Caracas -> Maracay -> Puerto Colombia

Hi everyone!

First of all, we are safe and happy, and the only person to touch Miriam's bag was a toddler who thought she was his mother.

Monday evening we arrived at the Caracas airport at 10 pm. We took a cab to our hotel. The airport is 26 km from the city, so we got to see what the outskirts of the city look like, at night that is. We drove through valleys between steep mountains covered in shanty-houses. It was wild to be surrounded by mountains of lights.

We stayed at a hotel in Altamira, Caracas' business district, one of the safest areas in the city. The next day we met up with a friend of friend to exchange money and give us some pointers. The only way to get the local currency (Bolivares) at a reasonable rate is through the black market. If you try to change money through the official exchange companies, they even tell you to go change it somewhere else, and look at you like you're an idiot.  We had to change enough to get lunch through a exchange company, and it took 45 minutes (they even fingerprinted Gabe), yuck!

We had one of the most famous Venezuelan foods for lunch: the arepa. A thick corn tortilla cut in half and filled with various stuffings. We had the reina pepiada, which is chicken and avocado. It was the best thing we've had so far, and we'll take a picture next time we get it. 

We saw Santa Claus. 

Venezuelans, ethnically, range from white to mullato/mestizo (majority) to dark. For the most part, the women are gorgeous, as Gabe likes to point out to Miriam every five minutes. We're very thankful that we have a Spanish speaker among us, because outside of nice hotels in Caracas, no one speaks English. 

We finally walked to the private (nicer) bus station at 5:45, but by the time we got through the lines, the last bus to Maracay had left. So then, we rushed to the metro station to get to the public bus terminal across the city. We were impressed by the cleanliness and modernity of the Caracas metro (compared to the Boston T, minus the red line because it rocks, says Gabe). We arrived in a chaotic, dark, packed street, where we had to walk a few blocks (quickly)  from the metro to the bus station. We were clearly the only foreigners in the entire compound (in Caracas in general there were almost no foreigners, especially westerners). Although it was late, fairly unorganized, and crowded, it was safe. It took us an hour and a half to get on a bus to Maracay (the destination of each bus was unannounced, so whenever one arrived, a crowd formed, with everyone trying to force themselves on). 

The bus was surprisingly spacious, and the ticket collecter was friendly with us. You don't buy tickets ahead of time, instead when you get on, they take your name and phone number (in our case, our passport number) and come around with a video camera, making people look at it with their face fully shown.  The government in general has a lot of survelience and tracking protocol, even more than London and China, which surprised us. They showed a bootleg DVD of '2012' in English with Spanish subtitles (which made Gabe muy happy). 

We arrived in Maracay at 10:30pm on Tuesday and were able to grab a taxi to the hotel where we had made a reservation (one of the only budget hotels in Maracay not characterized as a 'love hotel'). We were just glad to be out of Caracas.

Maracay, a city of 1.5 million people, was not a place we had any interest in seeing. So, the next morning we walked to the bus station and left for Henry Pittier National Park. What followed was a 3 hour journey over jungle covered mountains, over windy roads, in a tightly packed bus with a loud salsa/reggaeton soundtrack. At this point, we turned to each other, smiled, and acknowledged that we were really, truly in Venezuela. 

We arrived in a small colonial style village called Puerto Colombia, on the Carribbean coast. In town, the coast is rocky and theres a dock for small motorboats. We checked into a cheap hotel (50 Bs. or $10), and went directly to the nearest beach Playa Grande, a 10 minute walk from our hotel. Playa Grande is a beach paradise, with perfect, immaculate, cream-colored sand, coconut trees, and mountains on either side. 

There are other beaches along the coast of this National Park, except many are only accessible by boat or long hike. We plan to go to Playa El Diario this afternoon. 

The hotel we stayed at was so noisy (our window, that didn't close, was right on the main street) that we decided to move to another hotel this morning. This morning we had a fantastic breakfast of mini arepas, beans, cheese, eggs, and meat. Afterwards, we took a walk to the closest town, Choroni, another colonial, 400 year old town, but more peaceful. 

More later (pictures will come when we have access to faster internet),

-the traveling duo

Factoids:

Number of Americans seen: 0

Number of Westerners seen: 15

Avg daytime temp: 90º

Avg nighttime temp: 70º

Avg number of liters of water per day : 7