Venezuela!!

I spent the last four days of my voyage in Venezuela and honestly, I have no idea how to even begin describing everything I got to do and see. It was amazing. I didn’t do any trips through Semester at Sea for this port and instead did an organized independent trip into Merida, which is an Andes mountain town about twelve hours away from the our port city, La Guaira. I bolded the coolest parts of the trip in case anyone is like me and doesn’t have much of an attention span…Millie.

We got into La Guaira on Saturday morning. Rolling green hills covered in hundreds, maybe thousands of favelas (shanties) made up most of the landscape. The favelas varied in color, yet were all finished off with a tin roof and obviously had no plumbing of any sort. We learned in global studies days earlier that LaGuaira was a much more colorful city before a mud slide killed thousands of residents years ago. After looking at the arrangement of homes on the mountains it didn’t surprise me that a mud slide could bring so much damage to this city. Those who didn’t live in shanties lived in huge apartment buildings that had bars on every window. Hanging from the bars were wet t-shirts and other laundry. I had expected to see poverty. After all, in our pre-port lecture that we had the night before reaching Venezuela they warned us over and over about the risk of being mugged in the city due to it. They really worked to scare us, telling us at one point that Venezuela has a higher murder rate than any other Latin American country.

So anyway, we got into LaGuaira and within an hour or so thirty SAS kids and me boarded a bus for Merida. The tour agent who organized the trip for us, Ben, was a really nice guy. He got us our hotel in Merida, set up the canyoning, the cable car ride, and the paragliding, and made sure we got everything we needed along the way.

The drive that afternoon was interesting. We drove through Caracas, which was basically just like LaGuaira but much larger. Then as we neared a tollbooth shortly after we were met with dozens and dozens of people standing out on the streets selling anything and everything. They were walking up and down the highway holding up life jackets, cloves of garlic, huge lollipops, etc. Since we had such a long drive to Merida we got to drive through country neighborhoods as well. There were children sitting on the sidewalk, a man having his head shaved in his backyard, raw meat hanging from various booths, fences made out of twigs, etc.

We stopped for “lunch” at 4:30 pm and by then we were all starving, as we had assumed the lunch included on the trip would occur by 2 at the latest. Three huge tables were set and waiting for us, taking up the entire roadside restaurant we stopped at. The meal was definitely authentic. One of the dishes, the main one, was basically a huge plate of meat, and not just one type of meat. There were like four or five different types all mixed together on the plate. I just couldn’t do it. Ha if only Allison could have seen it. I dug into the meat though and uncovered some hidden chicken which made my day. Oh and then outside, in the backyard of this restaurant, this family had a garden and in it were two cages that held about five or six green parrots. I was standing around alone taking pictures and the bird greeted me! “Hola!” It said loudly. This bird turned out to be the talker of the group and for the remainder of the time we were there it kept saying “Hola!” followed by this sing-songy tune that sounded like it was laughing at us. Seriously, over and over until we left. I totally thought of the birds back home, Ollie and Jesse, and I really wish you guys could have heard how hilarious these parrots were. Mom you would have loved it. I could not get enough of it. Before we left the restaurant the owners got a picture with all of us and we were told that the picture was going to be in some newspaper. Ben is planning on scanning the article and sending it to us soon.

After lunch we drove a while more and headed to the Maria Lionsa Mountain that night and spent a good three hours there. A village of people live within the mountain and practice black magic as part of their religion. Ben told us that we were the “first organized group to visit Maria Lionza” and in turn, the state made a huge deal out of it. They loaded us into these smaller buses and we drove into the mountains surrounded by police escorts. The ratio of police to students was about 50:50. We were all freaking out with excitement because these state police had guns and their lights were flashing as they led us, and followed us, into the mountain. None of us knew what to expect when we got there and it just made us even more anxious. Before going I knew very little about Maria Lionsa, but today in global studies I learned that it is best summed up as a cult of African, Indian, and Christian beliefs and cultures and that it is mainly practiced by those who live in great poverty within Venezuela.

