Venezuela 2006

So Alaina and I caught a cheeep flight down to Isla Margarita, which is off the Northeast coast of Venezuela. It was great fun.






Some interesting facts about Venezuela:

• -The National Guard, La Policia, and the Army are not all the same thing, but almost
• - All of the above can be found patrolling streets and stopping traffic toting fully automatic weapons
• - 120 in a 40 is totally normal
• - Passing head on and missing by 10 feet is pansy, 5 feet is more like it
• - Open alcohol in cars is allowed, and in fact encouraged, in this part of the world
• - Rum is provided in most stores, along with coffee, for those who need a nip before their next bout of driving
• - 24 Litres of gas (that's 6.3 Imperial Gallons) costs 1$ US. That is not a typo.
• - Generally cars do not have seatbelts, especially in the back seats. Basically if you smoke someone and you're both doing 120 (that's a combined speed of 240 km/hr, you're F'ed anyway, seatbelt is only going to prolong a death that could have been mercifully instant
• - Even though the island has made literally billions from tourism, I ran into 2 people in the industry that spoke conversational english, the rest spoke less English than I do Spanish
• - I like Jethro Tull

Follow the links in the right margin to start at Day 1, since it has already been archived by the blogger. . . Pura Vida.

Day 8 - Summit of El Copey - worst flight home ever. Apparently part of the departure tax is $4.50 US for an E. Coli infested burger

Good game out there everybody. . . We got up early, packed up and ate breakfast. We talked to the receptionist who spoke about as much English as I do Spanish, and tried to get the lowdown on just what the hell to tell our cab driver in order not to end up at the dirt road at 75m above sea level at the beginning of our planned El Copey hike. He assured us the cabby would get us to the right spot this time, so after buying some snacks at the Bodegon we hopped in an early 90’s dark green buick sporting fat dragster tires and windows that faded from a metallic green of the same colour at the top to a jet black at the bottom. Our driver was a portly Venezuelan that drove like a bat out of hell. As we cut through the narrow avenues of Porlamar we realized with dread that he was taking us exactly where we did not want to go. Minutes later we pulled up to the same dirt road of a few days ago. We showed him our map and told him we wanted to get as close to the top as we could, by the national guard station where the hike up starts. He did not understand and rolled his window down to ask for directions. Thankfully today he didn’t ask the nose picker and his dad. He asked a gentleman in a shirt that advertised Tourismo on Isla Margarita. This is the guy we wanted. He didn’t speak a lick of English, but after Alaina protested the idea of hiking from this point, evcen if it was up the suggested alternative trail to our left, I got out of the car to join the conversation. Which was mostly in sign language and whistles accompanying ballistic arm movements describing abrupt ascents, whether they be on foot or by car. I described with my own hand signals the location I desired, with the national guard station and the walk up, and the tourismo guy nodded with understanding. So back in the cab we got and our guy whipped through a little town called sierra (consistent with our map) and up the mountain to an altitude of 410m. This was more like it. We paid him and he offered to return in 3 hours to get us. Nice of him. We took the offer and set off. The hike was easy as it was all on road, but the switchbacks numbered many and our final altitude an hour and a half later was 865m, and the vegetation had changed drastically. We had seen bromeliads and tree ferns all the way up and the air was cool. At the peak it was almost cold, and the brush had become short and stunted. The peak of El Copey allows a breathtaking view of the whole island. We could see weather happening. The mountain range we were on was taking all the precipitation for the plants it housed, giving rise to thick rainforest, and on the other side nothing was left. The result was a stark contrast between arid red soil and ocean off in the hazy distance. It was beautiful. Lizards darted across the hot road as we descended after having our snack. We messed around a bit with the sensitive plant that grew at the bottom before descending back to the national guard station. We walked to a restaurant next door and enjoyed a beer on a balcony over the valley that housed the city of Porlamar, and at exactly 12:29 a huge souped up green buick whizzed by our field of view. The people here are observant. The owners of the restasurant immediately figured out it was ours and whistled it back. We paid less than a dollar for our two beers and we were off without a hitch back to the hotel. We hit the beach next and lounged the afternoon away. I caught the biggest wave of my life and surfed it face down about 60 ft from where it started to break almost right into shore. We topped it all off by having gone along the strip into a local bodegon and having picked up the legendary cheap liquor of Venezuela. I picked up a bottle of Venezuela’s finest Gran Reserva Rum (1 L) for 11,000 Bolivars. At 2300 bolivars to a dollar, you do the math. Picked up a bottle of gin for 8000. Laughing. Hopefully Canada doesn’t find it because I’m sure as hell not declaring it. We went back to the hotel and got on our bus to the airport where we now reside waiting for our red eye flight to board. I think they took back all the money I saved by charging me $50 American to leave the country, and then another 4.50 for the friggin hamburger I ate for dinner. Which was awful. Nonetheless our excursion was an expedition not soon to be forgotten, and I have to say things went in an uncannily smooth way the whole time. Let’s hope the trend continues for the flight, only 5 hours till home once we take off. . .

