I'm in this highrise apartment in Caracas. It's a huge and lovely city, especially when seperated from it. Apparently it's dirty, hectic, and dangerous. All i know is that the university is lovely, this apartment is lovely, and that public transportation works well. University students can use the subway for roughly a nickle. For non university students the fee skyrockets to a whopping quarter.
I had to think briefly about taking some courses down here. I dont know about cost of living. But i've got a pretty good lead to think that the university crowd is very chill. Courses cost less than twenty bucks, cause it's a public institution, not private. And free food is given to students every day from five to seven pm. A giant unknown city. With dirt cheap public transport. I'll put it in the maybe pile.
I was in the kitchen, talking to this girl about sports. She mentioned baseball was popular in venezuela, i said hockey was popular in canada. She asked if i played soccer, i said i did, she said she liked soccer. I asked her about table soccer and made the appropriate gestures. She replied affirmatively, and i got insanely excited. I was out of my chair, repeating the wrist motions asking if there was table soccer in caracas. They're going to take me to a place some day soon. Apparently i'm kicking it with these ladies for a while. Which is great. We're going out salsa dancing tomorrow. I love watching people salsa dance. I am going to have to try to learn. I respect people with dancing ability.
Take care everyone.
So i stayed at that place in puerto cabello two nights back, not too shabby. Didn't have to check out of the room until noon, so i spent a good chunk of time laying about and reading my travel guide, writing in the journal.
On the way to hop a bus to valencia i bought myself a malta. Might be called a malt or malted in english. I believe i'm only familiar with the word via archie comics, but those were chocolate malteds, i think. And this thing isn't much like a milk shake. Just a slightly thicker sort of soda. And the flavour is Malt or malta, or whatever. Anyway, i've grown fond of them, they're delish.
I also got myself a small bag of pinapple rings. Good old fashioned fresh fruit.
I got into valencia in the early afternoon, left the bus station in search of telephones and the internet. Telephone didn't work. And by that i mean that i wasn't talking to my friend matt, i was talking to some spanish speaking girl. And we weren't really communicating. First she said something i didn't understand, then i said "i look for matt" (in spanish of course) and she said this long speel of words i didn't understand so i said "you speak english?" and than she said a bunch more stuff, and i said something about matt again, and got a dial tone in response.
So, i went to the internet and emailed matt. Haven't heard back from him. Which is too bad, cause i am in caracas, and he and his associates are in caracas, and they're in posession of my place to stay. So, i'm going to kick around the bus terminal for the whole day, i think. It's getting towards noon, i think. I aughta find out when the last bus is for ciudad bolivars. I decided to go there sometime yesterday morning. And i decided to go there today sometime this morning (provided my connections in caracas dont work out).
Anyway... fired off that email yesterday, i'm gonna write him again after this post. After i got out of the internet station yesterday it was about 3pm. I walked through some of valencia, looked like a pretty dirty city, but i'm sure i wasn't in the finest parts. I stopped into a hotel that was supposed to be the cheapest. 50k for a room with a/c, 30k for a room with a fan. Not terrible, but i told the dude i'd walk on. Actually, i probably told the dude nothing but jargon, but he saw me leave, and likely got the gist.
Walking to the only place supposedly slightly cheaper (according to my increasingly financially outdated guidebook) and someone shouts at me in english. He's on a scaffold, working on the big cathedral. Where are you from?
Canada.
What are you looking for?
Una posada, con cicione. (supposed to be saying posada w/ kitchen, i think i succeeded)
He told me there was a hotel near by, but i can use the kitchen in his house. I thought he said that i could stay at his house tonight, but that i had to leave his house the next day. Maybe that is what he said.
As it turns out, he finished up his work for about twenty minutes, as i drummed on a few books in the park across the street. I talked to a few more people there, all very nice. Then walked with the guy back through the grungy part of town to his house. And by house, i mean room.
This room would be slightly too small to comfortably support a pool table. It was long enough, but a little too thin. Through the front door (which was more of a curtain than a door) there is a table with dishes on it to the right, and a fridge to the left. just beyond the table is a stove. Just beyond the fridge is the bed, the bed leads to the far wall. Behind the stove there is an area about the size of a large bathtub, and there is a curtain which surrounds it. Behind the curtain, right to left, there is a sink, a shower, and a toilet.
I gave dude some black beans and some pasta. He cooked up some rice, eggs and the beans for supper, and pasta with meat and onions for breakfast. Real nice dude. Giant cockroach scuttling along the floor (where i'd slept) in the morning. And probably the seediest thing, a hundred ants on the sponge beside the sink. The sponge i'd used for dishes the previous night. Like, alot of ants.
So this morning i hopped the first bus i could find to the terminal, and hopped on the next first bus i could find to caracas. And i'm here now, but i dont know why. I feel like things are turning out cool. Valencia was cheap to me, ant it was everything i wanted. (catch the pun? oooh i'm good)
Later.
Chichiriviche. Lovely spot.
When i arrived in chichiriviche, i spent a few hours walking through the town, looking for a cheap place to stay. Our hostel in merida was 15000, so i thought i could get something for about the same. Sadly mistaken... most places were 50k, and i found one spot for 30. But i moved on. I ended up at a german posada, where the owners offered me a tent to put up in their front lawn for 20k. I took them up on it, and stayed in that lawn from thursday to sunday.
My first day out, friday, was stunning. Probably the best day of the trip. Some germans i met at the posada invited me to join them to go to isla sombrero. Isla means island. It's in moroccoy national park. Beautiful. Sombrero is supposed to be the nicest island. I spent the first chunk of time walking and swimming around the island. So beautiful.
The last half of the day was laying around, some journal writing, and alot of coconut eating. I impressed myself with my ability to climb a palm tree and haul down coconuts. It was really something, honest.
