The Road Goes on Forever
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Day 8: Still Under the Weather.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Still Have The Flu. Seven Days and Counting.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
6.4 Earthquake in Caracas
This morning I took a group from the Embassy out on a City Orientation Tour. As we were driving around the city and I was pointing out various malls, hotels, parks etc. someone asked me, quite off handedly, if there are ever any earthquakes in Venezuela. At first I said I don't remember any, but then someone reminded me that we there was an earthquake here a few months ago, and then I remembered it.
It was at about 5:00 am and I was laying in bed and I felt the bed shaking, I remember being irritated with the dogs because it felt like one of them was leaning against the bed and scratching, causing the bed to shake. Then I remembered that I put the dogs outside earlier in the evening because they were acting strange, pacing around and whatnot. I sat bolt upright in bed and could hear the windows rattling. I said "Mary! Its an earthquake!" and she said "No its not, its just the wind, go back to sleep." Well I was vindicated when we got to work and the news about the mild earthquake was going around. Obviously, when you are not sure if it is an earthquake or the wind, it is not a real strong quake. I quickly forgot about that earthquake, since it was one of the least traumatic experiences I have had here.
Well, today we had another quake. Once again the dogs were acting strange. Lola was trying to dig a hole in the marble floor. She was totally focused on a spot in the den and was just going to town digging with her front paws. Obviously, she made no progress in the marble floor, but she drove nuts while I was trying to watch "Ocean's 13" on HBO, so I put her outside. A little while later, after the movie ended, I was sitting on the toilet, reading a book about WW II and suddenly felt the building shaking. This time there was no mistaking that the building was really shaking, an effect most likely magnified somewhat by my perch on the commode. It was raining really hard, like sheets of rain, when the shaking started, and it had been raining like that for about an hour to an hour and a half. When it rains like that here, mudslides are quite common (I did a previous post about the mudslides about a year ago) and as I sat there wondering what was going on I thought it was a mild earthquake and was slightly amused, not worried at all because the shaking was quite mild. But the shaking got stronger and stronger until there was what felt like a hard jolt, like the building hit something. At that point I was thinking mudslide; that the building was about to slide off the hill (we are built into the side of a really steep hill) or that mud was crashing down onto the building. I jumped up, took stock of my delicate predicament, decided I did not want to be found dead in the rubble sitting on the toilet, grabbed a hand full of toilet paper and did a "rush job" as I ran into the hall outside the bedroom. I stood there for a few moments and realized that the shaking had stoped. I looked pretty riduculous standing there with my pants half way down and a hand full of toilet paper. The crisis passed, nothing happened and I pulled my self together so to speak. You can always count on me to keep a cool head in a crisis.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Kavak