Note: I spoke too soon. The awful cheeseburger I ate: Contaminated. I caught a case of food poisoning so fierce I puked twice on the plane, 2 times in the airport, once after getting out of Alaina’s dad’s truck as we got home, and once after I went to bed. The entire next day I was bedridden, and only now do I feel better. Awesome.

Day 7 - Separatists, pickpocket monkeys and coral snakes

Today I saw a monkey try to rob a Dutch Lady’s purse. Today was our tour of the capital, which had its ups and downs. We caught a coach bus this morning outside of our hotel, and since Alaina and I along with an old couple totaled the only four Anglophones on the bus, the tour was primarily in French. French was the language of the of the other 12 people on the bus – even though they were all Canadian citizens. Damned Separatists. I have been in this country for a week and my Spanish vocabulary has grown x 10. If I spent a year here I know I would be completely fluent, now explain to me how you can live in a country for over 30 years in which over %95 of the people speak English, and not know enough English to have a tour in that language. Very frustrating. I know I live in a bilingual country and I should learn French as well, but the truth is the people here learn enough English to get by by watching TV, so how hard do you have to try to ignore the world around you to speak about as much English as a mute? Anyway, it all boiled down to us having a guide that barely spoke English, but very good French, so we missed out on a fair bit of the history, but the tour was still worth it. We drove through the capital where we skipped seeing the second oldest church in South America Senora de La Asuncion, thankfully we had seen it the day before. The church was built by the spanish settlers in the 1600's, and is incredible. It is still in its original state, doors and all. We visited a couple of fortresses converted to jails in the days of the pirates before the country was liberated, and the history of the country’s heroes and heroines was exhilarating. We drove again through Porlamar, had a delicious lunch at a beach side restaurant in the city. We dined with an old American couple under roof of grass by the water. We stopped at a pier where Sardine fishermen shove off, margarita being one of the top sardine exporters. The waves crashed so violently here that they ejected water out of the sea and shot over the road. Our guide said she’d never seen it like this. Next came the lowest point of our day. A trip to the mall. The bus dropped us off in an area of the city of Pampatar which had a mall as big as something you would find in Toronto. Prices were as high as Toronto as well, ridiculously inflated for this part of the world. We walked around miserably, laughing at how ridiculous the whole thing was. I was annoyed that I had paid to be dropped off at a place where I might spend money, as this ritzy part of this poor country was certainly not something I needed to see up close. I felt like I was back in Canada. What was sad is that amercian culture was diluting the Latin American one. We left after an hour and some icecream from a joint called simply “Happy Time”, right up the stairs from “Kinky Donuts”, and my only relief was a Cerveca which our driver naturally kept in a cooler under the bus. The highlight of our trip, unbenknownst to us, was ahead. We went to a sort of outdoor botanical garden, which housed many plants which grow naturally here, some up at higher altitudes, most of which do not survive in the drier lowlands. We were familiarized with many fruits and plants, but the ultimate was after the maze. We walked through a maze of Benjamina trees, simply designed to be a buffer to kill time and hold tourists from crowding what awaited at the end. After we exited the maze we were greeted with pools of turtles and enclosures housing land tortoises. Further out various varieties of curious tucans greeted us, hopping from far branches over to near ones to get a closer look at us. We fed them watermelon through their cages and they eagerly took them from us. Friendly parrots flew around, and the centerpiece of the scenario was a huge mango tree which housed a white-faced monkey. He was a mischievious little one, gingerly jumping onto people’s shoulders before revealing his ferocious nature, climbing up their faces and down the backs of their shirts. We watched one Dutch tourist make faces and hold offerings of coconut out to him for just a little too long before he jumped on her and spent the next 5 minutes trying to get into her purse, manipulating buttons and zippers as he saw fit. I also got some good macros of a 12 foot Python from about 2 inches away from the face. The personal highlight for me was as I was staring down into an enclosure of 6 foot boa constrictors, one of the park guides asked if I would like to hold one, and seconds after I eagerly agreed I had a 6 foot constrictor draped over my shoulders. Feeling the weight of the muscle of the beast and staring into its reptilian eyes as it slowly slithered around my neck was an experienced unmatched for me. I’m not really sure what keeps these domesticated ones from snapping our bones like popsicle sticks, but thankfully it was a gentle beast. I’m sure the guides would never allow it if it was dangerous. . . maybe. I also fed a couple of parrots, looked face to face with a caiman, had a tarantula crawl over my hand, and craziest of all found out the snake we saw in the jungle was a member of the coral family, and was extremely venomous. I don’t know too much Spanish, but I recognized those words on its terrarium. Let’s hope we don’t have an even closer encounter with one on our second attempt to summit El Copey tomorrow.

