Venezuela

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Hello everyone! We live! We arrived and survived. So, we flew into Simon Bolivar airport today and we were lost from the start. But it did not happen that fast. From LAX, we got on a plane we thought was en route to San Jose, Costa Rica. Little did we know that we would be seeing a whole different part of Central America - Guatemala. It was short-lived, but an interesting stop. The boarding pass said nothing of this short layover. I met a man named Antony who was on his first plane flight ever. He was visiting a friend in Costa Rica - a doctor from Mendocino. He threw up the holy trinity a few times and we made it safely into San Jose, so I might have him to thank.
Anyways... we made it to Maiquetia aiport (30 minutes from Caracas) and had no idea where to start. We tried to find cheap taxis or hotel or car rental but nothing was really working, so we just took a taxi to a town 20 minutes way. Macuto is a small town on the coast. Humid, hot, and seafood...but not what we were looking for. After an interesting night, we had breakfast (during which a man brought in a fresh lobster and sold it to the owner of the hotel for about $30). We left, got a rental car back at the airport and drove. Sunday and monday night, we stayed in a sleepy beach pueblo called Cuyagua. The name means land of water (tierra del agua). The pueblo sat about one mile back from the beach, where I surfed with a local who works in the restaurant attached to the hostel. Dad took photos of the town and explored, and I cruised around the beach, meeting people and telling everyone to TALK SLOWER. They are worse than Mexicans. So fast, so slurred, and they remember to talk slowly for a second. Once you understand, they start spitting out words like it's their job. Cuyagua was great, and the people were a small-town folk. Everyone knows everyone. Everyone knew we were tourists the second we got there and they could tell by our color and structure that we were Americans or at least not Venezuelans, even though many had never seen an American before. The drive to Cuyagua was insane. The carretera (tiny, crazy road on side of cliff of death) is a 2 hour minimum drive through Amazonian fog and moisture, drunk Venezuelans, and it ascends a mountain range and comes down the other side to reach the playa. The weekends are nuts at the beach. Everyone from Maracay, the town just inland of the beach, comes to the playa on the weekends. Buses packed like sardines.
So, we go back to Maiquetia today to return the car, stay one night, and fly out tomorrow to Merida, a town in the Andes where dad has been before. Everyone has said that its gorgeous and a safe, beautiful city.

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Photos

macuto -- cuyagua 011
fresh langosta

Comments

[Toni Hood]

Your Venezuela Adventure!
Great stories and photos, guys! Thanks for the update - What an adventure - and it's only Thursday of your first week! I hope you find time to keep your journal, Logan, and sketch the surroundings. Pick up email addresses, etc., along the way, too. All's well here in California - Missing you both, of course. Stay safe - have a blast! Love, Mom/A.

[Peter]

Wow!
Hey guys, so good to read from yu and your adventures in my land, as well as some other places. It was so funny to read the way you look at the people, the culture, the prices, evrything, including the Cuyagua's road, very very funny. I hope you are getting a great time, I hope Logan had crowned with some of the venezuelan ladies, not the local ones in Cuyagua please, and everything is going well. I'm already back in Mexico, working and studiying as well. Have a lot of fun, andhope to see you soon. PS: Nice pics