Thursday, September 10, 2009
Gripe: n. a cold; the flu; Pronounced gree-pay
I went whitewater rafting last weekend in the foothills of the Andes on the Rio Acequias, in Estado Barinas. This area is very remote and wild. It is also beautiful. I will post photographs here and on Facebook. I have some friend requests pending for some of my regular readers on Facebook, friend requests that have not been accepted because certain people do not ever check their Facebook pages, apparently.
The gig in Maricaibo is comming up pretty soon. But first we have a gig at the Embassy on Sept. 18th for the "Pirate Party" we are going to dress up like pirates and talk like pirates. (Arrr...). Here is my favorite pirate joke: Q: What kind of movies do pirates like? A: Ones that are rated Arrrrrr....ok that is pretty lame, but kids seem to love it.
We are having a sale here in the CLO office right now. One of the vendors sells Venezuelan Chocolate. Good stuff. It is a little known fact that Venezuelan Chocolate is considered the best in the world. There are different strains of cacao, the base ingredient in chocolate, much in the same way as there are different strains of grapes from which wine is made. The cacao from the Chuao region of Venezuela is considered the best in the world and is exported to the specialty chocolate makers in Belgium, Italy and Switzerland. Your can really tast the difference if you do a side by side taste test. Rum, chocolate and beauty queens are the three things that Venezuela does best.
Everything else...well thing are going south fast here. Here is a recent article from El Universal, a newspaper in Caracas:
Employers: Venezuelan private sector is slaughtered
Foreign exchange in short supply, labor clashes and constant harassment among the reasons
Economy In the opinion of Antonio Peñalosa, the Secretary of the International Organization of Employers (IOE), the outlook is dire for Venezuelan businesspersons. Their day-to-day routine is very worrisome. "Businesspersons in Venezuelan lack oxygen. The private sector is massacred." Peñalosa substantiated his allegations by underscoring the stumbling blocks faced by the private sector, which have gotten worse in 2009, in the transition to socialism and in the middle of economic stagnation. "We know they have troubles to get funding, to get foreign currency, and they should face labor conflicts and lack of consultation to set guidelines. There is harassment of the sector," he said. According to Peñalosa, the Venezuelan economic and social outcome mirrors such reality. He is positive that very few businessmen wish to invest in Venezuela, "except for those cases where investments are with the State." "The numbers on capital input and investments are catastrophic. Venezuela gets a tenth of the capital received by Colombia and far behind other nations, such as Costa Rica and Panama," he noted. Forsaken requests Peñalosa took a few minutes to list the requests that have been made for over eight years by international organizations, such as the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the IOE from the Venezuelan government. "There is still in this country no social dialogue; no national joint taskforce has been created to include businesspeople, the society, workers and the government itself; no tripartite working table has been organized to include the private sector, employees and public servants; no discussions have been conducted to set the minimum wage among the parties involved. Furthermore, a regulation on labor stability which violates the ILO Convention 158, signed by Venezuela, is still effective," he said. Failure to meet the demands does not break the IOE spirit. Its secretary seized the opportunity to ask the Executive Office "to listen to the requests of both organizations; to talk with businessmen and not against them." He also said that his organization is able to denounce what is happening in Venezuela in the field of business. Peñalosa also noted that his organization views the Federation of Trade and Industry Chambers (Fedecámaras) as the only lawful business agent. "Such organizations should be free from meddling and independent. In Venezuela, Fedecámaras is the only one which meets it (this requirement)."
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Blueberry Jam

Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Fishing at Lake Guri

Dave Brown and his Payara. Check out the teeth on that bad boy!!!
The drive out to Guri was quite arduous. It was twelve hours from Caracas. We drove through mountains near Caracas, then jungle banana plantations to the east of Caracas, then along the arid Caribbean coast, then south through the semi arid plains of the Orinoco River Valley, which is one of the big oil producing regions of Venezuela, and, interestingly, looks a lot like Texas and finally into the Sabana. Our trip included a 2.5 hour drive on a dirt road that deteriorated into waht I would charitably call a path. We were officially in the middle of nowhere. The terrain around Guri alternates between the grasslands of the Sabana and jungle. There wer times while fishing that flocks of Blur Macaws flew overhead, parrots played in the trees and Red Howler Monkeys could be heard roaring in the jungle. It was quite amazing.
The jungle along the shore of Guri.
Moriche Palms growing in the water.
Moriche Palms at sunset.
Monday, January 26, 2009
There is So Much to Write About
I have not given up on the blog...
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Angel Falls, Day 2: Part One - The Flight to Kavak

I was so impressed (and by that I mean terrified) that I took about a dozen pictures of it, mainly as evidence that I actually flew in a single engine airplane. Many of you know that I am not a comfortable flier. In fact you could characterize me as a “white knuckle” flier. Nevertheless, we stuffed all of our things into the plane, behind the last row of seats, and squeezed into our seats, which afforded about as much leg room as the back seat of a sports car. In the two seats behind us were two Pemon women headed back to their village with bags full of goods, mostly groceries, recently purchased in Ciudad Bolivar. We taxied out to the runway, then the pilot latched down the small window on his left, said something in Spanish into his headset and gunned the engine. The noise was deafening and the rush of wind from the propeller blew the little window open again. The pilot latched it shut again, took a bite of the pastry he was eating for breakfast, adjusted some type of instrument and let go of the brake. Little planes do not take long to get airborne, and as we careened down the runway, bouncing up and down like we were in a dune buggy, we were suddenly airborne. The words that kept running through my head were: oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. Little by little I calmed down once I realized that we were not going to fall out of the sky. I could not hear anything over the engine. We banked, climbed more and before I knew it we were underway to Angel Falls.