Day 6 - "Ohhh think twice, it's just another day for you and me in paradise. . ."

Oh Phil Collins. In between bouts of local Salsa, Merengue and Dub the resort likes to attempt to please its foreign customers with music we "know", and who knows, maybe the Pollocks and the Dutch actually enjoy "Say you, Say me" and "More than words" but I sure don't. Last night though, when they played Phil Collins "think twice" I actually did. First I laughed at the song, then I comprehended the irony of it. The song is about poverty, and how most of us have it easy in our northwestern corner of the world, but you'd probably have to have a pretty good grasp on the english language to get that, otherwise you just hear the music. So we sat there last night sipping our Pina Coladas and our Ron Colas feeling a little guilty watching the Venezuelan wait staff run around waiting on us and and foot, the irony of Phil Collins singing in the background lost on everyone but us.

This morning we showed up at Jose’s restaurant at 8:00, and he was out on the street waiting for us. He whistled for the first cab that came and got in with us as we drove to the harbor. He and the cabby conversed in fast loud Spanish all the way to the harbor. The jalopy was like almost all other Venezuelan cabs. A huge old buick or Cadillac, barely running, trunk replaced with speaker system, and huge fat dragster tires and a hole drilled somewhere in the exhaust to make it sound like a dragster. The look with the tinted opaque black windows and the Venezuela license plate can only be described as bad ass. What accentuated the look inside was the rosaries and crucifix hanging from the rear view, the fact that the steering wheel was ¼ metal where the grip foam had fallen off, and that the butt of the column shifter was replaced with the carved wooden fist of solidarity. Jose turned to face us from the front seat. He displayed the “Sol”, the newspaper he was leafing through. He grinned as he showed Alaina and I the model centerfold of the issue. In Venezuela, just like in Toronto, they have a cheap newspaper named after the Sun, and a Sunshine girl to make people buy it. Some things don’t change no matter how far you go. When we arrived Jose showed us an area completely redone by the Government of Chavez, including and are for him from which to address the public. The harbor was busy with people milling around the colourful wooden boats. Men were butchering fish, kids rode bikes, tourists pulled in for snorkeling expeditions, and an old weathered lady with no teeth and a sunhat smoking a stogie as thick as her arm. There were pelicans, vultures and cormorants flying everywhere overhead and landing around us. We waded through the water to our boat and boarded. Once we managed to get our anchor off, we and the other 14 passengers (mostly Swedes) took off, the three 75 hp outboards roaring. The boat was about 20 feet long, and it’s shape was perfect for the ocean. The swells around us in the blue water were massive, and the front of the boat would often fall what felt like 15 feet, enough to almost knock people out of their seats, but when the boat landed it would always cut the wave in such a way that the landing was never too abrupt. 