It aint all Mango Daquiris, you know!

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Time for a little insight into the day to day trials of travelling. From the previous entries, it may seem as if we are having an amazing time, and doing and seeing loads of exciting things.. while this is undoubtedly true, I havent mentioned the less glamorous nitty gritty daily details... the chaos of bus stations, and finding the right bus with our decidedly basic spanish, of arriving in a town at night, struggling with the humidity and the bulky 20KG backpack that bumps into everything, and thus arriving at our destined hotel too tired to look anywhere else, and as a result sleeping in a dingy cockroach infested hovel...

Anyway, just to give you an idea, here´s a little story about our last 36 hours in Venezuala that might give you greater insight...

Our penultimate evening was spent at the cinema in Puerto La Cruz. After a few hours of struggling and failing to get my photos onto a CD disk in an internet cafe, and feeling very feeble in my efforts to communicate technical issues in spanish to the helpful assistant, we sought solace in watching a film in English. The multiplex was modern, and ashamedly, we settled into our seats with a meal provided by the worlds biggest burger chain... (in our defence, we only had 5 minutes before the film started, and the other food places had half hour waits). Anyway, I was feeling more comfortable in these familiar surroundings, and as Evil Killer Robots took over the world, with only Will Smith´s jive talkin´ to stop them, I actually didnt mind.. at least they were speaking english..
And so to our final day...

We started in the morning with Rachaels hormonal craving for strawberry yogurt, and whewn we spent half an hour in the baking sun walking around the shops, cafes and supermarkets, tempers were strained. There then followed the 20 minute walk to the bus station, and the resulting clamy sweatyness, and general discomfort that our backpacks induce. As we pilled our stuff onto the bus, we then found out it was the wrong bus, and so followed a quick rush to remove our bags, during which time the water bottle I was holding had to be stored between my teeth, which somehow casused my capped tooth to break off, which as well as being 200 quids worth of dental treatment, broke my uneasy temper, and I gave my rucksack a right kicking in frustration and anger..

Anyway, there then followed a 6 hour bus journey that was slow and boring.. and we were dropped off on completely the wrong side of caracas. Since our flight left early the next morning, we were aiming to stay in a coastal town next to the airport. From where we were, it was $30 in a taxi, so we took the longer option of cramped local bus, Caracas´ metro, and then we hailed a taxi, by this stage only $6 to the coastal town of Caita la Mar.

When we arrived, we found the hotels were for some reason very expensive. Our taxi driver took us to a couple of dingy and overpriced places, and then, tired by our travelling, we decided to just pay the money, and put up with it, since it was only 1 night. AS we dragged our bags into the motel room, it became aparrent that it was a knocking shop... mirrors on the ceiling, and porn on the tv. However, this joyous discovery coincided with another.. that my rucksack, containing travellers cheques, money, MP3 player, camera, my diary, and our air tickets; was still in the back of the taxi...
This was turning into a very bad day.

After a few moments of stunned silence, my newly learned sub basic spanish was really put to the test. Since we´d got the taxi off the street, there was no way of tracing it. The knocking shop owner pointed us to the firestation next door. It being Sunday night, the local cop shop was closed, and since we were due to fly out the next morning, our immediate priorities lay with finding replacement airtickets, and a police report, for our insurance.

The firemen, or Bomberos, in Spanish, spoke no english, but we managed to make our predicament clear, and they jumped into action, and drove us to the airport in their truck. We then spent 2 hours wandering around the airport, from the police, to the Guadia Civil, to the BA office, and then to Interpol, for gods sake.
BA said they could reissue the tickets, but needed a police report if they werent to charge us. We would need this for insurance anyway, so we were relieved when a english speaking Interpol officer, more used to international terrorists and drug smugglers, typed up a lost rucksack report for 2 daft backpackers. The firemen were still with us.. young guys, all of them, and very friendly. They thought we were millionares for going around the world, liked the taste of our english chocolate (reserved for emergencies, of which this was certainly one), and communicated in the international language of blokes, cars and football...

As we headed back to BA with Interpol's least interesting case of all time, I was wallowing in self pity about my lost photos and the 200 odd albums on my MP3 player - the personal stuff that money cant buy. Still, dont get me wrong, being a tight Lewsey, I was still seriously pissed off about the money. Although the $800 in Travellers Cheques was replaceable, the $400 cash wasnt, and all in all, I figured I was about 1000 quid down, and my insurance was a poxy budget backpacker affair that would cover about half of that, that, and I´d lost my musical accompianment... Samba, salsa and merenge/techno crossover CDs are widely available in South America, jingly guitar based indie music isnt.

Anyway, as the BA guy was going thru the formalities, and I was telling the firemen about the price of beer in London, their boss came in, and explained that there was a taxi driver outside at the airport with my bag.

Well, I was rather relieved, to say the least - the taxi driver had got home, and finding the bag, and knowing we were leaving the next morning, drove back to the airport. My bag, and all it´s contents were intact.. I could have kissed him, but I gave him $20 instead, and then bought beer and burgers for the lovely firemen, who had stayed with us all night (this whole episode had taken 6 hours). In return, they gave me a Venezualan fireman´s shirt, which I´ll be proud to wear... so our final day in Venezuala was eventful, and ended on a happy note..

So basically, a big thanks to the amazingly friendly, helpful and honest people in Venezuala.. and you cant say that about many taxi drivers..(my father excepted, obviously)

Still pissed off about my tooth, though.. anybody know any decent dentists in Bolivia??

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Comments

[anonymous]

Taxi Drivers
I'm glad you came across such an honest taxi driver. Not too many of them, anywhere.