And saturday, i was trash.
It started in the worst possible way. I woke up at about 5:30am, and had to take a fierce douce. I hurried to put on some pajama pants and hustled to get to the bathroom. The bathroom was locked! Short story shorter, i took a dump in their garden.
And i was ill. I made a friend friday night. Name is Memo. He took me to another island saturday. Isla Sol, i believe. We started to walk the island, but i was too weak. I slept most of the day. Went to sleep at about 7pm saturday night. Waking up for a moment to share a joint with some dude at the posada.
Following the joint, my head was heavy. Like, disasterously heavy. I started to walk back to my tent, and my eyes stopped working, so i went to my knees and crawled the last five feet or so to my tent, then the vision came back so i went in.
And then i woke up this morning, still feeling gross. Just weak, i guess. I didn't have the energy to search this town for a cheap place to stay. The cheapest place in my travel guide is the place i ended up finding. It's 35k. So i guess i'm going to take another bus out of this town tomorrow.
I'm looking forward to finding a cheap place to stay, that way i can leave my bags somewhere, and explore a town for a number of days. Technically, this is the first day where that hasn't been the case, but i'm weak and sickly. If i had someone english to talk to, i'd probably whine.
On the other hand, a little sun stroke is a small price to pay for this sweet tan.
Caio.
Last time i posted it was tuesday afternoon. I left the internet place, and found my buddy Axel for some hanging out. We drank some beers and he shared another little baggy of coke, and when we were on our way back to the park i came across a guitar. It was attached to some kids. I mumbled out in broken spanish that i played that instrument, and i would love to play it for a moment.
So there i was, full of false energy sitting on the side of the street, rocking out real hard to some of my tunes. I hadn't played guitar in like five days, and i came at it like a monster. Pounded out martin luther, and then my new tune, A Little More. I played well. So excited about it. The kids had to catch a bus, so i Played something right and called it a time.
I saw a busker a little later. A juggling guy. He was pretty great. For one of his later tricks, he got volenteers to hold a rope (4 on each side) and he balanced on the rope and juggled knives. Another trick of his involved him taking a baby from the audience, juggling two balls in one hand while holding the baby in the other, and then tossing the balls a little higher, switching the baby, and continuing juggling with the other hand. He asked for a round of applause for the trusting mother.
I was pretty effing exausted by around 5 or 6. I'd lend the blame to a lack of food, and afternoon beers coupled with C. I went back to my posada, and hung out with the americans that i've grown fond of. (I'm definately planning on visiting them in caracas later.) I layed in a hammoc while they played cards. They were playing Eucre of all games. I learned it with my ottawa boys and have played it out planting the last couple years.
After an hour or so, i returned to the streets. I couldn't just sleep... i'd miss the rest of the evening.
Axel was in a bad mood. I think some boys ripped him off on a pot sale or something. He did some cursing. He said he needed some money cause some guys were telling him he needed money right away or some junk. I gave him five times what he was asking for, totalling about twenty five bucks. He had a hard time taking it, but i tried to convince him that it was nothing to me... and that his introduction to friends and his company over the past few days had been superb.
After that, i was gone for a walk, and i found this guitar. I was kinda tired, so i figured i'd go polish off the C that i had in my room, and then go find the guitar again. That worked out, for the most part. But i couldn't for the life of me remember words when i was playing. I bumbled through a couple half songs, and gave the guitar back.
The girls were great though. They sang some spanish tunes, and the odd english one. They're from caracas.
We hung out for the rest of the evening. Me, two ladies, and two fellas. We played some hackey sack, they grabbed some grub. While me and the tall slender one walking together, we talked about a variety of things. She's better at english than i am at spanish, so that was the language we worked with. We smelled some weed at a street corner, and she asked me what words are used for weed. I rambled through an assortment, and she got me to slow down so she could learn one. Pot. She said it over and over again, smiling.
Then she said that there's a couple of baaad drugs. Cocaine was the first on her list. I agreed, coke isn't good for you. It makes you not care about the important things in life... whatever sort of cliché, easy to agree with things i could think of.
Not hard to say why i didn't just tell her i was coming down from coke... it didn't seem like it'd push our interaction into better places.
When they stopped to eat, i played guitar again. This time it came through beautifully. I really like that i can entertain people in a language that they dont understand. They said that i sounded like that "you're beautiful, you're beautiful, you're beautiful it's true" singing kid. He's popular, so it's hard not to take it as a compliment.
We played a bit more in some park, and got the attention of some really drunk guy. They asked if i wanted to leave, cause the dude was bugging me, but i told them i wasn't bothered. And ended up trying to speak to him. He was really happy about me being there, playing music, and ended up buying me some grub! It was lovely. I got home at 2, and slept until 8ish.
Next morning, chad and i hop on a cable car and ride up to mount bolivar, 5009 meters in the sky. The second last stop was the sweetest. Real good for hiking. I sat somewhere and wrote some poetry. There's mules at that stop, who will take you for a ride through the mountains, to a mountain town called Los Lamos (?). And i totally want to go there for a number of days. Not till next time, i guess.
Chad and i return back around 3pm. Pack our things and then go. I go have a smoke with axel to say bye, and he offers me a bunch of his copper wire models for pretty much nothing, as gifts. I pick them up. I'm excited to show them to all of you.
Chad and i take an overnight bus to a place i can't recall the name of. We arrive in the morning, and grab an early bus to Los Trancheres, home of the 2nd hottest springs. We soak in some hot pools and grab a little mud bath, leave there at about noon. Across the street we grab a veggie meal. My most expensive meal yet, at 12000Bs, about six bucks.
Then we hit the highway, and i say bye to chad. He's going south, back to the city that starts with a V, before Barquisimeto, and his home outside of Sanari, in Lara state.
