Tag Archives: Caracas

Oct10

Venezuelan Nights: the first one

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First night in Venezuela.

 

After going out for coffee and chocolates, Ana, her friend and myself headed to a small restaurant to meet up with a big group of couchsurfers who were having a monthly “hang out and chat” event. It started out pretty slow, and I was actually starting to get a little depressed, since everyone was speaking Spanish. See… I know a little bit, enough to direct a taxi or order food, but not enough to have a legit conversation with someone, especially when theres another person next to us who DOES speak their language. And I thrive on talking and chatting with people, so it was starting to get a little rough for me.

Luckily about 30min into the event about 10 people showed up, most of whom speak very good English, and wanted to practice speaking it more. I got to talk to people from Germany, Chile, a few hosts from Caracas, and even a group of three from Liverpool who’re studying in Caracas’s main university. It definitely got me out of the short slump I was in, and was a really awesome chance to get to learn about other peoples traveling experiences.

As the night went on we hopped between a few bars, and finally found ourselves in a Salsa Club downtown. Yep… Ben Hutt went salsa dancing with girls. And did pretty well, if they’re to be believed. Which I don’t think they are… while they said I was dancing well and learning quickly (they were teaching me), the amount of giggling coming from their mouths SEEMS to suggest that I wasn’t doing as well as I thought. Meh. The whole point of traveling is to try new things, and Salsa dancing is clearly one of those things 🙂

Around 11:30 or so I decided it was time to head back to the Hostel, since it closes its doors at 01:00 in the morning. Unfortunately my plan to take the Metro back was sunk by the fact that it closes at 11:00 most nights… but luckily one of the girls who had been teaching me to dance helped me out by calling a cabby over, and helping me direct him close to the hostel. I took over directions at the end (I learned that I need to know how to say “U-Turn”. All I could say was “Left, then another left!”), and after a bit of trouble I finally found myself back with my backpack and laptop, getting ready to do some writing.

Luckily, the nights adventures weren’t over, and I ended up chatting with an Argentinian rock climber for nearly an hour before heading to bed. He couldn’t speak too much English but with our poor knowledge of each others languages, combined with lots of hand gestures and universal climbing terms, we actually talked about a lot, from adventures he’s had climbing in Brazil to my trip out to Joshua Tree last year. I finally headed to bed around 01:30, though it did take me a little while to fall asleep… I think my body’s pumping more than a bit too much adrenaline into my system these last few days, though I can’t really blame it 😛

Oct10

My first day in Venezuela

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The Caracas, 7th October

I started the day to a cat trying to convince me to have sex with it. Seriously. Not the “I’m humping your leg” thing that dogs do either, this was a female cat shoving her rear up in my face as soon as I woke up… I guess its a nice gesture, though I’m not really into cats that way…

Anyways, I had slept like a baby, even though it was something like a billion degrees outside, and I woke up when Ana got back from showering and primping at her house. We had to catch the bus from Vargas for Caracas fairly early that day so that she could make it to a meeting, so we ate a quick breakfast (thank you Ana for bringing it over! Effectively a Venezuelan version of turkey on cornbread) with Savas and then headed down the street to catch the bus.

There aren’t really bus stops in Caracas, as much as routes where you stand out in the road and flag the bus down: honestly a slightly more effective system, although it does leave you a bit exposed to the insanity of Venezuelan drivers. See… I thought Boston drivers were bad, or that Miami drivers were crazy… at least they sometimes follow traffic lights and don’t cut onto the other side of the road constantly. While in Caracas I saw a guy on a motorcycle run a red light so that he could cut between two cars turning towards each other like closing doors. I swore he was going to get smashed, but he made it through with almost two entire inches to spare. Yeah. Insane. Funny thing though: the National Guard troops are just as bad. I saw them pull the exact same maneuver, except with four motorcycles with two people on each.

Aside from the insane motorists, Caracas is honestly a really nice city. It looks old though, with dozens of concrete skyscrapers towering above the smaller buildings. They look like they used to be pretty, but honestly now its more like they’ve been through a war or two with the number of broken windows and cracked facades. Its a strange dichodomy; the buildings and the streets are a mess, but the people are some of the most beautiful people ever: they put so much effort into their outfits and look (piercings, tattoos, makeup, all of it), yet the city looks like its falling apart. Strange, but also cool.

Anyways, on my first day in Caracas I spent most of it exploring around the university while Ana was at her meeting. Its an awesome place, although from what I heard they only just started allowing non-military children in (it used to be solely for children of the upper echelons of the command). As such, the only enterances are guarded gates, with troops stationed nearby. I was able to walk right in though, so I think the gates are more for show (and checking cars) than anything else. I grabbed some snacks at one of the food carts outside the university (woo hoo for my first transaction in Spanish!) and generally just hung out, reading and exploring.

