The next part of the trip was our arrival in Venezuela. The Larium had given me insomnia and I was afraid of the food available on the ship, so I was tired to say the least as we rolled into the docks of Caracas. The lush mountains were so picturesque but I knew my little camera would not do it justice. No one at home would ever really know what these mountains looked like until they came to see them for themselves. It was incredible,
Then we had our first encounter with
customs. It turns out that despite the fact that we could practically
reach out and touch the land, we were not allowed off the ship for another
four hours or so. I went to sleep and when I woke up to my roomates grabbing
their backpacks for their first of many overnight trips, I rubbed my eyes
and went to find some friends with whom to explore this great place.
The first thing I did was round up some people I had met and hike out to
the taxi circle and there they all were dying to be the ones to swindle
us of all our cash. I spoke a little Spanish, in fact in time I found
I preferred the fluidity of the language, especially after a few rum and cokes. This came in very handy, especially
when interacting with all those beautiful Venezuelan men, Alejandro, and
Marcos, Javier and Pedro. Yummy is the first word that comes to mind.
I took off to the city with some pretty squirrly characters from the ship and our drug dealing car driver José, and ran around town, shopping and drinking and eating and drinking and taking group photos and drinking and well I think you get the idea. In general exploring and having a blast. That night we went to the University of Caracas Reception Party and let me tell you something about the Venezuelan Nation, they know how to party! I mean food drink music ambiance, hot sweaty dancing to latin rythms under a canopy of night sky. It was intoxicating, then again that could have been the rum punch.
The next day I hooked up with a group of surfers on my ship, a nice group of boys with a nice set of tans and I was designated interpreter and bag watcher, in exchange, of course, for a few choice surfer pictures for my album. There is nothing more majestic than a group of dripping surfers grinning from the ride of their life with Venezuela as a back drop, or so I thought until I saw them in Brazil, and again in South Africa, well we'll get to that another day. The day was perfect, a couple bottles of red wine, some luscioud tropical fruit, some cheese and a baguette, could we more on holiday? It was a such a feeling of joy and release, exaclty what I needed after four years in Buffalo, New York.
I spent the days drifting off in the sun and the nights dancing to the bongo beats of discos, I walked through museums and watched street performers dance all day. I sat by the Foutain in the center of town and ate rice and beans at a moutain top café. Caracas was indeed crazy as the great dean Glascow had pronounced the night before our arrival.