The Sea! It Really Exists!

Wandering

Finally, I made it to the beach!

Exactly 48 days after arriving in Venezuela.

And what a beach it was! Set on a small island a few minutes from the coast, with the beautiful water gently rippling against the coral sand (which usefully doesn't retain heat in that nasty way classic sand does) and palm trees sheltering our little camp site.

This was Chichiriviche, about five hours by bus(es) from Caracas.

Ten of us were there for a weekend that involved a lot of sun, some frisbee, some tuna sandwiches, a lot of rum, some sangria, some beer, using the frisbee as a floating beer/rum holder, followed by some more rum - inevitibly leading to those Spanish drinking games I love so much now - then waking up at 6am to see the sun rise and go snorkeling.

Apart from an extremely luxurious bus that Antje and I happened upon for the journey there (after missing everyone else by sleeping in until 5am), the bus journeys were very typically Latin American. Mad rushes to get on a crowded bus for a bumpy ride. And occasionally accompanied on the bus by these people - who spring up from nowhere whenever the traffic hints at slowing down - selling drinks, ice cream, chocolate, snacks and sometimes the most unexplainable items like pot plants and kites. Very neccessary for a long journey I am sure!

Anyway, all this traveling was well worth it for this fantastic beach. My faith in Venezuelan beaches is fully restored.

¡¡Quiero más!!

A strange experiment

A strange experiment in Caracas

A strange experiment is being performed on the people of Caracas.

On the Caracas metro, all normal rules of politeness, etiquette and decency basically break down. There is one thing on everyone's mind: get into the train. Whatever it takes. This normally means as soon as those doors slide open, the poor people trying to get out are suddenly faced by a human wall heaving their way in. Old people, children and people with long hair seem to be at particular peril in this situation. And the end result is some kind of human jigsaw crammed into every square inch of the train, rendering the possibility of getting out at your stop seamingly impossible, and resulting in some very intimate situations with strangers (some of whom like mobile phones rather too much).

So in their infinite wisdom, the Caracas metro authorities have installed a brand spanking new system of yellow lines *and* arrows at the busiest station. The gist behind this is to coordinate the masses into entering the train in an orderly fashion, like the civilised human beings we are.

Unfortunately this means resisting the temptation to skip the queue as you wind your way just past the door when about half way through the queue.

This temptation is just too much for some, and I've seen mixed results. Even with the careful positioning of uniformed attendants to "help" people queue properly. From my observations, there seems to be three types of reaction to the system:

1. Feigning ignorance and getting on the train the old way, skipping that big mass of queue-respecting individuals.

2. Trying to use it properly (and with pride?) and looking very scornfully at the type 1 people who don't obey those yellow lines.

3. Blatantly abusing the system by making a dash through the passageway where people have exited and leaping onto the train at the last section as the door closes.

All in all, there is a lot of hilarity involved in the whole affair. There's something about the ridiculous situation of having so many people on a train that just makes people smile :-)

I do think the number of type 2 people is increasing. I think there is a glimmer of hope. I have confidence in the people!

A day off?!?

Faces

After an absolutely fantastic weekend with all our External Relations members (and some from People who were just pretending), the MC had an actual day off work! I think this is the second time something like this has happened, so we didn't quite know what to expect.

Turns out it was a lot of fun (and some pain, and some rain). There we were only shortly after the agreed upon time of 11am (early for the day after a mini-conference) all met up succesfully and ready to hit the Avila, but from a different angle this time.

El Avila National Park is a huge mountain range right at the edge of Caracas, with the highest peak being 2765m (just over 9000ft). There are three ways up the range - walk, get the teleferico (cable car - and not the telefreako!), or get a Jeep to drive you up. So clearly that's the option I wanted to go for! Turns out it wasn't an actual Jeep which disappointed me a bit. I was considering bringing spasti so it's lucky I didn't. He would have been heartbroken.

So after a fun-filled trip with 8 of us piled into the back of some Toyota SUV type thing (no seatbelts, don't be silly), we found ourselves amongst the clouds in Galipan, a small village which was settled about 200 years ago from the Canary Islands. They sell jam and pork sandwiches there. Seperately that is, the jam in jars and the pork in sandwiches.

There we had a nice picnic, took some very AIESECey photos and witnessed a chance meeting of two seemingly opposing gangs of dogs. Then we hiked the rest of the way up El Avila (2135m), only to be told at the top that we still needed to pay the cable car price to get into Avila Magica. What a rip off. No happy world of haribo for them.

So down we wandered again, catching some good views of Caracas and the Carribean sea (I think it was there anyway). And we decided it would be fun to walk the whole way down. Which at first was nice - some views, interesting plants, local inhabitants playing bowls or wheelbarrowing their puppy around.

But then we heard the thunder.

Then came the rain. Lots of it.

So we probably descended that last 1000m or something (Caracas is at about 700m I think) in torrential rain, with several varying degrees of preparedness ranging from Richard and his techno-coloured (but apparently not too effective) jacket to Anita's pretty impracticle wool jumper.

But sharing the last Haribo between three people whilst soaking wet in some kind of cloud forest is what life's all about really, isn't it? Well, I think some people disagreed.

But all in all, it was a fun time. And sitting down with Luis (house number 8, sorry!) back at Bellas Artes in the noise and chaos of the city I had about the best beer I've had in a long time.

So was feeling refreshed and ready to jump back into work this morning, and of course totally unable to walk. UCAB was positively buzzing now that the holiday month is over, and with the watermelon juice back :-)

Life is good. This weekend, dare I say it, the beach!

P.S. Liz, that bird is called the Querrequerres. Yet to see any red howler monkeys, three-toed sloths, armadillos or anteaters or tapirs though.