45 minutes of excitement (one lady was carried to the back of the boat shaking in fear) and we were at the Archipelago of Los Frailles. The water turned light green here. We climbed ashore to a building built into the hillside out of clay, had some drinks and jumped in. colourful fish and coral abounded here in the reef, starfish and urchin’s were abundant as well. We snapped as many shots with our waterproof disposable as the film would allow, and hopefully some turn out. We got out and a lunch of fresh fish and fresh chicken was barbecued up for us, with a side of fresh watermelon. Scrumptious. Yeah I used that word. Alaina and I dined with a couple from Sweden about our age, and we talked of the differences in our countries, and about their adventures in the capital of Caracas. It sounded pretty scary, one night they had no choice but to sleep in a hotel normally reserved for hookers. There was blood on the sheets. They said the poor there would eye you and your possessions as you walked by, and that smiling faces were much more rare than on the island. After lunch we got back on the boat and motored 5 minutes up the coast to a spot that was a little clearer than where we had been before. The guides joked that there were piranhas in the water here, but it didn’t seem like too much of a joke when they threw in some left over chicken and a feeding frenzy of sliver and yellow fish ensued. Bones were picked clean in seconds, and the water boiled instantly every time a piece of meat hit the water. The fish are known locally only as lisas. Simon, the swede, playfully jumped into the water with the fish, knowing that they were harmless to people. One of the guides jokingly threw a chicken bone right in front of him, and we laughed as the water boiled again. He didn’t seem too impressed at first, knowing it would have been a bloodbath had the fish been real piranhas, but it was only seconds before he was hand feeding them. They didn’t really even have teeth, they were just feisty. We snorkeled around some more and took the trip back to Margarita. The way back was much smoother as we were going with the wind and we surfed a lot of the waves instead of just jumping off of them. When we pulled in, a cabby was instantly waiting to take us back to the Tropical Refuge. I have never seen such organized tourism. We walked back into town and ate some seafood at Jose’s place because he offered us a free coconut for it. He sat with us and we had a 10 minute conversation about snorkeling with a lot of guessing as to what the conversation was really about in both sides. It was good. Now we are sitting in front of the tv laughing our heads off at these ridiculous unintelligible Venezuelan game shows where every contestant seems to be a winner, as after every answer (even the wrong ones) victorious fanfare is played and everyone claps. The shows are interspersed with commercials for cell phone ring tones with overenthusiastic radio voices dubbed over, completely mispronouncing English words. Here Raid is pronounced ‘Ride’ – it makes for some absolutely hilarious insecticide commercials.