I don’t even know how to explain what we saw. It was unreal. We got there on a Saturday night which I guess it like the big spiritual night for those who live there and there was so much going on. There was drumming going on in the distance when we arrived and eventually we were led to it. A row of young men sat on the ground with drums while made fifty other Venezuelans stood around behind them, many puffing cigars. In front of the men were two cages, for lack of a better word, full of candles, images, crosses, etc. Within a half an hour we were getting cleansed as a member of the village hung a black pot of coals and incense from his hand and moved it around our bodies. One man gestured to me, allowing me to go into one of the cages to pray, after I took my shoes off of course. While this whole cleansing thing was taking place there was a woman dancing frantically within a circle of people, she was in some sort of a trance. Later an older woman who had been cleansing us earlier went into a trance, dropping her cigar on the ground and moving her body around spastically while others sang. There were a lot of rituals going on throughout the small village, made up of tents by the way, so we moved on to another area after a while. The second ritual was crazy and I almost laughed at one point because this man was soooo scary. He was stomping around in a red cape, sniffing the air, and then walking up to random SAS kids and saying something to them in a deep devilish voice. One girl was totally caught off guard and nearly cracked up. It turns out he was blessing us, but at the time we didn’t realize this. He kept saying the word “babies” in his speech. Like he would speak in his native tongue yet was using the word “babies” while talking. Ben later explained that he must have asked someone what the English word for children was, referring to us, and babies was what he was told. Either way, he totally scared me and I purposely stood in the back for this ritual to avoid his coming up to me. The third ritual we saw right before leaving was for this woman’s birthday and there were people standing around her, chanting some song over and over, as she danced. Someone sipped wine and blew it on her back, and at some point she went into a trance and was moving around as though she was possessed. We left soon after that. One student remarked, “Wow, they’re drunk,” as we walked away. And yeah, I’m pretty sure they were. The whole night up at the “magic mountain” as it’s called was just so surreal, I don’t know how we could be so lucky as to see as much as we did while we were there. I mean, we went to an area where few tourists venture and there were hundreds of people in this village just doing their thing.

….so yeah, amazing. We got back on the buses and drove through the night, arriving in Merida at like 9:00 am. A third of us went canyoning, another third went off for the cable car tour, and my group was left waiting around for our turn to do something. Before I go any further, can I just say that I waited around in Venezuela for a majority of the time I was there. To go to breakfast with Ben we waited outside for nearly an hour past the time we were scheduled. For canyoning they drove us to the bottom of the mountain only to wait for almost two hours for our turn. When I went paragliding I was up on the mountain for three hours before I got in the air. I think that was the most difficult thing for me to get used to: the perception of time in Venezuela. Nothing was on schedule and when we were told that we had to wait an hour for lunch, it really meant three hours. I’m so used to everything being on time and happening at the time scheduled that to arrive in Merida three hours later than expected was surprisingly off to me. It became a joke to us eventually, and I became a pro at shrugging it off and saying “ah Venezuelan time”.

So moving ahead in the day, we eventually get to go canyoning. By the time the first group walked out of the woods in their wet suits it was 3:00 pm, we were scheduled to go begin at 1:00 pm. I’m mentioning this because they still took us canyoning and because we were two hours behind schedule the sun went down and the forest became a pitch black while we were canyoning. On top of that, they didn’t pack a flashlight! No joke. I had to repel down a dark drop off while being yelled at in Spanish. I was basically completely terrified at that point. Someone hiked the trail from the other direction to find us eventually and the twelve of us shared one flashlight as we attempted get back. There were kids falling off the trailer and tripping on rocks. It was definitely an experience. I learned how to say “I’m scared of the night. I want some light,” in Spanish, too!

Okay, so anyway, about the whole canyoning thing…the group that went before us got back, warning us that it was ‘really scary’ and refusing to tell us much more. We piled back into the back of some small SUV’s and were driven up this mountain. The drive got sketchier and sketchier as we went. We were so close to rolling over a cliff that I had to rest my hand on my forehead and close my eyes at one point because I was freaking myself out. I’ve had so many “Don’t tell mom about this,” moments because I know she would just gasp if she saw some of the stuff I did this last four days. You would, mom.