The day before, while waiting for our bus, i had settled on Chichiriviche. It's a smallish town near the morrocoy national park. I'm there now, in fact. And it's tremendous.
I gotta go, this place is closing!
Heroin is CARAZY. Just kidding. Pretty tame by my standards. I went paragliding, i'm kind of extreme.
Paragliding is pretty cool. I liked the pre-liftoff stage.
But i'm going to find a better beginning to my story. Merida is the effing shit. We took a bus overnight from barquisimeto, and arrived with very little sleep at about 5:30am. Got some cups of coffee at the bus station, and ate a loaf of sweet bread that a friendly drawing dude from the bus trip gave us. As the sun was coming up, we were walking a few kilometers to the downtown area. Our first goal was to find a place to sleep, and drop off our bags.
Success. It's Carnival here, so it's crazy busy. We've been sleeping on the floor of the fourth story of a posada (venezuela's hostel name, essentially). Each paying 15,000 Bolivers a night, which is about 8 bucks. (approx 2000Bs=1$)There was a cheaper place, 9000 per night, but it was full.
Upon dropping off our bags, chad and I set out to walk the streets. We made it about four doors down from our posada, and stopped in to some long hallway of shops, at the very end we found an internet place. 1000Bs per hour. Noice. I got a half hour, did the email deal, chad got a full hour cause he wanted to watch some clip.
I walked around without him for a bit. About 20 paces from the internet place this dude talks to me in mixed english and spanish. He's a pilot, he says. He does paragliding he says. He points to his parachute, which is in a heap next to the table he's sitting at. He tells me it's 170,000 Bs, i'll fly for about 40 minutes. He says since he's not working with a travel agency that he's the cheapest (which i investigate, and find true) and that he's got 20 years experience. He shows me a booklet of people who recommend flying with him, i find two english writeups. Sounds nice.
Anyway, in the coming days i got to know two boys from new york city, a gal from conneticut, more recently a gal from rhode island, and most recently, a gal from Utah. The new york boys and conn girl live together in caracas and teach english. rhode island is a friend of theirs, flying back to the states monday. Utah was just in town last night, and left this morning, but she was a fucking whip. Sharp, smart, cute. She's a big fan of buddism, and has been studying islam in university in peru, cool mix. Very philosophically on the ball. Word, i'd say.
Paragliding. Pre-takeoff was fun. We drove up to the top of a mountain in the back of a pickup truck. There was an english speaking person there, so i got to talk a bittle. She had lived in montreal for a year. Good stuff. On top of the mountain i took in some rays, enjoyed the wind, walked around for a few hours watching people take off, fly around, up and down, and land all on top of this mountain. My instructor says that we'll be flying down to the bottom cause i'm the last guy he's taking. Cool, i'm patient.
The second coolest part was when the pilot pulled one of his two steering rope hand guide things in, and let the other go. one tip of the shute tucked in, and we hit this wild downword spiral, amazing amount of force on the body. And then after a few spins, and a fall of a few hundred meters (i'm guessing, but i know we started 1300m in the air), he would even out the shute and we'd pop back into floating, in the wildest sort of no gravity feeling. It lasts a second or two and then you settle back into the regular pull. It's the coolest part.
In contention for the coolest part was me chucking from about 500m. I have a weak stomach.
Last night i went out on the town with the new yorkers, the conn and the rhodie. We grabbed some food at 9:30-10, and went to a bar. But the bar had a wild lineup, so we basically just walked back home. We'd all gotten boozed together (not quiiite drunk) that afternoon, till about five, so we were satisfied heading home. Plans to drink outside our posada and enjoy people dancing in the streets. Carnival is happening, ps. One of the biggest festivals of the year. It's celebrated all over.
Just before we get back, i catch eyes with this homely looking fellow that i talked to earlier that day. He's kind of a street smart sorta guy, i reckon. Makes shit out of shit. He opened up his bag, talked to one of his friends to get a translation, and called a tied up blanket his office.
Opens it to find what most people would see as a pile of junk. marbles, paperclips, busted cell phones, batteries, hunks of copper wire etc.
Y'know, whatever... the drugs dont matter. The thing that mattered is that the guy seemed really deep. Like he felt there was some sort of strong bond going on. He asked me about my passions (using the word "sport") and found that i liked guitar. So he sat there and made me a little wire dude with a marble for a head holding this wild axe. he called his set of pliars his sister.
Actually, i will bring up drugs, just briefly. I think his buddy offered me some crack, which i turned down. He asked if i was interested in cocaine, to which i replied affirmatively, and he pointed to his head and said "the cocaine is up here." It made me smile. Soon after this, he removed a small baggie from the liner in his hat. He made a joke AND i got coke. Nice guy.
We did some together outside, he gave me the rest of the bag (really not too much, so dont get excited) and i did a little line in the bathroom at the posada. I walked out of the bathroom to find Katie from utah coming home. I was in perfect shape to be excited about a discussion. I sat and had a pair of smokes and drank from a bottle of water and we talked philosophy and wrote in our journals. There were other people in the room, but they didn't matter to me.
And then today happened! My friend from last night gave me an empty tin (formerly for chocolate wafery things, but picture a tin of mixed nuts for size) so that i could drum on it. It sounded really nice and i was thankful. I've got three pieces to my kit now. My dictionary has a sweet bassy sound. My drum pad is fairly mute, and the tin (when weighted with a rock) is a pretty great little clink. The sidewalk that the stuff is set on makes a nice audible click.
Peace and love, niggers.
What am i? but the tremer in my voice. I see myself and then react become reviewer of the choices in my life. Was i right?
Dont be shy. Join us, we're laughing at ourselves. I know it's right, it is a step to better health to look inside. It is your body that you've got to believe in.
What am i, but a product of your love.
what am i, but a gift from above.
what am i, but a kid with some goals i'm achieving.
