Venezuela

Maracaibo, Venezuela

(aka Mierda-caibo)

Looks real pretty from this perspective, I was just too scared to pull out my camera in the "real" parts of the city

Largest Virgin in Venezuela?

"Country/homeland, socialism or death!"
Not only is this written on the tops of huge buildings, but also on t-shirts and rear windows of cars.

Billboard over the road.

Necklace that I made and sold. The most expensive piece so far. It's a turquise stone from Peru.

Andícora, Venezuela

Our first night in Andícora and with los Chileanos: playing music on an empty beach.

"Chavez's reelection was today. Since Friday, Venezuela has had a "ley seca" and won't "legally" sell alcohol to anyone because if they did "Everyone would be drunk when they go to vote." Odd thinking. Apparently this is a common law throughout south america. Here in Andícora (we left Coro on Friday), everyone is VERY anti Chavez. I guess in richer areas he is less popular and in poorer areas they like him more. The vote is either "Si" or "No". All the really nice, new SUVs and other cars have "NO" written in soap on the windows. Also, the area we are in is very rich in oil, so the people are too. When they go to vote, they dip everyone's pinky finger in purple ink, so instead of a "I voted" sticker, you can tell who voted by their purple pinky.

There are flamingos here. If you look at a map, Andícora is a beach on the eastern side of a big peninsula north of Coro. On the bus ride here, we drove for a while on the narrow stretch of land leading to the peninsula. There were hundreds of pink flamingos in the marshes and water on both sides of us. It's cool. First we were driving through sand dunes and desert like areas and then marshes and low shrub covered areas. As I remember from some animal class (maybe "F is for Flamingo"), flamingos eat shrimp and that's why they are pink. THere is also an abundance of shrimp here. We bought a kilo yesterday from a local fisherman for 20 bolos. That's about 10 pesos colombiano...so...in dollars....about $4. Another old artisaño who lives here let us use his "kitchen" to cook. We met up with a Chilean artisaño couple in the bus station in Coro and have been camping and cooking and selling with them. We're camping right on the beach in the shade of a good tree. It's real nice staying at the beach, because there's always a place to camp for free. Going to bathroom is sometimes a problem, though. Oh! My debit card doesn't work here in Venezuela and I ran out of cash in Coro. So we're watching our money much more now and working so we can eat every meal. Don't worry, though, we've been selling quite well here. So, camping on the beach for free is very helpful. In comparison to Maracaibo, Andícora is very cheap to buy food, so that's good too."

La feria de Andícora.

Los Chileanos.

Gato y Nicole.

Rubén and "Olivia's".

One of our neighbors at our campsite. Raul is the children's grandfather. He looked so funny wandering around like a homeless guy with this beautiful little girl holding his hand and walking along beside him. Raul is not homeless, he just always looked like it. It was boiling hot and he always had the same camo jacket and courderouy pants on.

After a long day of working. It was Carnival/Fat Tuesday/Ash Wednesday. The beach looked like a "Jaws" beach. Covered in people. We sold about $200 in Yuyitos. Little braids that we braided into people's hair with seeds and beads. Each one costed $5. We sold a lot.

Gato y Rubén with the Yuyitos sign I made and wore as we walked on the beach selling Yuyitos and earrings.

Villa Marina

The other side of the peninsula where we camped for a few days and then rented a house between the six of us for 5 days. I wasn't too fond of this desert/beach. It was hot, filthy and filled with horrible smells. There are only tourists on the weekends and we didn't sell very much so we were living by our teeth, eating spaghetti with canned tuna and tomato sauce, because veggies were too expensive.

Not too many worthy pictures from Villa Marina.

Rubén and I have split up from the group and are on our way to Mérida, in the Sierra nevadas. I'm ever-ready for a change of scenary.