So to get to the beginning of the canyoning trail we first had to hike in our swimsuits for about twenty minutes. It was nothing too demanding, but there was cow shit all over and to fall would have been horrible since we were all half naked…all the boys were just wearing boxers.

Once we got to the river we stepped into wetsuits and started our hike down the river. To sum up the canyoning experience, it basically involved repelling down waterfalls, jumping off small cliffs, rock sliding…aka hiking down a mountain via a river. It was awesome. The first waterfall we got to was only like ten meters, nothing too big, but I went first so as to not pysch myself out while I watched others. I barely even knew what I was doing because the only training we got was right before we repelled and I couldn’t even understand what the guy was saying. Man, it was so cool. I was underneath these waterfalls, being blasted by water, on multiple occasions. The highest waterfall we did was thirty meters.

We eventually made it back into town and we were served dinner by the company that took us canyoning. Thomas, the owner of the company, hung around and talked to us for quite some time. He got started on the whole New Orleans situation, updating us since we hadn’t heard anything since entering Venezuela, and soon enough he was going on about Bush and our government and the problems within it. It was really interesting to listen to this man talk. He knew more about our government than any of us did and he had a definite opinion. So of course we were curious about his view of Hugo Chavez. He said quite a bit but overall he seemed happy with Chavez because he’s actually done something, as he put it, as opposed to past leaders who have accomplished nothing.

By the time we were done with dinner I was exhausted and ready to shower and get to bed, but everyone was planning on going on and drinking cheap beer. So I sucked it up, showered, and took a rickety taxi to this pub with a group of girls. There were already at least 30 SAS kids there when we arrived. Beer was sooo cheap! I drank five beers and paid $2.50 American at the most. Some of the guys got carried away though and were so sloshed the next morning that they missed their canyoning excursion.

The next day was another eventful day. We rode “the world’s longest cable car” up to the top of this mountain. It seriously was the longest cable car ride ever. There was a pretty view, but overall it didn’t do much for me since I saw a similar view while paragliding.

For lunch the group of about eight people I had split off with decided that we needed to eat a real meal. For much of the trip I just didn’t food because we were running late or the food available didn’t look sanitary. So we went to a decently nice restaurant and because we didn’t know what anything on the menu was we decided to just be adventurous and order something random. But no one else followed through! Everyone ordered “pollo” because chicken is a safe bet and some other girls ordered pizza. I ordered “Truchas cuatro queso” and was excited because “four cheese” sounded like something I could handle. So when a plate with a fish, complete with head and tail still on the plate, was set before me, I couldn’t help but jump back. Carrie saw my reaction as I tried to act calm. I did try the fish, but there was no way I could eat it anymore than one bite. So I passed my plate down and attempted to get food from everyone else.

The rest of my day was taken up by paragliding. I didn’t get to shop much but decided that I would much rather paraglide then continue walking around markets. A lot of people bailed on it and kept reasoning outloud for why they didn’t want to paraglide and for a while I wasn’t sure that I wanted to do it anymore. But I’m so glad I did.

We were driven to the top of this mountain, 3000 feet up, where about seven other people were waiting to paraglide as well. They were all SAS kids who had traveled independently to Merida. It took hours to get everyone up into the air because it was too windy at first. When it was my turn they basically put some harnesses on me and attached me and this guide to a parachute. I stood at the edge of a cliff and soon the parachute picked us up. I didn’t end up paragliding till 7:00 pm and by then it was night, but it was amazing because of the city lights glowing in the distance. My flight went really smoothly. I was up in the air right away. The feeling of floating overwhelmed me along with the calmness of the night and I totally teared up for the first five minutes I was in the sky: I was just so happy. It was just so amazing to me. I felt like I was in a dream as I flew above the mountains and felt the wind rush at my face. I closed my eyes several times to open them and relive the shock that I was floating 3000 feet above ground. I got to paraglide for about thirty minutes and was lowered back down to the city. As soon as I landed I was surrounded by about four little Venezuelan boys who grabbed at my harnesses and helmet, taking them off for me without saying much. They ran off to assist the other paraglider who had landed immediately afterwards.

