(silvena) hi guys!

Out trip is almost over. it has been kind of a challange for us to find internet in Venezuela so we have not been able to post an entry about this country yet. actually many things were kind of a challenge for us here :) especially for me...

You will get my side of the story of venezuela here and Michal will give you his own. Landing in Caracas on Sunday was a total shock for my system. From the cool, beautiful, majestic and peaceful mountains of Peru, we somehow found ourselves in a jungle of concrete, heat, dirt and smells... The second we arrived in Caracas (after about 40 minutes ride in a taxi during which i was holding the doorhandle of the car ready to jump out in case of emergency, and trying to figure out whether the direction the driver was taking us was towards the city or into some middle of nowhere), i already desperately wanted to leave. It is true that we are exhausted towards the end of our trip but the fact that we were walking literally on garbage and were seemingly the absolute only tourists in the whole of caracas did not help my feeling of imminent danger!

Well, now, almost a week later, i have to say that i was probably overreacting a little bit as we are safe and are trying to enjoy the country. In order to avoid crowds (since it it is Easter here on Sunday) we decided to travel to a small city of Coro on the coast west of Caracas firsty and then make our way back to the capital slowly by Monday.

A lot can be desired about the bus system in Venezuela. The bus terminals look like these masses of´people and busses with hundreds of people showting different names of places. You are supposed to hear your place and signal to the guy shouting it and he takes you to a bus. Our first bus ride was memorable. The bus had a metal door between the passengers and the driver which remained closed at all times, as did the courtains, for security reasons, we were told. In addition, a lady with a video camera filmed the face of every passenger before the bus left the station, agian for security reasons, i guess. This highly secure bus took us to Valencia and from there we took another one to Coro. Another shock to the system followed - the bus was fully open, doors, windows, everything, with loud Latin music blasting out all the way. Somehow, i felt more secure in this one... :)

After spending three quiet days in Coro, wondering around the same 5 streets and eating in the same two restaurants in this place where we were the only tourists with the exception of a lost Dutch guy on his way to Colombia, my feeling of imminent danger diminished and was replaced by a different but equally strong and unpleasant feeling of being watched. In fact, in no other country did we feel so much on a podium, but a very uncomfortable one at least for me, as here. I guess the fact that we are the only foreign tourists has something to do with this and even though Michal is trying to explain to me that people are just curious and have no evel thoughts, it is the biggest punihment for me to feel this way.

We are now in Puerto Colombia. A quiet beach town, or at least i thought it would be so when i proposed to come here in order to avaoid the craziness of easter travel. Nothing could be so far away from the truth!!! I wish i could post the picture here of a stuningly beautiful beach (I am sure it would have been if we could only see any of it), EVERY sentimeter of it covered by people and tents!!! i have never seen anything like this, even the worst days of the tiniest beach in Sozopol on the Black Sea....There was of course no way for us to stay at this beach, at 9 am it was already packed to its fullest, and i mean both the sand, the nearby palm tree forest, and the actual water!

Luckily we managed to find out that if you take a boat, somewhere 30 minutes away there is a beach which is far from empty but at least you can breathe. The boat ride itself, in addition to being adrenalin high because local muchachos were showing off their sailing skills, was very very beautiful - huge green mountains, many of them, and quite steep, dive into the beautiful blue Carribean sea.

Today we are exploring a small village about an hour walking inland hidden in those cool green mountains to gather some strength to go back at the heat, sand and crowds tomorrow, as it will be our last full day and then we have two days of travelling before we return to Brussels.

So hasta luego everyone! :)

(michal) Hi there,

I have to admit that it is quite difficult to write about Venezuela due to the couple of reasons:
- It is extremely hot here,
- There is not so much to write about (well, we are in the tourist resort here)
- I am sick (I fell asleep in the cold room, and am dying of my usual ¨"7-days" cold.
- Last but not least, I am all the time tempted to read about the Kyrgyz revolution (how amazing!), more than I am motivated to write this blog, sorry about that ;(

Well, well, well. I have to admit that even though it is difficult to fall in love with Venezuela from the first sight, there are some things that make me like it more than other countries that we visited...

Image that you go somewhere where there are no tourists..! You are one of the few people who can explore the strangeness of the place, it was like that day when we arrived in the Caracas, it was shitty, dirty, smelly, and we were walking through the loud streets of the capital and hundreds of eyes where staring at us! I am sure that many of them were wondering where we are from, what are we doing for living and what the hell brought us to their shabby city.. many of them seemed not to even see acknowledge that we are different, since the entire Venezuelan society seems to be a big mixture of Europeans, old Creoles and descendants of African slaves. Such a difference from the other countries that we visited, where once they see that you are a Tourist/foreigner/stranger they run towards you trying to do anything possible to get a penny out of you! I am not saying that Venezuelans are angels, of course they were trying to screw us too, but you can get screwed even next to the Eiffel Tower in Paris, believe me!
I somehow have a feeling that Venezuelans are very different from any other Latin American country.

They are different when it comes to the government (famous Hugo Chavez Frias, who is shaking hands with leaders of such prosperous countries as Cuba, Libya, Iran and by the way he was also one of the last heads
of state who paid a visit to Saddam), their anti-American policy annoyed already many folks in the White House and its history: Venezuela was the first country to liberate itself from the Spanish rule. Before it was just one of the poorest colonies (famous of only spices and cacao), when the moment has come (French invasion in Spain) they produced one of the most brilliant leaders such as Simon Bolivar to lead the freedom movement that freed such countries as Perú, Ecuador and Colombia.

Then you can see that this country has some great beaches, some great small cities, some nice places to see (apart from the ugly capital) but there is almost not infrastructure: example: if you want to find a restaurant, you will find it in the least expected place, then if you ask me about food, well, it has neither any obviously disgusting dishes nor any culinary masterpieces. The food is mainly based on corn-made arepas, chicken, fish, rice, more or less; it seems to be a diet of an average fisherman from the Caribbean.

Then you can ask me, what the hell I like in Venezuela? Well, maybe it is strange, but it reminds me of Poland so much: great and glorious history but mediocre present, ugly capital – nice province, weird politicians – people weirdly looking at you on the street (I am sure they are GREAT when you get to know them!) Food tasty – but now way nor idea how to sell it, finally beautiful places, but dirty, but shay, and noone cares, like Poland, like Caracas, and like the guy who asked me on the boat yesterday, if I like Caracas, I said, of course I do, cos we are proud of our countries no matter how bieda-like they are.

Viva Chavez!