Auyan-Tepui shrouded in mist.

The little Cessna on the "landing strip" in Kavak.
Kavak
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Angel Falls Trip - Day One - Ciudad Bolivar




From there we went to the Museo San Isidro, which was a house that El Libertador stayed in while he was in Angostura (later renamed in honor of Bolivar). There was an important battle that took place near there. We then went to visit El Zamuro, a fortress used by Bolivar’s army to hold off the Royalists, then Plaza Bolivar, the Parochial House, House of Congress of Angostura and the Cathedral. The Cathedral is famous as the place where one of Bolivar’s top generals, Manuel Piar, was executed for treason. We spent the night at a very nice hotel, the Hotel La Cumbre, which had a very interesting collection of “dada” art. The proprietor of the hotel seemed to have a particular interest in old cash registers that he made into “art” apparently with a sledgehammer. We had a good meal in the restaurant and were entertained by a group of people singing traditional Venezuelan songs. The people were sitting around a table and among them had several guitars. Others at the table kept the rhythm by drumming on the table. The group included several children. A microphone was passed from person to person, each taking a turn at singing. One of the children even sang a very cute song. After dinner we sat by the pool for a while enjoying the cool evening breeze and then settled in for a much needed night’s rest after a very long day.

Greg and I at the Museo Jesus Soto
Monday, November 24, 2008
Election Results...It's a Mudslide!



Friday, November 21, 2008
Angel Falls: Introduction

To prepare you for this adventure, I have put together some background information that you might find interesting. Here are links about Angel Falls:
Canaima and Angel Falls
Venezuela Tuya – Angel Falls
Google Map Auyan Tepui and Angel Falls
My good friend, Greg Weiss, joined me on this trip. The night before we set out I picked up Greg at the Caracas Airport. Of course his flight was about two hours late and it took him over an hour to get through customs so we got home from the airport after midnight. As an interesting side note, the trip home from the airport requires passing through one of the worst areas in Caracas, called 23 de Enero (23 of January). It is common for thieves to setup roadblocks on the autopista to rob people. I was a little nervous, driving a BMW and all, but the trip home from the airport was quite uneventful. Our journey the next morning was to begin at about 5:00 am, and I wondered if it was even worth the effort to leave and return to the airport. Obviously we had to go pick up my luggage at home so that was not really an option. We were going to be operating on very little sleep.
The travel agency we used was Akanan Travel. This was our itinerary:
Day 1: Fly to Puerto Ordaz, drive to Ciudad Bolivar and spend the day touring Ciudad Bolivar.
Day 2: Fly from Ciudad Bolivar to Kavak deep in the Gran Sabana on the southern side of Auyan Tepui.
Day 3: Travel by boat on the Rio Akanan to campsite 1
Day 4: Travel by boat on the Rio Carrao to campsite 2
Day 5: Travel by boat on the Rio Churun to campsite 3 at the base of Angel Falls
Day 6: Travel by Boat to Canaima and fly to Ciudad Bolivar, drive to Puerto Ordaz and then to Caracas
I will begin the journey with the next post. Today just sets the stage.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Big Post Comming...Stay Tuned




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Tuesday, September 30, 2008
I Live in the World's Most Dangerous City!