As soon as we hit the ground we were rushed to meet up with the rest of our tour and we boarded our bus and drove through the night, back to LaGuaira. We ended up roaming around the port city for our final day in Venezuela. We ate a restaurant that our interport lecturer had recommended and ate the national dish called “peblano criollo” I believe (basically a plate of rice, black beans, shredded beef, eggs, and plantains). Then we headed out into the streets. Markets lined the poverish city, but unlike the hand-crafted items in Merida, everything sold in LaGuaira was American. Nike, Billabong, Reebok, Von Dutch…nothing any of us had much interest in. Instead it was interesting to walk up and down the streets and see the rows and rows of people attempting to make a living. Young children yelled “Chica!” and waved to each one of us as we passed by them, at one point there were all these kids running out from behind booths to greet us. I had nothing with me to give them either as I hadn’t expected to run into so many children while walking around. Three different people in LaGuaira remarked on my red cheeks. One man touched his cheeks and said “Bonita!” to me while the other two people just remarked that I was “Muy roho!”

By 7:00 I was back on the ship, although I technically had two more hours in Venezuela. They are extremely strict about being on the ship on time, however, and even if you are waiting in line to board and that is your reasoning for being late, you can still receive “dock time” (aka not getting off the ship right way at the next port).

So I’m back on the ship and exhausted. Kathryn, my roomie, and I got up at 6:45 this morning in order to add/drop classes because we knew the line would be super long. I was able to drop biogeography and replace it with another science course, which rocked my world. Biogeography turned out to be an upper-level course for biology majors and our professor decided to teach it at a graduate level and have each one of us conduct a class period, lecturing on a specific topic. I was one of the only two people in the class without a science related major and the one other boy who was in the same boat as me fell asleep on the first day of class.

I’m still overwhelmed by everything. I’ve learned so much in global studies and I am working hard to embrace it all. Our professor is awesome, encouraging us to take home with us more than pictures of things we saw. He reminded us today of how quickly this voyage will pass and that it is up to us to take in what was can, using a line from a poem I once read in high school “We can not make our sun stand still, but we can make him run.” I’ve taken so many pages of notes, trying to catch everything he teaches. Just today we learned about the economy in Latin America and why it is so unstable. I find it all so incredibly interesting. There’s just so much to learn and I want to get as much as I can out of this semester…I’m actually doing my readings, which back at Columbia I rarely do.

I wish I could have been in Venezuela longer, but I’m guessing I’ll have the same feeling after each culture I visit. From the cups of coffee that were the size of a shot glass to the lack of toilet paper in the public restrooms…everything was so different. I felt what Professor Murphy refers to as “the rush of unfamiliarity.”

Right now everyone is sharing their Venezuela stories. Kathryn went south to the Caura River and 24 out of the 28 people in her group ended up throwing up from food poisoning from a meal that Indigenous people served them. Some other people went to orphanages in Caracas. There were groups of people that traveled to Margarita Island and laid on beaches, something I wouldn’t do as our time in Venezuela was so limited. I heard a group of kids were even playing beer pong in the ship terminal one night…I’m really glad I got away from the ship for the majority of my visit.

So yeah. Hope all is well back in the U.S. Sorry to type so incredibly much, but I have so much to tell. I don’t even feel like I covered a fraction of everything I saw. I’m about to go do my readings on the back of the ship and maybe get a tan at the same time. I miss everyone a lot and love the emails…keep em coming! And just to put it out there, I take forever to respond because I only sign on to the internet every three days or so (I’m super cheap with my allotted internet minutes on here) and when I do I only check the Annabelle03 email…so you know.

K…Much love from the Atlantic Ocean.