never even intended to visit, but the flights were so cheap he just had no other way of getting to the mainland. When we arrived to Caracas Silvie was poorly, and I was paranoid, this being my first time in South America, that we were going to be robbed, or worse. I spoke very little Spanish back then. Caracas treated us kindly however. Seemed no worse than any other capital city however.

We spent the next day in Puerto Colombia, with my first taste of the Caribbean sea, having not done the beach in the Dominican Republic. Silvie saw a monkey, and the road there crumbled away at the edges of a steep dangerous valley and twisted up and all the way down via cloud forest. That evening we caught the bus to Merida, to see the mountains. I woke up convinced the Andes, my first time among them too, were speaking to me. Put this down to tiredness if you want. But they were speaking to me I tell you. Can´t tell you what they said though, but it sounded nice. Then after a great day or so in Merida, just wandering around, something strange took hold and we thought it would be a good idea to go to a place called Punto Fijo for Christmas. Big mistake. This is one of the dodgiest towns in the word ever. A big industrial duty free sprawl. Avoid. There is a horrible beach resort nearby. We took one photo and left. We heard afterwoods that if you see the area from the air you see a black stain of oil around the sea in the gulf of Venezuela.

We ended up in Coro for Christmas. It was OK. You should be able to write more than that after Chritams near the Caribbean coast but other than tedious details I can´t. Coro was OK. That sums it up neatly.

We´ll leave it at that for now shall we. Maybe one day I´ll add a biting socio-political critique. Not for now though.

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Photos

Don´t be deceived, this place is a shit hole
honestly. There are oil rigs just round the corner.
Punto Fijo

a nice place to hang out
in an otherwise dull town, Coro.

Santa is coming
to drink all our beer

Christmas 2005
After a lengthy ppowercut a rather subdued party got on the way.

Puerto Colombia
A very nice place indeed.

Merida
chris´ first town in the andes

a very intese and pretty cool poem
written on the wall in Merida Part 1. We will translate this soon.