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4480
Caracas tops the list of the world's most dangerous cities. New Orleans makes a respectable showing for the U.S. It is good to know that I live in a city that is considered more dangerous than Port-Au-Prince Haiti, or Johannesburg South Africa, just to name two notoriously dangerous cities.
As noted in the article "El Presidente" is a big part of the problem. Frankly, he is equal parts idiot and a**hole. He spends most of his time trying to provoke the U.S. He recently expelled the Ambassador, called the Venezuelan Ambassador home, welcomed a Russian long range bomber, held joint naval excercises with the Russian navy in the Caribbean, and made deals with the Russians to buy weapons and nuclear technology. I guess he figured that being pals with the Russians is good policy. After all, look how well that worked out for Cuba. And Viet Nam. And Eastern Europe. And, for that matter, Russia. Perhaps the Venezuelans will now head to Moscow instead of Miami to buy their iPods, Lacoste shirts, and Louis Vitton hand bags. Rather than try to help the people of Venezuela, Chavez spends money abroad like a drunken sailor in an effort to increase his influence in other countries. He sends free gasoline to Equador, Nicaraugua and the Dominican Republic, sent free heating oil to low income families in New England and sent free high efficiency light bulbs to the poor of Houston Texas. (The press has, until now, completely ignored the plight of the poor of Houston who are struggling to get by with their inferior incadesent light bulbs. Thank you, Hugo, for providing them with highly efficient sources of light.) Meanwhile, there are as many poor in Caracas as ever. Drug smuggling is flourishing here and gangs rule the "ranchitos". The streets are in such deplorable condition that it is actually a bragging point that the roads in the area where I live are "82% free of potholes". That means almost 20% of the roads are not free of potholes. Inflation is hovering at about 30%. Banks pay interest of 23%. The smartest thing a person can do as a hedge against inflation is spend every penny of their paycheck each week on durable goods and foods that have a long shelf life. As a consequence, no one here has any savings. There are chronic food shortages. Staples like beans, chicken, milk, eggs, rice and cooking oil are frequently in short supply. The shortages hit the poor areas first. I know this because our maid always tips us off on what will not be available in the stores next week, because in her neighborhood it is already not available. One thing that he really excells at is insulting world leaders. He famously called G.W. Bush "The Devil", provoked the King of Spain into saying "why don't you shut up" during an economic summit meeting of Latin Countries, and refered to the U.S. as "sh*tty yankies" while throwing the U.S. Ambassador out of the country. Actually, he gave the Ambassador seventy two hours to leave the country, while dramatically holding up a watch in front of a crowd and noting the time. One of his advisors should have told him that the U.S. Ambassador was actually in the U.S. at the time. El Presidente is so small and petty that he won't let the Ambassador's wife return to collect their belongings and their dog. Nice touch, Hugo! That will show the "sh*tty Yankies" .
When I first heard of Chavez, I wanted to like him. I wanted believe that he would give the poor a break so that they could enjoy a slice of the economic prosperity that comes with being oil rich. I hoped that he would improve living conditions and offer economic opportunities to the poor. Instead, about all I can see that he has done is paint a bunch of slogans on the walls, surround himself with cronies, try to amend the constitution to give himself absolute power and the ability to rule for life and insult world leaders in an effort to provoke them. Chavez likes to portray himself as the hero standing up to imperialism, but in reality he is little more than a loud mouth clinging to power.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
The Great Venezuelan Road Trip