Take me down.
Suprised you came back here to find my face held in my hands?
I'm still discouraged only being what i am.
Everytime i jump i know i'm gonna land.
I'm so discouraged only being what i am.
What am I? I've gotta say I couldn't say right now.
Somewhere between what i fear i am and what i hope i'll be.
Take me down.
| what am i, but an image on the wall of your mind
| a pawn within a game that i designed
| the father that we never had
take me down.
Venezuela is still effing good. I´ve met many generous wonderful people. Today chad and I are going to a little concert. These two kids singing, accompanied by a man on cuatro.
Then we´re going to barquisimeto, one of the larger venezuelan cities. I dont know what we´re doing there.
In about two weeks we´re going to Marida. It´s got the world´s highest and longest cable car system. We´ll be riding way up into the mountains, and doing a bit of hiking there. I´m looking forward to it.
After merida, chad´ll go back to work, and i´ll be on my own. Simple spanishless simon. It´ll be exciting.
Peace and Love.
Jesus, where to begin...
I got into Caracas just shy of midnight on tuesday the 30th. Chad met me at the airport, and helped me shoe away people itching for cab fares. His friend, a writer from the states who´s lived in venezuela for a while, took us into his place for the night. He lives in a set of condos which are very scarcely inhabated. For most people that live there, this is their 3rd or fourth house, and they´ll maybe stay for a weekend a month.
There was a real nice swimming pool out back, chad and I went for a dip at around 1am for 40 minutes or so, then hit the hay.
The next day was full of travel. We bought some bread at a bakery and hopped a bus to caracas (i realize i already said i was there, but technically charlie´s place is in a waterfront town next to caracas, which is one mountain range inland. We walked to a bus station in caracas, and got on a bus to Barquisimeto. My favorite thing that happened on the day of travel happened early in caracas, on our way to the bus station.
This dude approached us Gringos and asked us for money or something. And while chad was telling him no, this real sweet dude came up to make sure things were okay. Make sure we were still happy travelers. He asked us, in english, where we were from, and when i said canada, he thanked us for visiting. Told us to enjoy it here. Amazingly sweet and hospitable. It´s been a sign of things to come.
So we travelled all day wednesday, got to chad´s place at about 7 pm. I slept on the floor in chads room. Terribly ill. My face leaked fluids all night.
The next day, we went to the elementary school where chad teaches english to the kids. It was a bit of a hard day for me, cause i know absolutely no spanish. Everyone talks so fast, and i feel stupid often. I really want to know what people are telling me. I think i´ll learn, in time.
I spent alot of the day hanging out with some nine year olds, playing some soccer, walking about 30 minutes to the store to get some flour, sardines, and eggs, so that the teachers at the school could make lunch for chad and myself. The kids are really great.
Friday (yesterday) was some celebration day in chad´s mountain village. School was cancelled (which isn´t a real big deal around here) and people were all happy and drinking. It´s not uncommon for people to drink warm bottles of whiskey throughout the day. On this day, however, there were a large handful of men dressed up as women, wearing masks, and dancing around. Lots of music and happiness. I had some coconut icecream.
The most common instrument i´ve seen is the quatro. It´s a four stringed guitar sort of thing. About the size of a ukelele, with a weird sort of tuning. E A C# F#, i believe. And the F# is the second lowest note on the quatro, it doesn´t go lowest to highest as you move down the strings. I got to rock out on the quatro on thursday, and a mittful of kids listened to me. I didn´t entirely know how to make it sound good. But i´m musical, i did well enough. Not as good as i will be, granted.
Ditto on the harmonica. I´m still believing it was a good investment, but i´m clearly a hack on the thing.
Friday, to go to where the people were, chad and i left his house and began walking. Any time a truck drives by, you can shout your destination at the driver, and whenever they´re going where you´re going, they´ll pull over and you can hop on the back of the truck.
We didn´t get picked up for a while, and visited a few families that chad knew while we were walking. Picked up some beer from a little shop.
heh. in chad´s little mountain village, stores are just houses with fridges. They´ll sell chips, chocolate bars, corn flour, eggs, oil, beer. Just a ragtag assortment of items.
Beers are about 75cents. We continued walking.
Made it to one place with a large crew of people, happy and dancing in someones property. A couple dudes strumming away on quantros, singing what seem like endless spanish verses. One dude playing a pair of maracas with more skill than i thought possible. One dude beating away on a drum with a single mallet. Just "thump. thump. thump." simple. Almost mindless. But necessary to hold all the instruments together. Necessary for dance.
After a while, chad and i decided to move on farther down the road to the next little social gathering. It seemed like the party was gradually getting bigger and bigger the farther down the road we went. Possibly cause the everyone from the earlier gatherings were coming too. Not super huge, maybe 200 people at the final place.
I brought out a hacky sack at the final spot and played with a couple kids. Most of the first kids were real young, but by the end of it, two kids, maybe 10 and 12 were playing with me, and they could handle the bag real well for beginners. 2-3 hits before an innacurate and fortunate pass. We got maybe one or two hacks. Whatev.
A lady walked by with a guitar, and i jumped at it. Earlier that day, in order to use a quatro, i had looked up "play" as it pertains to a musical instrument, and i asked the woman if i could play it. I fiddled around with a few notes, and she told me to sing. So i came out with mr. jones, come and see, take me down and poison oak. Tons of fun, maybe 25 kids and adults listening to me, sometimes clapping along. I´m sure nobody knew the words i was saying, but it was okay. I was happy.
Super happy, i might even say.
I think that´s all i´ve got to share right now.
Peace and Love.
simon.
