The Big Grill

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Well, Hola again...hope you enjoyed the interval...some have, some have actually missed me...that's nice....Well, I'm here on the lovely Isla de Margarita in Venezuela...can you find it Kate?...and still haven't found if the drink was named after this place or vice versa...I reckon if you have a few you could be here!...perfecto island, classic Carribean, and I'm doing the homestay thing with a Mum and Son in a house, well, actually its an igloo!...hard to imagine how the architectural style translated but this place is ferro-concrete, several domes, painted white and surprisingly functional...any breeze passes thru...I've got a little room upstairs, air-con, and even a little tv..in fact I'm getting most of my español from the tv, mythbusters dubbed, seinfeld dubbed, all the sports dubbed...
I'm living the simple life, brekky around 7 then walk to one of the local beaches, 25 - 50 mins depending on how much exercise versus the heat...always high 30's and 90% humidity...perfecto.
I walk around the beaches as far as I can go, maybe 7 or 8 little bays, each perfect white sand, clear blue water, palm fringed...a lot of the street houses back down to the foreshore and the lines of palms...from time to time a concrete block with a 'restaurante' sign but no signs of life...a woman has set up a fire place, sheltered from whatever breeze by sheets of cardboard! and has a wok shaped frypan bubbling away...she's frying up the local standard empanadas, half circle pastry filled (never enough!) with meat, cheese and other indescribable 'delicacies'...and fried to death.
And most days I'm lucky to see half a dozen people...and even quieter this week as the school hols finished last weekend....and Morella is back to work, teacher!
At the far end of the last beach, before the cliffs, there's a set of small cinderblock fishermens houses, pretty poor folk by the look, but friendly enough once I break the ice...better if I break out a few beers...this place lives on beer, they'd put a lot of Ozzies to shame....strangely they mostly drink 'light' and its spelt like that, in english, don't know if its light, if they know its light, if they care!!...but on every corner, at all times of day and night, there are groups or individuals with bottles in hand...bizarro, even at 7 in the morning...everyone drinks beer...and constantly....and its not too bad a brew, and at 50 cents a stubby...hey......but back to the yarn...
Above the small beach cliffs and the fisherplaces, higher on the big cliffs are spectacular, monstrous appartment/hotel buildings, fantastic architecture, engineering-defying cantileverd terraces, the oddest shapes you can imagine....in front, set into more of the elaborate stone walls...(a little aside...this seems to be the same intricate stonework throughout centro and south america...a genetic disposition from the aztecs maybe...like 'dis stone goes in dis position, etc '..sorry)...but into these walls are set giant, motorised steel grills, and behind these grills, great fresh snapper frying on the massive BBQ grills...beside them the massive touristas grilling themselves in the sun.....the big grill indeed...
I'm living in an 'urbanication'...like a 'burb, with a centro commercial...shopping and business centre, little bar/shop on the corner where I watch the world go by most evenings...a lot better than Barry's in Panama....down the road about 20 mins walk is the next one, and much bigger...a little Chaddy almost....great coffee shops here, even the design in the froth of a latte...looks like a dingo but the barrista was actually looking away when he made it so maybe its just a fluke...one day the virgin mary and a million bucks...oh well!
This place is really over the top ...boom boom...its beer and breasts...the locals neverhesitate to point out how many miss worlds and miss universes have come from Venezuela...and there are lots of women going to all sorts of extremes to become what they imagine is beautiful...and they all, no matter what size and shape, wear skin tight clothes, despite a climate that screams out for loose fitting stuff. There are ads on tv, some go for 4 or 5 minutes, showing some awful looking person, then the consultations, the suggestions, drawings all over the body...and I mean ALL over the body, then the actual operation..ugh, right thru to the coming out party...family and friends, gasping, clapping, cheering as another 'ugly duckling' becomes a movie star type...after jaw re-alignment, face alteration, breasts enlarged to fantasy size, tummies, hips, thighs pumped free of fat...like kilos getting sucked out...its almost so gross its off-putting. They have the biggest reconstructive surgery business here in the world I'm told....and the men are mainly slobs (so I fit right in!) and just hang around drinking beer all day!...no, not true, a lot of the guys look ok...
In the other direction the next centro commercial is Ratten Plaza, bit smaller but some nice looking restaurantes...after a week of salads and fruit I lash out and go the steak...fantastic, like half a cow in the true S American style...and real meat, like you have to chew it, not like the artificially tenderised, pre-digested, faux steak of up in north america........why do they spend squillions on having 'perfect' teeth and then only eat pulp food?
OK, I promised only a quickie to let you know I'm still alive and well...fatter of mact I'm feeling a bit in limbo...the rest of the crew are still in Cuba, the bikes are still in a box...this is an interlude whose time is nearly up...really can't wait to get back aboard and get back on the road.....
There's soo much I could rabbit on about, the people here are amazing in so many ways, and this place is pretty idyllic...but I'm feeling that this is not the story...and I want to get back on the road...
Hassles getting a visa for Brasil? ..you don't want to know!...what is it exactly that we have done to Brasil?...or is it just another spinoff from being part of the coalition of the willing!...whatever it is, I wish they'd cut it out quick etc etc .....sorry about the mighty Saints!...now for next weekend and the GF...yawn...just a matter of deciding whom you dislike more!.... but at least I got to watch the Japan Motogp last weekend....(ok that was for the bike riders amongst you...)
Tomorrow I might try the photo thang...I don't have the use of G&T's computers so its all new and scary...until then you can check their sites but I think the internet access in Cuba is still limited so they might be a little unupdated.
hasta luego......Bill

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