A jolly little folly around bits of Venezuela

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I stayed in San Francisco a day longer than planned. Actually I stayed in San Francisco airport a day longer than planned. I assumed what happened to me only happened on airport. It turns out that it doesn’t and I am glad that it doesn’t.

I got to the airport in ample time even though my position at the back of the queue would suggest not. I don’t know if it’s a South American thing but pretty much everyone in the queue seemed to be taking the worldly possessions on the flight with them. Ironing boards, TV’s you name it. About 5 minutes later a women came to the back of the queue and said that due to the plane been overloaded they were not going to be able to take all of the passengers on this one flight. At this point I was thinking re numeration, so this little development really didn’t faze me. Like a rat up a drain pipe I volunteered to be left behind. This was a good move as no one else wanted to be left behind. In fact everyone else pretty much hit the ceiling. I didn’t have a clue what was been said but the tone gave away the game. I guess I probably wouldn’t be too happy if I had multiple kids in tow but as it was just me and my backpack this minor delay was neither here or there for me. Anyhow I was taken to a desk where the offered me a 1st class upgrade on the next flight to Caracas the following day and $300 dollars. I probably could have held out for more but I was caught up in the moment of all this free money flowing my way that I signed on the dotted line. In retrospect though the floor of San Francisco airport was a tad more comfortable than the sweaty concrete love cell that I inhabited for my first few days in Caracas. This reminded of something off the beach possibly less salubrious. Mind you that’s what traveling is about isn’t it ??? Blood on the walls, general smell of sewage seeping through the rafters……..

I arrived in Caracas and I have to admit I was a bit freaked out by this unfamiliar turf. I breezed through customs which was a relief and set my sights on getting into Caracas itself. I tried to walk around arrivals with an air of confidence this failed miserably when all the touts realized I was an ignorant gringo who could barely string a sentence together in Spanish. I managed to take a taxi driver down in price from $50 to $20 this was probably still a rip off but I couldn’t really be bothered bartering much more. Also with some pretty horrific stories of the road to Caracas from the airport in the back of my mind a decided it was in my best interest to do one!

My Taxi driver knew no English and I knew the very very bare essentials in Spanish. Anyhow a few minutes later he pulled this huge wad of Venezuelan currency. I had heard that there was a rife black market for the US dollar in Venezuela so I had made sure I had sufficient reserves of the good ol greenback stuffed into every crevice in my bag. With me speaking no Spanish and him no English negations for an agreeable exchange rate were done by scribbling various figures on the back of the back of a book. We came to the conclusion that 3000 was an agreeable rate for both of us. Then he put me on the phone to his mate Caesar who could "speak gringo". My agreed rate with the taxi driver couldn’t have been that clear as Caesar said he was offering me 4000 to the $. Even better, so in the end I managed to get 4000 to the dollar which is double the official exchange rate. Everything became 100% cheaper which was nice. Every mile or so going into Caracas there are military checkpoints/roadblocks and at these the taxi would stuff his was do money into the glove box which was strange as all the soldiers wanted to change money as well. I thought this was probably a tad to dodgyfor my liking though. The downside of this little quirk in the Venezuelan economy is that sometimess i have to take some money out of a bank machine which exchanges at the official exchange rate. It’s infuriating that there can be such huge differences in the exchange rate depending on where you go and how you get your money. My days of living the high life were over for the next few days at least. After the taxi driver tried to take me to various hotels he was probably affiliated with I made it clear to him that I wanted to go to the one I had showed him. Funnily enough he didn’t know where this one. Safe to say we eventually found it. This was only after he had taken me to about 10 hotels that he said were very good.

Upon arriving at my hostel there was no doubt that the Sabana Grande which was the neighborhood where I was staying was maybe a little dodgy. The hostel/love motel was like Fort Knox. It would have had a nice balcony but for the fact that it was surrounded by barbed wire and an electric fence! It was an interesting place nevertheless.

I had arrived in Caracas on what was quite an important date. The place didn’t seem as vibrant as I had expected. This all changed at about 0100 when the hostel manageress let out a massive scream or something of that ilk. It turned out that Mr Chavez hadn’t got enough votes to change the constitution. The time for absolute mayhem had come. Fireworks were been lobbed out of high-rise you could see, people driving around the streets firing guns and people just lobbing liberal amounts of what seemed like industrial strength fire crackers everywhere. This must have gone on for a good 5 or 6 hours. It was great to sit on the balcony and experience all this madness that seemed a little bit alien to me. Chavez promptly came on TV and talked for yonks, someone at the hostel was translating for me. He congratulated the winners then told them to go home and shut up. The he babbled away about how socialism was not dead in this country and that he would strive for similar reforms in the future.