I had to think briefly about taking some courses down here. I dont know about cost of living. But i've got a pretty good lead to think that the university crowd is very chill. Courses cost less than twenty bucks, cause it's a public institution, not private. And free food is given to students every day from five to seven pm. A giant unknown city. With dirt cheap public transport. I'll put it in the maybe pile.
I was in the kitchen, talking to this girl about sports. She mentioned baseball was popular in venezuela, i said hockey was popular in canada. She asked if i played soccer, i said i did, she said she liked soccer. I asked her about table soccer and made the appropriate gestures. She replied affirmatively, and i got insanely excited. I was out of my chair, repeating the wrist motions asking if there was table soccer in caracas. They're going to take me to a place some day soon. Apparently i'm kicking it with these ladies for a while. Which is great. We're going out salsa dancing tomorrow. I love watching people salsa dance. I am going to have to try to learn. I respect people with dancing ability.
Take care everyone.
Valencia was weird.
So i stayed at that place in puerto cabello two nights back, not too shabby. Didn't have to check out of the room until noon, so i spent a good chunk of time laying about and reading my travel guide, writing in the journal.
On the way to hop a bus to valencia i bought myself a malta. Might be called a malt or malted in english. I believe i'm only familiar with the word via archie comics, but those were chocolate malteds, i think. And this thing isn't much like a milk shake. Just a slightly thicker sort of soda. And the flavour is Malt or malta, or whatever. Anyway, i've grown fond of them, they're delish.
I also got myself a small bag of pinapple rings. Good old fashioned fresh fruit.
I got into valencia in the early afternoon, left the bus station in search of telephones and the internet. Telephone didn't work. And by that i mean that i wasn't talking to my friend matt, i was talking to some spanish speaking girl. And we weren't really communicating. First she said something i didn't understand, then i said "i look for matt" (in spanish of course) and she said this long speel of words i didn't understand so i said "you speak english?" and than she said a bunch more stuff, and i said something about matt again, and got a dial tone in response.
So, i went to the internet and emailed matt. Haven't heard back from him. Which is too bad, cause i am in caracas, and he and his associates are in caracas, and they're in posession of my place to stay. So, i'm going to kick around the bus terminal for the whole day, i think. It's getting towards noon, i think. I aughta find out when the last bus is for ciudad bolivars. I decided to go there sometime yesterday morning. And i decided to go there today sometime this morning (provided my connections in caracas dont work out).
Anyway... fired off that email yesterday, i'm gonna write him again after this post. After i got out of the internet station yesterday it was about 3pm. I walked through some of valencia, looked like a pretty dirty city, but i'm sure i wasn't in the finest parts. I stopped into a hotel that was supposed to be the cheapest. 50k for a room with a/c, 30k for a room with a fan. Not terrible, but i told the dude i'd walk on. Actually, i probably told the dude nothing but jargon, but he saw me leave, and likely got the gist.
Walking to the only place supposedly slightly cheaper (according to my increasingly financially outdated guidebook) and someone shouts at me in english. He's on a scaffold, working on the big cathedral. Where are you from?
Canada.
What are you looking for?
Una posada, con cicione. (supposed to be saying posada w/ kitchen, i think i succeeded)
He told me there was a hotel near by, but i can use the kitchen in his house. I thought he said that i could stay at his house tonight, but that i had to leave his house the next day. Maybe that is what he said.
As it turns out, he finished up his work for about twenty minutes, as i drummed on a few books in the park across the street. I talked to a few more people there, all very nice. Then walked with the guy back through the grungy part of town to his house. And by house, i mean room.
This room would be slightly too small to comfortably support a pool table. It was long enough, but a little too thin. Through the front door (which was more of a curtain than a door) there is a table with dishes on it to the right, and a fridge to the left. just beyond the table is a stove. Just beyond the fridge is the bed, the bed leads to the far wall. Behind the stove there is an area about the size of a large bathtub, and there is a curtain which surrounds it. Behind the curtain, right to left, there is a sink, a shower, and a toilet.
I gave dude some black beans and some pasta. He cooked up some rice, eggs and the beans for supper, and pasta with meat and onions for breakfast. Real nice dude. Giant cockroach scuttling along the floor (where i'd slept) in the morning. And probably the seediest thing, a hundred ants on the sponge beside the sink. The sponge i'd used for dishes the previous night. Like, alot of ants.
So this morning i hopped the first bus i could find to the terminal, and hopped on the next first bus i could find to caracas. And i'm here now, but i dont know why. I feel like things are turning out cool. Valencia was cheap to me, ant it was everything i wanted. (catch the pun? oooh i'm good)
Later.
Where was i...
Chichiriviche. Lovely spot.
When i arrived in chichiriviche, i spent a few hours walking through the town, looking for a cheap place to stay. Our hostel in merida was 15000, so i thought i could get something for about the same. Sadly mistaken... most places were 50k, and i found one spot for 30. But i moved on. I ended up at a german posada, where the owners offered me a tent to put up in their front lawn for 20k. I took them up on it, and stayed in that lawn from thursday to sunday.
My first day out, friday, was stunning. Probably the best day of the trip. Some germans i met at the posada invited me to join them to go to isla sombrero. Isla means island. It's in moroccoy national park. Beautiful. Sombrero is supposed to be the nicest island. I spent the first chunk of time walking and swimming around the island. So beautiful.
The last half of the day was laying around, some journal writing, and alot of coconut eating. I impressed myself with my ability to climb a palm tree and haul down coconuts. It was really something, honest.
And saturday, i was trash.
It started in the worst possible way. I woke up at about 5:30am, and had to take a fierce douce. I hurried to put on some pajama pants and hustled to get to the bathroom. The bathroom was locked! Short story shorter, i took a dump in their garden.
And i was ill. I made a friend friday night. Name is Memo. He took me to another island saturday. Isla Sol, i believe. We started to walk the island, but i was too weak. I slept most of the day. Went to sleep at about 7pm saturday night. Waking up for a moment to share a joint with some dude at the posada.