I headed back to the Hostel around 15:00, stopping along the way to grab another quick bite to eat. While I was checking out I hear someone yelling my name, and turn around to see Ana flying through the air in a tackling hug 🙂 Turns out that Ana had been searching for me for the last two hours, thinking that I had been murdered or something! For some reason her phone can’t send text messages to mine (I think its the fact that mine is a British phone), and so she had been trying to contact me for most of the day. Luckily we ran into each other while I was getting food, otherwise we may never have met up again! 🙁

But so I went back to the Hostel, changed the gear that I had with me, and we headed out onto the town to meet up with a friend of hers to explore the city a bit. Thankfully he had a car, so we got to move through the city a bit quicker than we would on foot, and quite a bit safer. I only say safer because he has a massive Ford Explorer, and I’m pretty sure the small motorcycles couldn’t actually do too much damage to it if they ran into us… the drivers are still scary as all hell to me, hehe.

After we met Ana’s friend, we headed out to have a traditional Venezuelan dinner (I can’t remember the name, but it was pulled beef, beans, rice, plantains, cheese, and something that tasted like watermelon). It was amazing, and I’m honestly amazed at the price too; it was a full meal in a fancy restaurant, and it cost a total of… $14. After tax and tip. Seriously.

After dinner we hit up a fancy coffee hours to try out some Venezuelan chocolates (People forget, but Chocolate is from South America… Germany and Switzerland have nothing on Venezuela when it comes to tasty chocolate. The coffee was excellent as well, and by the time we headed out I had a nice state of mind created by the combined stimulation of coffee and the lethargy of Irish-cream and Whiskey chocolates.

Oct7

Arrival in Caracas

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Immigration isn’t really that bad, honestly. I always imagined that there would be guards interrogating you about every aspect of your trip and tearing through your bags making sure you don’t have a secret mini-cow hidden in there. When I landed in Venezuela… it was honestly just what I would expect in the United States: a bored customs official making sure that the forms look somewhat correct, and then another bored-looking official making sure that you put your bag into an x-ray machine. Not sure what they were looking for, but I didn’t have any thankfully, and so I was through the entire gauntlet in less than 20minutes.

Outside the terminal I met up with a CouchSurfing friend named Ana, after many hilariously-sitcom-ish moments of confusion about where each of us was, and who we were looking for. Once we did actually find each other we comandeered a taxi and headed into the main city to meet up with two of her friends for some late-night cookies and Ice cream. Seriously, cookies and ice cream… like the little chips-ahoy cookies, and you use them like spoons to eat vanilla ice cream… it was awesome! But before heading out to get said snacks, Ana and I hung out with her friends neighbors for an hour or so, drinking and chatting (mostly through her as a translator, thankfully). I guess her friend was getting her hair straightened, and so it was taking her a bit longer than the usual “forever” that Venezuelan women take (Ana said it, not me), but after a bit Ana’s friend Savas showed up, and we all crammed into his car and went looking for a piece of beach to hang out at.

Savas is a pretty cool dude… reminds me a lot of a friend of mine back home actually. Really laid back, amazing guitar player, and general ladies man; he spent the night alternating between rocking out and bemoaning the fact that he hadn’t hooked up with this one Colombian woman, hehe. He also has some awesome connections it seems, since he was able to hook me up with a black-market money exchange: the official rate is just about 4 BsF per dollar, but he was able to get me 8 BsF. Not bad at all, and now I feel rich (even though Venezuelan money has the same “monopoly feel” that Euros do, its kinda nice rocking nearly a grand). After changing the cash we headed to the beach for a few hours, hanging out until nearly 01:00. I even learned the basics of fishing without a rod!

How do I know it was nearly 01:00 when we left? Well, turns out that the beach is only open until 12:00, and the Policia patrol the area regularly after it closes. But remember what everyone always tells you about the cops? That you should stay away from them, don’t trust them, etc? Yeah, I’d definitely stick with that when on my own, but with Ana and Co around, the cops were actually really cool. We all hung out, chatted for a while, and finally the Policia got a call to head out somewhere else, and we had to break up the impromptu beach-party.

I finally got to sleep around 02:00 that morning, when Sava, Ana and I all crashed in his living room; a rather comfy place, I have to admit, though I’m jealous of the set-up he has: two couches, and a pair of hooks on the wall to set up a hammock from! Seriously, when I get back to a static life, I am 120% setting up hammock-anchors in my apartment!