Day 4 - adventures in Venezuela: sketchy roads and jungle snakes

Finally off the leash. This morning we spent some time body surfing the waves as light rainstorms rolled across the beach. We had lunch and then decided it was time to attempt Cerro El Copey, the island’s highest peak. After negotiating a fare in awful and broken Spanish with the first cabby to come along (less than 10 dollars for a 25 minute cab ride) we zipped at top speeds through the narrow streets of La Asuncion. We eventually came to a halt at the end of a red dirt track next to a brick building, and the cabby asked a local man for directions. It appeared he didn’t know how to get to the main entrance to El Copey. We knew what the place looked like, having seen it the day before on our safari, but we had no idea what the area was called. The old man who was giving the directions then called a younger man out of the brick building, which now made it apparent that it was a shower house. Dressed in only a towel and a wooden rosary, he poked his head out tentatively, offering some advice. Slowly he became more concerned with the gravity of the situation and allowed himself to be coaxed out onto the dirt. He scratched himself and then walked down to our car, finger buried knuckles deep in his nose as if he was trying to fish the directions out manually. The driver seemed to convince them and himself that the way he had come was a way to the peak of El Copey. He told us about 5 times that we could take the dirt path straight into the jungle and when we found the Rio 10 minutes later we would be on the right track – or at least that’s what we thought he said. We set off into the Venezuelan rainforest as the path narrowed. Though we didn’t summit El Copey – who knows if that was even the way up – we did get a closer look at the dry rainforest that flanks these mountainsides. We hiked up the steeps for an hour. The beginning of our hike was marked with one of the largest trees I have ever seen. A species brought here from India. Smooth grey trunk, about as big around as a Volkswagen, The tree stretched to easily over 100 feet high, branching out as far in every direction. Each of the few branches flaring out from the top looked like the trunk of a thick Ontario Beech tree. The buttress roots flared out suddenly near the bottom and the veiny roots plunged into the soil anchoring the behemoth to the jungle earth below. Its size was humbling. We hiked up and up, finding an encampment of adobe and bamboo. We examined breadfruit and wild pineapple before turning around. Our trip was not to be complete though until we saw some sort of brightly coloured Orange, grey, and black jungle snake, one which I have yet to identify. We hiked back out, covered in sweat from the humid rainforest, opting not to be caught in the capital after dark. We walked along the coulourfully housed back streets, smiling at the locals as we went, and smile back they did, latin beats blasting from the backs of their souped up Renaults and Fiats. We navigated the back streets, passing everything from kids playing soccer in the streets to the classic family washing their bus in the river. We wound around to the centre, seeing the first church erected on this island by the Spanish Settlers in the 1600’s, the the pink stucco adobe and even the huge old wooden doors of the church are still original, and it was an amazing thing to see. We took some shots, knowing we would be back Wednesday for our tour of the capital, and caught a dirt cheap cab home.

Day 3 - They have a real desert here

Today was our first day in a desert. We were picked up by Reuben in a Toyota Landcruiser in the morning, accompanied by 2 other couples from another accommodation. We drove around the entire island in one day. Reuben was a stout, English speaking Venezuelan with a comedic disposition. We drove at over twice the speed limit through the narrow South American streets, dodging kids on bikes and other ignorant drivers, slowing down only when the armed guards with blue city camo and fully automatic weapons popped into view. We stopped at a local souvenir shop where Reuben picked up a large map and went over the day’s plans with us. From that point on whenever we got a trivia question right about our next stop he would celebrate “Heeeey you win a Cerveca!” and he would throw back a beer from a cooler he had sitting next to him in the front seat. There was that or there was Ron – a shot of which which Alaina, The Trini (Dean) and I did later on. We first wound quickly up some mountain roads where we got a view of the financial capital, Porlamar. We drove west until the land became more and more arid, until we were surrounded by nothing but cactus. The earth was red and arid, contrasting beautifully with the green sea in the distance. We took the endless desert roads until turning off into the hilly terrain. We bounced through deep ruts as we offroaded our way to a secluded beach. We enjoyed the view before taking off back to the road and having lunch at a small reed shelter of a restaurant at Punta Arenas, the western tip of the island, calm and green was the Carribean sea there. Parrots sat on perches under the ceiling, and our guide took a beautiful Macaw down for us to hold and play with. He perched on our fingers, staring up at us, and he would playfully climb up our arms to our shoulders, using his beak for leverage as he went, but always being gentle. He entertained us over lunch pecking the seeds out of the watermelon desert. After spending some time in the salty turquoise, desert flanked ocean, we hopped back into our vehicle and sped off to a mangrove swamp. We took a boat ride through the swamp, seeing the mangroves, with their roots full of colourful orange starfish. Our boat driver would pull crabs and all sorts of animals right out of the surrounding water. After this long day we drove to a city on the coast which was on the way back. We watched the sun go down behind one of the other islands that make up the state of Nueva Esparta, and thus concluded our Safari. We are tired after this eventful day, but it ws worth the money. We are looking into a Catamaran trip to one of the islands for snorkeling, as it seems that there are no good places off of this island. . .