Following the joint, my head was heavy. Like, disasterously heavy. I started to walk back to my tent, and my eyes stopped working, so i went to my knees and crawled the last five feet or so to my tent, then the vision came back so i went in.
And then i woke up this morning, still feeling gross. Just weak, i guess. I didn't have the energy to search this town for a cheap place to stay. The cheapest place in my travel guide is the place i ended up finding. It's 35k. So i guess i'm going to take another bus out of this town tomorrow.
I'm looking forward to finding a cheap place to stay, that way i can leave my bags somewhere, and explore a town for a number of days. Technically, this is the first day where that hasn't been the case, but i'm weak and sickly. If i had someone english to talk to, i'd probably whine.
On the other hand, a little sun stroke is a small price to pay for this sweet tan.
Caio.
Greetings.
Last time i posted it was tuesday afternoon. I left the internet place, and found my buddy Axel for some hanging out. We drank some beers and he shared another little baggy of coke, and when we were on our way back to the park i came across a guitar. It was attached to some kids. I mumbled out in broken spanish that i played that instrument, and i would love to play it for a moment.
So there i was, full of false energy sitting on the side of the street, rocking out real hard to some of my tunes. I hadn't played guitar in like five days, and i came at it like a monster. Pounded out martin luther, and then my new tune, A Little More. I played well. So excited about it. The kids had to catch a bus, so i Played something right and called it a time.
I saw a busker a little later. A juggling guy. He was pretty great. For one of his later tricks, he got volenteers to hold a rope (4 on each side) and he balanced on the rope and juggled knives. Another trick of his involved him taking a baby from the audience, juggling two balls in one hand while holding the baby in the other, and then tossing the balls a little higher, switching the baby, and continuing juggling with the other hand. He asked for a round of applause for the trusting mother.
I was pretty effing exausted by around 5 or 6. I'd lend the blame to a lack of food, and afternoon beers coupled with C. I went back to my posada, and hung out with the americans that i've grown fond of. (I'm definately planning on visiting them in caracas later.) I layed in a hammoc while they played cards. They were playing Eucre of all games. I learned it with my ottawa boys and have played it out planting the last couple years.
After an hour or so, i returned to the streets. I couldn't just sleep... i'd miss the rest of the evening.
Axel was in a bad mood. I think some boys ripped him off on a pot sale or something. He did some cursing. He said he needed some money cause some guys were telling him he needed money right away or some junk. I gave him five times what he was asking for, totalling about twenty five bucks. He had a hard time taking it, but i tried to convince him that it was nothing to me... and that his introduction to friends and his company over the past few days had been superb.
After that, i was gone for a walk, and i found this guitar. I was kinda tired, so i figured i'd go polish off the C that i had in my room, and then go find the guitar again. That worked out, for the most part. But i couldn't for the life of me remember words when i was playing. I bumbled through a couple half songs, and gave the guitar back.
The girls were great though. They sang some spanish tunes, and the odd english one. They're from caracas.
We hung out for the rest of the evening. Me, two ladies, and two fellas. We played some hackey sack, they grabbed some grub. While me and the tall slender one walking together, we talked about a variety of things. She's better at english than i am at spanish, so that was the language we worked with. We smelled some weed at a street corner, and she asked me what words are used for weed. I rambled through an assortment, and she got me to slow down so she could learn one. Pot. She said it over and over again, smiling.
Then she said that there's a couple of baaad drugs. Cocaine was the first on her list. I agreed, coke isn't good for you. It makes you not care about the important things in life... whatever sort of cliché, easy to agree with things i could think of.
Not hard to say why i didn't just tell her i was coming down from coke... it didn't seem like it'd push our interaction into better places.
When they stopped to eat, i played guitar again. This time it came through beautifully. I really like that i can entertain people in a language that they dont understand. They said that i sounded like that "you're beautiful, you're beautiful, you're beautiful it's true" singing kid. He's popular, so it's hard not to take it as a compliment.
We played a bit more in some park, and got the attention of some really drunk guy. They asked if i wanted to leave, cause the dude was bugging me, but i told them i wasn't bothered. And ended up trying to speak to him. He was really happy about me being there, playing music, and ended up buying me some grub! It was lovely. I got home at 2, and slept until 8ish.
Next morning, chad and i hop on a cable car and ride up to mount bolivar, 5009 meters in the sky. The second last stop was the sweetest. Real good for hiking. I sat somewhere and wrote some poetry. There's mules at that stop, who will take you for a ride through the mountains, to a mountain town called Los Lamos (?). And i totally want to go there for a number of days. Not till next time, i guess.
Chad and i return back around 3pm. Pack our things and then go. I go have a smoke with axel to say bye, and he offers me a bunch of his copper wire models for pretty much nothing, as gifts. I pick them up. I'm excited to show them to all of you.
Chad and i take an overnight bus to a place i can't recall the name of. We arrive in the morning, and grab an early bus to Los Trancheres, home of the 2nd hottest springs. We soak in some hot pools and grab a little mud bath, leave there at about noon. Across the street we grab a veggie meal. My most expensive meal yet, at 12000Bs, about six bucks.
Then we hit the highway, and i say bye to chad. He's going south, back to the city that starts with a V, before Barquisimeto, and his home outside of Sanari, in Lara state.
The day before, while waiting for our bus, i had settled on Chichiriviche. It's a smallish town near the morrocoy national park. I'm there now, in fact. And it's tremendous.
I gotta go, this place is closing!
Now is the part where i hope my mom and my aunt aren't reading this thing, i gave them the address so they could read my first venezuelan post and i wouldn't have to repeat everything via email. If you are are worried about my well being turn back now. I'm going to talk about some things... DANGEROUS things. Oooo!!!