We set out at about 5:00 am in order to beat the ever present traffic that often extends to areas well outside of Caracas. The stretch of highway from Caracas through Maracay and then to Valencia is particularly bad for traffic since it is the main artery for truck traffic between Maricaibo, which is a big oil and manufacturing area, Puerto Cabello which is the main port facility, Valencia and Maracay (lots of manufacturing) and Caracas. Our plan worked and we sailed along finding out turn in Valencia and heading south into the region known as Los Llanos by about 8:00 am. I should also mention that I made a very important discovery on this road trip: my GPS works in Venezuela! It even has the overlay showing the principal roads in Venezuela. So not only did we not encounter any traffic to this point, we knew where we were at all times.
Along the way we also saw a lot of very helpful signs in front of buildings. For example, the sign that said “No Hay Aspiradora” (there is no vacuum cleaner ) provided a vital piece of information, as did the signs informing us that there was concrete, and that there were not concrete blocks. These signs were generally in front of houses. I’m still scratching my head.
Los Llanos is a very interesting area. For about half the year, during the dry season, it is hot and dry. There are vast praries of brown grass and parched trees dot the landscape. Then the rain comes and it rains relentlessly for about 6 months and suddenly the plains turn into vast marshes of reeds and tall, lush, green grass. We were there during the rainy season. I have also been to the Llanos during the dry season (see the blog about fishing at Lake Camatagua). I liked the rainy season better. We drove along through the plains in view of the Andes mountains to our right. It was a beautiful sight. We drove on Highway 5 through Tinaquillo, Tinaco, San Carlos, Acarigua, Guanare, and finally to Barinas. We then turned onto Highway 1 in Barinas and headed up into the Andes Mountains, through Barintas, Santo Domingo, Mucuchies and finally into Merida. The Andes are stunningly beautiful. We stopped briefly at a waterfall that cascaded down the mountains, and there would be many, many more waterfalls. At first the mountains were forest, which turned into Cloud Forest, then high mountain pines and, as we went over the pass, we were above the tree line and the only plants were short scrub brush and mosses. Here are a few photos:
However, as we drove through the Andes the road got progressively worse. Worse even than what we previously encountered in Los Llanos. In fact the roads became positively dangerous. There were places where a small landslide occurred and the road was partially blocked by a large mound of dirt that had obviously been there for quite some time because it was covered with grass and weeds. The road crews decided that it would be better to just paint some stripes on the road warning of the impending obstruction than to actually remove it. We saw fallen trees in the road and even several places where a whole lane of the road was washed down the mountainside. The solution? Paint a warning stripe or two on the road and leave the road washed out. The poor condition of the roads was, however, the least of the hazards we faced. Buses and trucks raced up and down the mountain roads, driving on the wrong side of the road, passing slower traffic (including us) and generally being maniacs. Then, with no warning at all, a bus would suddenly slow down and stop to pick up a passenger. Moments later that bus would run up on our tail flash its headlights then pass us. Head light flashing is an important form of communication in Venezuela. Depending on the context it could mean “get out of the way” or “you go first, I insist” or “danger: road washed out ahead” or “get out of my lane”. You never really know for sure, but when a bus is tailgating you flashing its lights it is a safe bet he means “get out of the way”. Despite all the hazards, challenges, trials and tribulations we covered 450 miles in 11.5 hours and never got lost. We drove into Merida and literally to the front door of the posada on the first try.
Merida is a lovely town. It is a colonial city and is known as “La Cuidad de los Caballeros” (The City of Gentlemen “caballero” literally means “horseman” but also means gentleman because only the landed gentry had horses.) I was told that it derived its name from the fact that it was a very prosperous town during the colonial era. Now, it retains much of its colonial character, but, like all of Venezuela, it suffers from the plight of the Venezuelan zeal to tear down beautiful old buildings and build new, ugly ones in their place. It is also a college town, and while we were there there were riots going on about a mile away. The people at our posada (Casa Del Sol), in the restaurants and on the street seemed completely unconcerned about the student riots, so we did not concern ourselves either. It was a little weird to dine al fresco while listening to sirens and the pop, pop, pop of tear gas canisters going off.
The next day we went up the Teleferico (Cable Car) up to the snow capped peak of Pico Espejo, one of the huge mountains in near Merida which is next to Pico Bolivar, the highest peak in Venezuela. The ride up took about 1.5 hours, with three stops. Merida sits at an elevation of about 5500 ft and the top of the Teleferico is at about 15,500, giving the mountain a vertical rise of about 10,000 ft. That is bigger than most of the mountains in Colorado. It is higher than Whistler in Canada. At 15,500, that was the highest I have ever been with my feet on the ground. The top of the Mountain was shrouded in fog, but we did get to see some snow, in Venezuela, in the summer (and yes, it is technically summer here in Venezuela because we are north of the Equator).
We also met a woman named Andrea from San Francisco while waiting for the Teleferico, who we would run into several more times in the coming weeks during our various travels in Venezuela. We ate soup and arepas at a café at the top of the mountain, muffled our laughter when some guy leaned up against a freshly painted wall and came away with his backside covered in blue paint, then tried to non chalantly check to see if we too had blue paint on our butts and generally had a good time. Although the top was shrouded in fog, the next stop down was not and we were able to get out and walk around a little and see some of the amazing scenery above the tree line. Here are some of the photographs.
The next day we went to a little village high in the mountains called Jaji (pronounced “Ha-hee”) which is in a colonial village nestled in a very high mountain meadow. Along the way we stopped to take some pictures of a beautiful waterfall…and ran into Andrea. She was sitting there at the waterfall waiting for a bus to take her to Jaji. She had been on another bus but wanted to get off at the waterfall to look at it and take pictures and so she had to wait for the next bus to come to continue her journey. We offered her a ride, and set out once again. Here are photos of the waterfall.