Day 2 - Beachballs are people too

There is an interesting set up here. Our all inclusive even includes free taxi to and from the beach. This morning we walked the long way round to the beach, along roads flanked with grasslands dotted with cacti of all kinds. The semi arid flats give rise to mountains in the distance, some verdant with rainforest, others bare red earth. The beach was nice, but slightly crowded. The garbage in the most secluded places showed how tourism has taken its toll on this place. We wandered the red hills for 45 minutes or so, then checked out the strand. After reporting to the hotel for a meeting on what there is to do, we signed up for a few tours. It doesn’t appear as though we have much choice if we want to see wildlife and such, but that is okay, the guides will likely be solid with the organization of the tourist industry here. The streets and populated areas of the beach are remarkably clean, as the staff work hard on a daily basis to keep them that way, the garbage only accumulates in the hidden, less visited areas. The community of tourists that live in this huge compound numbers in the hundreds now, but we don’t see them except at meals because of the arrangement of the buildings. They are a comical demographic of middle to old aged folk, with the 40 and unders being mostly European. There is basically no one our age here, which is fine. We laugh at husbands fretting over children with insidious plumber’s butt - with no help from anyone else. Also the old ladies that look like leather purses are also entertainment. We’ve signed up for a “Jeep Safari” tomorrow, should be interesting. We were pomised cool walks and mangrove forests, seahorses, starfish, etc. Also We have signed up for a trip to La Asuncion, the island’s political capital, which houses much old architecture from the Spanish Colonial days, something best learned through an interpretive guide rather than guessing or books. Hopefully we’ll hit the interesting destinations on this trip, and then maybe revisit or hit some extras on the day we have our 1 day car rental. . .

Day 1 - the local language is actually clicks, whistles, and sign language

Our flight left pearson 45 minutes late, we watched zorro (crap) and Corpse Bride (awesome). We arrived at night in the Venezuelan airport of Porlamar on the Island of Margarita, and we are not disappointed. Quite to the contrary. It was comical how when we got into the small terminal we were immediately surrounded by cigarette smoke. It wafted into our noses from over half of the passengers which had accompanied us on the plane, now standing around looking like smoke stacks and volcanoes. We thought this was a little disrespectful since the captain had announced smoking was only allowed in designated areas, but I suppose that was a formality – the Hispanic customs agent leaning casually against the x-ray machine had a butt dangling lazily from his fingers as he eyed the passing crowd rather than their belongings. We were directed in an organized way to a waiting Mercedes bus and we got on. The roads are wide and developed here, and our first impression of the people is that they are friendly, polite, and organized. It was a relief not to have to be the one controlling the wheel for once, and to enjoy the scenery even though it was mostly black. It's dark by 6:30 11 degrees from the equator. Our accommodation (the tropical refuge as it is called) is incredible. It is an earthy, modest complex of adobe buildings, nicely landscaped around pools, grass and palm trees. It has a very rustic feel to it, as many of the windows are barred with bamboo trunks, rather than a big hotel feel. So far we feel that the price we paid to get here was a great deal, but that remains to be seen! A Venezuelan who spoke zero English but smiled all the time led us to our room and left us there. After we removed two extra tenants from our bathroom (HUGE crickets) and welcomed another (Jorge the gecko who lives under the lamp outside our front door) we were settled in. A quick walk around the property left us thoroughly impressed, and we are going to head to bed to get some sleep. We are excited for whatever tomorrow might bring.