Heroin is CARAZY. Just kidding. Pretty tame by my standards. I went paragliding, i'm kind of extreme.
Paragliding is pretty cool. I liked the pre-liftoff stage.
But i'm going to find a better beginning to my story. Merida is the effing shit. We took a bus overnight from barquisimeto, and arrived with very little sleep at about 5:30am. Got some cups of coffee at the bus station, and ate a loaf of sweet bread that a friendly drawing dude from the bus trip gave us. As the sun was coming up, we were walking a few kilometers to the downtown area. Our first goal was to find a place to sleep, and drop off our bags.
Success. It's Carnival here, so it's crazy busy. We've been sleeping on the floor of the fourth story of a posada (venezuela's hostel name, essentially). Each paying 15,000 Bolivers a night, which is about 8 bucks. (approx 2000Bs=1$)There was a cheaper place, 9000 per night, but it was full.
Upon dropping off our bags, chad and I set out to walk the streets. We made it about four doors down from our posada, and stopped in to some long hallway of shops, at the very end we found an internet place. 1000Bs per hour. Noice. I got a half hour, did the email deal, chad got a full hour cause he wanted to watch some clip.
I walked around without him for a bit. About 20 paces from the internet place this dude talks to me in mixed english and spanish. He's a pilot, he says. He does paragliding he says. He points to his parachute, which is in a heap next to the table he's sitting at. He tells me it's 170,000 Bs, i'll fly for about 40 minutes. He says since he's not working with a travel agency that he's the cheapest (which i investigate, and find true) and that he's got 20 years experience. He shows me a booklet of people who recommend flying with him, i find two english writeups. Sounds nice.
Anyway, in the coming days i got to know two boys from new york city, a gal from conneticut, more recently a gal from rhode island, and most recently, a gal from Utah. The new york boys and conn girl live together in caracas and teach english. rhode island is a friend of theirs, flying back to the states monday. Utah was just in town last night, and left this morning, but she was a fucking whip. Sharp, smart, cute. She's a big fan of buddism, and has been studying islam in university in peru, cool mix. Very philosophically on the ball. Word, i'd say.
Paragliding. Pre-takeoff was fun. We drove up to the top of a mountain in the back of a pickup truck. There was an english speaking person there, so i got to talk a bittle. She had lived in montreal for a year. Good stuff. On top of the mountain i took in some rays, enjoyed the wind, walked around for a few hours watching people take off, fly around, up and down, and land all on top of this mountain. My instructor says that we'll be flying down to the bottom cause i'm the last guy he's taking. Cool, i'm patient.
The second coolest part was when the pilot pulled one of his two steering rope hand guide things in, and let the other go. one tip of the shute tucked in, and we hit this wild downword spiral, amazing amount of force on the body. And then after a few spins, and a fall of a few hundred meters (i'm guessing, but i know we started 1300m in the air), he would even out the shute and we'd pop back into floating, in the wildest sort of no gravity feeling. It lasts a second or two and then you settle back into the regular pull. It's the coolest part.
In contention for the coolest part was me chucking from about 500m. I have a weak stomach.
Last night i went out on the town with the new yorkers, the conn and the rhodie. We grabbed some food at 9:30-10, and went to a bar. But the bar had a wild lineup, so we basically just walked back home. We'd all gotten boozed together (not quiiite drunk) that afternoon, till about five, so we were satisfied heading home. Plans to drink outside our posada and enjoy people dancing in the streets. Carnival is happening, ps. One of the biggest festivals of the year. It's celebrated all over.
Just before we get back, i catch eyes with this homely looking fellow that i talked to earlier that day. He's kind of a street smart sorta guy, i reckon. Makes shit out of shit. He opened up his bag, talked to one of his friends to get a translation, and called a tied up blanket his office.
Opens it to find what most people would see as a pile of junk. marbles, paperclips, busted cell phones, batteries, hunks of copper wire etc.
Y'know, whatever... the drugs dont matter. The thing that mattered is that the guy seemed really deep. Like he felt there was some sort of strong bond going on. He asked me about my passions (using the word "sport") and found that i liked guitar. So he sat there and made me a little wire dude with a marble for a head holding this wild axe. he called his set of pliars his sister.
Actually, i will bring up drugs, just briefly. I think his buddy offered me some crack, which i turned down. He asked if i was interested in cocaine, to which i replied affirmatively, and he pointed to his head and said "the cocaine is up here." It made me smile. Soon after this, he removed a small baggie from the liner in his hat. He made a joke AND i got coke. Nice guy.
We did some together outside, he gave me the rest of the bag (really not too much, so dont get excited) and i did a little line in the bathroom at the posada. I walked out of the bathroom to find Katie from utah coming home. I was in perfect shape to be excited about a discussion. I sat and had a pair of smokes and drank from a bottle of water and we talked philosophy and wrote in our journals. There were other people in the room, but they didn't matter to me.
And then today happened! My friend from last night gave me an empty tin (formerly for chocolate wafery things, but picture a tin of mixed nuts for size) so that i could drum on it. It sounded really nice and i was thankful. I've got three pieces to my kit now. My dictionary has a sweet bassy sound. My drum pad is fairly mute, and the tin (when weighted with a rock) is a pretty great little clink. The sidewalk that the stuff is set on makes a nice audible click.
Peace and love, niggers.
I wrote a new draft of lyrics to an old song. Now they seem to have a more consistant meaning, or at least a consistant attitude, throughout. These aren't concrete, they're not memorized. I think it's a good step.
What am i? but the tremer in my voice. I see myself and then react become reviewer of the choices in my life. Was i right?
Dont be shy. Join us, we're laughing at ourselves. I know it's right, it is a step to better health to look inside. It is your body that you've got to believe in.