Before we left the posada, we asked the woman at the front desk if the road on the Maricaibo side of the mountain was good. She got a little indignant and said “claro, es una autopista” meaning “of course, it is a highway.” Well, she was wrong. Very, very wrong.
We descended down to almost sea level and got on the Autopista in Santa Elena, which was hot and humid. The Lake Maricaibo side of the Andes is what most people envision when they think of South America. In addition to the heat and humidity, there were banana trucks everywhere, the roads were lined with tropical plants, and there were pedestrians lining the road. We could not go five miles without coming to a new town, where we had to slow to a crawl behind the banana trucks. Even when we could go 50 or 60 miles per it was dangerous because of the potholes. I literally saw a car have a blowout after hitting a pothole while passing me. (Karma can be a bitch.) As the day wore on, and the miles crawled by we finally found ourselves in the mountains again as we turned back to the east, back toward Caracas. Now we were beset by a driving rain storm in addition to the trucks, pedestrians, potholes and towns. Darkness fell and we were no where near our goal of Barquisimeto. It was nearly 9:00 pm when we got to Barquisimeto, and neither of us had eaten since breakfast. Our navigational luck ran out as well and we got quite lost. Part of the problem was that we did not have a good map. After driving around in circles for nearly two hours and calling the posada several times, we finally broke down and hit a drive thru at a McDonalds. Little did we realize that we were about five blocks from our posada. We followed the directions we were given by the posada, did yet another circle around the town and finally arrived to our posada. By this point Mary and I were not speaking to each other.
Things got much better the next day. We found our way out of town with no problem (after a spirited debate between the posada manager, a cleaning lady and a grounds keeper as to which route was the “best” one to get to the Autopista). We set our sights on a small town called Chivacoa, which is home to the followers of Maria Lionza. Here are some links that explain the religion, which is a mixture of Catholicism, Voodoo, Santaria, and indigenous beliefs. Here. And Here. And Here. There is a mountain nearby (Sorte) that is said to be a place of strong magical power and is held sacred by followers of the cult. The town itself is full of “Perfumerias” which sell the necessary items for the practice of the religion, such as the statues of the various deities (The Virgin Mary, Dr. Jose Gregorio Hernandez, Simon Bolivar, Negro Pedro, Cacique, the Viking, The Ganster and, of course, Maria Lionza, who is depicted riding an animal called a tapir) as well as candles, incense, cigars, rum, playing cards, and small metal charms. Not wanting to miss out on a potential religion, we purchased a Dr. Hernandez statue and a Maria Lionza statue to go with the Virgin Mary statue we already have. After a quick lunch of pastries at a bakery (where I solved the Café Madrid mystery) we headed home to Caracas. The remaining drive was uneventful. I just zoned out and drove.
We drove over 1000 miles in four days, and spent about 30 hours in the car.
Coming up next: I become a rock star, and the Angel Falls Adventure.