Time flew

I sit now on my mom's laptop in San Diego, California. A lot has happened, I suppose, since March, the last time I wrote on here. Let me try and sum it all up.

Merida, Venezuela

Ruben and I went to the mountains after spending many months on the beaches of Colombia and Venezuela. We headed to Merida, which turned into a wonderful month in Venezuela. Merida saved my failing opinion of Venezuela. We found a room to rent about an hour bus ride out of the city deep in the country hills, in the farm house of Senora Maria and her sister.

Maria was in her mid-90s and still hand washed her clothes in a bucket on the ground with a straight back, brought the cows in from pasture, milked her milking cow, made DELICIOUS cheeses, danced, took care of maybe 50 ducks, chickens and turkeys and sang her way through every day.

Maria and one of her baby cows.

Her sister had moved up the hill to live with Maria after what she described to me as "too many years living as a prisoner in her son's house." She told me how Maria needed the help, but in reality I think she needed to help Maria more than Maria needed her help. She grew, prepared, and roasted her own coffee beans and would make afternoon coffee every day. Also delicious. Daily, she and Maria carried on a consant sisterly-nit-pick-banter, every now and then escalating and ending with both of mumbling angrily to the cows they were towing by the ropes around the house.

Coffee beans drying in the sun.

Maria's sister leading one of the cows up behind the house.

Maria's chair.
This chicken here started limping around one day. I mentioned something to Maria about it, expecting her to be worried about one of her dear chickens. She loved her chickens. Ruben, who also loves chickens, and her would talk on and on about all the different types of chickens, and their own personal chicken stories all the time.

The side of the house with Maria and the cows up on the hill.

Maria (left) and her sister, the day we left.

Nicole at the river down behind our house.

The mountains from the front porch.

On a hike to some natural hot springs near our house. It was the coolest hot springs I've ever been to.

Gato and Ruben talking in their underwear by the river.

Our view from our room. Gorda, my dog for the month, and one of the baby cows above. When I came to check out the room, Maria showed me a square concrete cell with nothing but a wooden bench in it. I asked about a bed and Maria told me matter-of-factly that "beds are for tourists." So we brought up old cardboard boxes from the city and made a nice hobo-bed. But for about $5 for the month, we didn't have too many qualms.

Gorda and Ruben hanging up clean laundry.

After a month in Merida we left to pass Semana Santa on the beaches where we could make more money more quickly because we had decided we wanted to go to Panama. Erin wrote me a email the day we left Merida telling me she had finally booked a ticket. She was flying into Panama City.

Semana Santa flew by in a rush to make money in order to be there for Erin's arrival. We barely made it. There were all sorts of hoops to jump through as far as buying the plane tickets in Venezuela. We had made the cash during Semana Santa to pay for the tickets, but we needed the cash to buy new materials and to get out of Venezuela. I didn't have any access to an ATM card, so I asked my mom, to whom I never cease to be grateful for (and certainly not just for money reasons), to wire the money from my account to this German store owner's account, from which he could give me cash in Venezuelan currency. If I had had an ATM card I would have been taking out money on the Venezuelan's government market, which meant the tickets for both Ruben and I would have cost about $500. However, if I could buy the tickets in Venezuelan currency they would cost about $200. Total. So that's when this German guy really saved us. He, along with half of the rest of the country, run on the side, black markets for exchanging tourist's money. Tourists transfer money into his German bank account which he uses to buy all his store's merchandise, and then he gives the tourist Venezuelan currency using the black market exchange rate. Apparently this type of opperation is so common that even Chavez, the one who controls the government's outstanding rate, benefits from it.

After much running, worrying and arguing, Ruben and I finally had the wired money in our hands and eventually in the bank to pay for our tickets. We ended up officially buying the tickets about 21 hours before the flight, I think. Erin was already in Panama by this point. I had failed to meet her at the airport.

Once we got there, we sped through Panama. It was really awesome being with Erin again, seeing Panama with her and hearing and watching her reactions to Panama and other primal living experiences. We started off in Panama City, went to Santa Catalina, a surfer's paradise on the Pacific with not too much of a village but lots of good surf. We rented, traded, borrowed and bartered for surfboards whenever we could.

We were also in Bocas del Toro, on the Carribean, where we rented two rooms in La Casa de Moody, a young rasta trying to start a hostel. He had his entire yard filled with rain filled tents, and rented out his two bedrooms in his cabin. He slept on the floor in the kitchen. He was super nice and showed us lots of hospitality.

We stayed in David, a city in central Panama in the mountains. David is one of Panama's "large" cities, but large in Panamanian standards is not too big. It had a slower, friendly atmosphere to it and was a fun place to sell. We were the only artisanos selling there at the time.