What am i, but a product of your love.
what am i, but a gift from above.
what am i, but a kid with some goals i'm achieving.
Take me down.
Suprised you came back here to find my face held in my hands?
I'm still discouraged only being what i am.
Everytime i jump i know i'm gonna land.
I'm so discouraged only being what i am.
What am I? I've gotta say I couldn't say right now.
Somewhere between what i fear i am and what i hope i'll be.
Take me down.
| what am i, but an image on the wall of your mind
| a pawn within a game that i designed
| the father that we never had
take me down.
I wrote a new poem on meanpoetry.blogspot. Dave´s been updating there recently as well, i think.
Venezuela is still effing good. I´ve met many generous wonderful people. Today chad and I are going to a little concert. These two kids singing, accompanied by a man on cuatro.
Then we´re going to barquisimeto, one of the larger venezuelan cities. I dont know what we´re doing there.
In about two weeks we´re going to Marida. It´s got the world´s highest and longest cable car system. We´ll be riding way up into the mountains, and doing a bit of hiking there. I´m looking forward to it.
After merida, chad´ll go back to work, and i´ll be on my own. Simple spanishless simon. It´ll be exciting.
Peace and Love.
Greetings friends,
Jesus, where to begin...
I got into Caracas just shy of midnight on tuesday the 30th. Chad met me at the airport, and helped me shoe away people itching for cab fares. His friend, a writer from the states who´s lived in venezuela for a while, took us into his place for the night. He lives in a set of condos which are very scarcely inhabated. For most people that live there, this is their 3rd or fourth house, and they´ll maybe stay for a weekend a month.
There was a real nice swimming pool out back, chad and I went for a dip at around 1am for 40 minutes or so, then hit the hay.
The next day was full of travel. We bought some bread at a bakery and hopped a bus to caracas (i realize i already said i was there, but technically charlie´s place is in a waterfront town next to caracas, which is one mountain range inland. We walked to a bus station in caracas, and got on a bus to Barquisimeto. My favorite thing that happened on the day of travel happened early in caracas, on our way to the bus station.
This dude approached us Gringos and asked us for money or something. And while chad was telling him no, this real sweet dude came up to make sure things were okay. Make sure we were still happy travelers. He asked us, in english, where we were from, and when i said canada, he thanked us for visiting. Told us to enjoy it here. Amazingly sweet and hospitable. It´s been a sign of things to come.
So we travelled all day wednesday, got to chad´s place at about 7 pm. I slept on the floor in chads room. Terribly ill. My face leaked fluids all night.
The next day, we went to the elementary school where chad teaches english to the kids. It was a bit of a hard day for me, cause i know absolutely no spanish. Everyone talks so fast, and i feel stupid often. I really want to know what people are telling me. I think i´ll learn, in time.
I spent alot of the day hanging out with some nine year olds, playing some soccer, walking about 30 minutes to the store to get some flour, sardines, and eggs, so that the teachers at the school could make lunch for chad and myself. The kids are really great.
Friday (yesterday) was some celebration day in chad´s mountain village. School was cancelled (which isn´t a real big deal around here) and people were all happy and drinking. It´s not uncommon for people to drink warm bottles of whiskey throughout the day. On this day, however, there were a large handful of men dressed up as women, wearing masks, and dancing around. Lots of music and happiness. I had some coconut icecream.
The most common instrument i´ve seen is the quatro. It´s a four stringed guitar sort of thing. About the size of a ukelele, with a weird sort of tuning. E A C# F#, i believe. And the F# is the second lowest note on the quatro, it doesn´t go lowest to highest as you move down the strings. I got to rock out on the quatro on thursday, and a mittful of kids listened to me. I didn´t entirely know how to make it sound good. But i´m musical, i did well enough. Not as good as i will be, granted.
Ditto on the harmonica. I´m still believing it was a good investment, but i´m clearly a hack on the thing.
Friday, to go to where the people were, chad and i left his house and began walking. Any time a truck drives by, you can shout your destination at the driver, and whenever they´re going where you´re going, they´ll pull over and you can hop on the back of the truck.
We didn´t get picked up for a while, and visited a few families that chad knew while we were walking. Picked up some beer from a little shop.
heh. in chad´s little mountain village, stores are just houses with fridges. They´ll sell chips, chocolate bars, corn flour, eggs, oil, beer. Just a ragtag assortment of items.
Beers are about 75cents. We continued walking.
Made it to one place with a large crew of people, happy and dancing in someones property. A couple dudes strumming away on quantros, singing what seem like endless spanish verses. One dude playing a pair of maracas with more skill than i thought possible. One dude beating away on a drum with a single mallet. Just "thump. thump. thump." simple. Almost mindless. But necessary to hold all the instruments together. Necessary for dance.
After a while, chad and i decided to move on farther down the road to the next little social gathering. It seemed like the party was gradually getting bigger and bigger the farther down the road we went. Possibly cause the everyone from the earlier gatherings were coming too. Not super huge, maybe 200 people at the final place.
I brought out a hacky sack at the final spot and played with a couple kids. Most of the first kids were real young, but by the end of it, two kids, maybe 10 and 12 were playing with me, and they could handle the bag real well for beginners. 2-3 hits before an innacurate and fortunate pass. We got maybe one or two hacks. Whatev.
A lady walked by with a guitar, and i jumped at it. Earlier that day, in order to use a quatro, i had looked up "play" as it pertains to a musical instrument, and i asked the woman if i could play it. I fiddled around with a few notes, and she told me to sing. So i came out with mr. jones, come and see, take me down and poison oak. Tons of fun, maybe 25 kids and adults listening to me, sometimes clapping along. I´m sure nobody knew the words i was saying, but it was okay. I was happy.
Super happy, i might even say.
I think that´s all i´ve got to share right now.
Peace and Love.
simon.