Apart from that little bit of madness Caracas didn’t do much for me. I think it only served the purpose of been somewhere to stay for my 1st few nights in Venezuela . I think in terms of safety it was ok really as long as you didn’t go out walking at night where it did take on the feel of a bandit town.


Instead of hanging around I decided to head up the coast to a place called Santa fe which was about a seven hour bus journey. The bus was delayed by some landslide though so it took more like 10 hours to get there. This meant unforutunately I arrived in the dead of night. This experience is not advisable. I had no map and was literally walking due north where I knew a couple of Posada (cheap hotel/beach shack) existed. The walk to these places was about 2km and was a little precarious to say the least. I walked down one street and was told to go away as this was a very dangerous place to be walking around at night. Another street the same old story apart from someone suggested with the use of a hand gesture that I might get shot. All in all pretty sobering stuff, had got a bit of a sweat on by this point. By this point I had abandoned all ideas of finding anywhere specific and was just looking for the first place that would accommodate me. Thankfully I managed to find a place although it did take a while to communicate to the owner who was about 3 levels above me that I quite badly wanted a bed, irrespective of the cost. I found out the next day that the place I wanted to stay was literally about 100m from where I had stayed the night before in desperation. I think its fair to say I am learning on the hop about the dos and don’ts of South America, New Zealand this is not.

However I did like Santa Fe. It was a great little place during the day, maybe a little sketchy at night. I had a great little room on the beach, perfect place for regaining my composure after a baptism of fire on this wildish continent. To top things off the owner gave of the place was staying gave me an exchange rate of 5000 = $1. This made things so cheap it was a bit wrong really.

Prices of key items:

- Bottle of beer = 20p
- Beef Criollo = £1
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It’s quite funny looking back really. I had some grand plan on how to get to Guyana in 5 days. In general though Venezuela and South America are maybe not the places to formulate five days of back-to-back travelling involving 3 countries. Sifting through the LP quite desperately at time I came across a little island called Isle de Margarita. It turned out that this little gem of an island allowed me to bypass all the annoying bits of bureaucracy and border disputes that seem to have been rife on my South American so far. Usually I quite enjoy this kind of stuff but its just a pain in the arse when you have to be somewhere on a set date that is getting worryingly close. I really needed the semi-scripted safety of Europe at this moment in time. To cut a long story short the new plan allowed me to cut all the fat of this travel beast. Now it was lean and in retrospect it should have run like a nice dream.

It did and it didn’t. Upon arriving in Isle de Marguerite I found out that all flights out to Trinidad were fully booked. As they say in under siege I think it is “assumption is the mother of all fuck ups” at the time I was starting to feel a little heat. I had assumed there would be loads of flights with lots of space. There were loads of flights just no space till the 23rd. No problem I thought shall just get a ferry from Guiria, which is further up the coast on the mainland, 8 hours east of Cumana. However this ferry was also fully booked. After this options were pretty slim really. Funnily enough Gurira is only 20 miles away from Trinidad over the water, what a tease. I could have almost rowed a boat there. After all this palaver as one last throw of the dice I walked into a travel agent probably looking a little distressed. I asked them was there any flights in the next few days to Trinidad. They said no but just as they said that someone rang up and cancelled their flight to Trinidad for the next day. Ah the relief, finally I was off this bloody island that was fast turning into something of a cul de sac. I’d like to say I have learnt my lesson after this close call but I probably haven’t. Booking things so far ahead in advance and planning things still holds little appeal.

However in these moments of frustration I do question the need to get married in St Lucia, what’s wrong with a pagan ceremony in the woods of the slack? Only kidding Lauz

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Photos

Santa Fe
bit of R & R for the pelicans

Simon Bolivar
liberator

Santa Fe
Cant beat a vit of Chavitsa propoganda

Santa Fe
view from my little beach shack

Sanata Fe
beach shack on the left

Beef Criollo
yumm

Porlamar
Its hard to get into the spirit of things over here but i try