Around this time, Shay was back south, working this time for a family in San Jose, Costa Rica. Her time working was about up and we agreed to meet up in Puerto Viejo, a little beach village on the Carribean. Another several wonderful weeks went by spending time with another good girl friend. I realized after being with Shay and Erin again how much I missed my girls back home. This led me to realizing just how much I wanted to see everyone back home. So I went back. I booked a flight for a month in advance and took a month to think it all over and by the time I was saying bye to Ruben in the airport I knew I was coming back.

Now, it's August 19th. I fly back to San Jose, Costa Rica tomorrow. I spent two wonderful months visiting with friends and family, relaxing, working with my dad, cleaning house for my mom, backpacking and camping in the High Sierras with my brother, Sean, my dad, Italy and O.B, my little dogs, listening to music I was missing for ten months, surfing and losing a little of the fried food diet weight that I gained in South America.

I'm rested and equiped with a new little sack of clothes to go back to travelling. The plan is to just go north up through Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Belize and Mexico. I'll let you know how it's going....

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.

Taganga, Colombia y Venezuela

Taganga, Colombia

Chi Chi's birthday party, the owner of the hostel we stayed. If you looked up "Colombian" in the dictionary, you would see a picture of Chi Chi. Floral shirt, no shoes, happy beer belly, and a permanent scowl that always had a faint trace of a smirk. The hostel was full of artisaños, had a nice kitchen and a place to wash and dry clothes. It was probably my favorite hostel I've stayed in yet. There was always music and food cooking and lots of people to talk with and tell stories.

Australian guy who's been travelling for about a year now. He has plans to sail back to New Zealand from Panamà when he's done travelling.

Maurcilito, playing the harmonica. He and his french girlfriend and her son had been living in the hostel for several months and were like the gaurdians.

One of the many Argentiñians in Taganga with the french ladies son and a neighbor, playing Truca, an Argentinian card game.

Venezuela

Riding in the back of a pickup truck to Maicaibo, Venezuela, Rubén, Nicole and me.

I'm in venezuala. Home to Chavez. Geez. There's Chavez propaganda on every corner. Billboards. Flyers. Signs. Protestors. Everywhere. Our time in Colombia ran out, so we crossed the border to get some more time in Colombia, when we return. We're in Maicaibo right now. A huge, dirty, kinda scary city. Venezualuans are very different. Not as friendly as colombians. But everything is good.

Crossing the border was an adventure. We arrived at dark, on the night of our last day allowed in colombia. We slept in an expensive hotel in between Colombia and Venezuela and in the morning hitched a ride in the back of a pickup truck for about 3 hours into the heart of filthy Maicaibo. The drivers let us out in the middle of a huge street, filled with old hoop-de cadillacs. Gas is super cheap here and everybody and their mother has an old 1970s cadillac, with dusty bench seats that sag into the rust underneath. They all look like they're about to rust into the ground, but still manage to zoom through the traffic. Instead of buses in Maicaibo, there are old Cadi's, kind of like taxis, but they have specific routes they go on and don't charge as much as taxis and stuff as many people possible into their dusty rusty hunks. Most of the Cadi's don't have keys in the ignition. They hot-wire them, I guess. We were in one yesterday and when the driver wanted to blow his horn, he connected two wires; when he wants to turn on the car, he connects two wires. The only things that really work in these cars are the engines and the steering wheels (gracias a Dios).

Rubèn and I met up with Gato and his Chicagan girlfriend Nicole in Taganga, colombia and are travelling together for the moment.

Venezuela is expensive. Food is very expensive and we're still searching for a hotel in our price range. I don't like this city much at all, but I don't want to go too far into Venezuela because i want to return to Colombia. I really like Colombia. I was ready to go back as soon as we walked across the border into Venezuela and the border guy who stamped my passport asked me, very confrontationally, "Where are you going?" "Venezuela," I said. "Where?" "Maracaibo." "Si, pero donde?" he insisted. "what hotel?" "I have no idea. I've never been to Venezuela before," I said. "Well, you can't just enter a country and not know where you're going. I can't go to the United States and tell the police i have no idea where I'm going. They wouldn't just stamp my passport and let me in. Do you understand?" "Si, señor." i sensed a little "I hate the United States" energy from him.On the road, in the back of the pickup truck, we were stopped every 30 minutes by road blocks. Police men in their red Chavez hats asked us where we were from, what we were doing in the back of a pickup truck, searched our bags, and ran them through their portable x-ray machines. Their tanks were parked on the side of the road next to us. There are a lot of police about in Colombia, but it's different here. There signs that read "Socialismo o muerte!" Socialism or death! And everyone here has an interest in politics and Chavez that I didn't encounter in Colombia, Ecuador or Peru.

