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Published: March 7th 2009
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Sitting on the plane on the way to Caracas I suddenly thought to myself what the hell am I doing! I'm going to a continent that I have never been to before and have no knowledge of, I don't know anyone there and I don't speak the language! And yet despite this I was still very excited. At the immigration control the guy behind the desk started talking to me in Spanish and I had no idea what the hell he was saying so I just gave him my passport and documents and smiled. He continued to talk to me in Spanish and I just nodded and smiled having no clue what he was saying. Amazingly he stamped my passport and waved me through. As I got my bag I looked around the airport in bewilderment wondering how I was going to get to my hotel which was 45 minutes away when no one seemed to speak any English. I must have looked lost because someone who worked at the airport came up to me and luckily spoke a little English. He then took me to where I could get the best exchange rate for my money, then took me out
to a bus and spoke to the bus driver for me and asked him to tell me where to get off and how to get to the hotel from there! I was very lucky.
I spent my first night here in Venezuela in Caracas, the main city because I arrived in the evening so it was easiest. However Caracas has a reputation for being a notoriously dangerous city so I decided to stay in my hotel that night to be on the safe side. The next morning I had a complimentary breakfast on the roof top with awesome views across the city and took a walk around, feeling safer now that it was daytime. Then came my next big challenge. I had decided that I wanted to go to Puerto La Cruz, which is about a 5 hour drive East of Caracas. This meant that I had to take the metro, then a bus to the major bus station and then get on the right bus to Puerto La Cruz. This may not sound that difficult, but trust me, when you are in a Country where virtually no one speaks English and you Spanish is limited to Hola, Comma
Esta, it is difficult. It took a lot of time, many hand signals and the use of my phrase book but somehow I ended up on the right bus to Puerto La Cruz and spent the next 5 hours trying to improve my Spanish.
When I arrived in Puerto La Cruz that evening I was amazed to find the streets of the city packed with tens of thousands of people, music blasting from everywhere, food stalls on every corner and parades of people marching through the streets. I had no Idea what this festival was for but this didn't stop me from joining in the celebrations and having a great time. With the use of my guide book I found a hotel ($15 dollars per night) right on the waterfront, such are the prices in Venezuela, ditched my bag and headed out to join in the fun. They had a really cool band playing music which was kind of Rock mixed with Jazz and Dance. Sam and Joe would have loved it. The other striking thing I noticed as I was walking around the streets was how beautiful the women are here in Venezuela. I had heard this before
I came, in fact that is the only reason that I came here, and I wasn't disappointed. A lot of them are really short though so I think you would like it out here Sam. The only problem is though that they don't speak English so it can be hard trying to chat them up, but not impossible.
I liked Puerto La Cruz so I decided to stay here for a few nights. They have great beaches here and it's really cool to just walk around the streets and see how different life is here. It's sort of like going back in time because all of the buildings and cars here are really old. Every afternoon here all of the kids come down to the beach and set up a couple of goals and play soccer for a few hours. Even though we couldn't communicate I was able to join and have a great time playing with them because you don't need language to play football, after all it is the world game. I have made a friend here called Carlo who doesn't speak any English but we have been having conversations on Google translator which is really cool.
We still manage to talk without Google which is pretty amazing considering neither of us speaks the others language much at all. I have been going out to bars with him for the last couple of nights and last night we went to a bar with two French girls from the hotel which was fun. Luckily my French is a little better than my Spanish.
Tomorrow I am heading to the Peru to visit the lost Temples so I will keep you updated with that. Speak to you soon
Ben
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