¡La Caribé!

We just got back from a WONDERFUL 3 or 4 day (can't remember how long we were there) adventure to an island about a 2 hour bus/walk/moto ride/ferry away from Cartagena, called Playa Blanca. Carribean. Carribean. The water was cristal clear with star fish and coral and white sand. It was gorgegous. Like a commercial. We camped down the beach away from the tourist loading area, where they all get off the boat and stay without exploring the rest of the island. I woke up before sunrise every morning and walked on the beach to watch the sun rise and keep the no-see-ums from eating me alive. At night and during the day the bugs weren't bad because of the breeze, but right before the sun came up, the wind would die and the no-see-ums would creep into the tent. La dueña of the hostel we're staying at in Cartagena, loaned us a big pot and we cooked all our meals over the fire.
yesterday, a fisherman brought in lobster and we bargained with him and got 4 lobsters, for us and our neighbors, for 10,000 pesos. About $5. Oh! Que rico! A guy from Brasil and his australian girlfriend were camped next to us and we cooked and ate and played music and spoke in portugeese. Rubén speaks portugeese (yes i am aware i am spelling portugeese wrong) since he lived in Brasil and Natalie, the girl from australia spoke a little too, so all our conversations were a blend of spanish and portugeese. I followed along quite well. Portugeese is very similar to spanish and i found myself understanding.
A girl from denmark let us borrow her snorkel and mask and Rubén and i went down to the far end of the beach yesterday and snorkled until my back was as red as the lobster we ate for dinner. THe water was even more clear down there than it was where we were camped. I found like 5 HUGE starfish, all different colors. There were lots of fish too. We're back in Cartagena for the night and tomorrow we're going to the Imigration office to see if we can get an extension on our time in colombia and then going to Taganga to meet Gato and his girlfriend Nicole. There's a national park a little north of Taganga where we're gonna go camping either tomorrow or the next day. It's also on the carribean and i hear there's lots of snorkling and beatiful beaches, but not as nice as Playa Blanca. It was so cool to live on the beach for a bit. No showers. Only swimming in the ocean. My hair is almost dreaded. If we like Taganga, Rubén and I have been talking about renting a house and staying there for a month. The Brasilero was telling us that he and about 12 other people rented a one bedroom house for about 150,000 pesos for a month. That's about 5,000 pesos a day, about...$2.50 a day. It would be cheaper and it would be nice to settle somewhere for a bit. It's tiring to constantly be moving and travelling around. I'm ready to be stagnant to a little while. Hopefully, tommorrow we can get an extension on our visas. WE're also talking about taking a cargo boat up to Panamá. But we're not ready to leave Colombia, yet.

A fisherman brought in 2 sharks and was selling them for 40,000 pesos each. About $20.

Rubén and René, our Brasilero neighbor.

Cartagena from the ferry.

The Carribean!!

Cooking a Brazilean breakfast.

The Lobster.

Sunset at Playa Blanca.

Nuestra casita.

It's 2009

Ladrilleros

Ladrilleros. Where the hilocopters fly low like Vietnam. Guns hanging from faceless fingers out their open doors.
Where the children sing and beat empty kerosene containors with a rythym only found in the blood of an African.
The Indians work quietly. Selling the palm frond hats and purses. Their children's pigeon-toed feet slap the ground as they run past, flashing toothy, innocent grins.
Ladrilleros. Even the Hunchback has his place here. And the silent "cara de loco" who sells his collection of seashells, finally gave us some words to remember him by. A voice strangely reminescent of Mike Tyson's.
Ladrilleros. Where I ate fried fish, arroz con coco y plantains for 14 days straight, cooked by the incessantly screaming family who's little Alejandro could never keep away from mud puddles and trouble.
The ocean roars here with la marialta. After a night filled with jungle rain, the jungle seeps its way into the sea and fills it with it's hojas and trash from the pueblo.
Ladrilleros. I will remember you by hot nights, singing mosquitos y negritos, arepas con huevos, tranvestites and my first UFO sighting. Un hobne. Con la luna llena. Yo creo ahora.
Gracias Ladrilleros.

La playa. Filled with tourists and local women offering to braid corn rows.

Trash in the beach.

Cliffs and jungle line the beaches.

One of the many cara de locos de Ladrilleros.

Working. 7000 pesos for a trincita con semillas.

Neighbor getting a bath.

Our work. Mainly Rubèn's.

Trabajando.