Adventures in April

To turn in a 25 page, single spaced, extensively documented, paper that you wrote in a foreign language is something to be proud of. In a North American graduate program, I suppose I would mark such a moment by resting my mind and body from the rigorous semester, while preparing for the next. In Venezuela, however, I celebrated by planning my next adventure. The end of the trimester brought yet another one-week vacation, enough time, I figured, to visit the “Gran Sabana,” a unique grassland tucked away in a far south eastern corner of Venezuela.

Despite my good intentions to figure out some of the basic logistics (like when the bus is leaving on Friday and how we’re going to get to the station)before the day of departure, several farewell parties got in the way on Thursday night / Friday morning, and so the details were left to the last minute, literally. On Friday, at around 2:30pm, I found out that the last bus left Caracas at 5pm, and to get there on time (accounting for rush hour traffic in Caracas) we would have to leave the house at 3pm. So in half an hour, Kamil (fellow traveling companion and housemate) and I stuffed our bags while going over mental check lists and preparing the house for our 10 day absence. It was perhaps the first time in the history of all my globetrotting that I neglected to carefully fold or roll each article of clothing, and opted instead to carelessly shove anything I thought I might need into my sack. Our improvised and hasty departure would continue to characterize the remainder of the trip.

As chaos has its order, improvisation similarly has a way of working out, although perhaps in Latin America more than other parts of the world. Yolanda (my motherly landlord), just happened to be heading down to Caracas as we sprinted out the door, and offered us a lift to the bus station. Despite heavy traffic, we made it a few minutes before 5…but the fact that we showed up minutes before scheduled departure time was irrelevant considering the bus never actually left until 6pm.

19 hours later we drifted into Santa Elena…a lazy, bilingual town on the Brazilian boarder, located at the southern end of the Gran Sabana. Relieved to escape the freezing cold, double-decker bus that deprived us of a good night’s sleep, we grabbed our bags and hiked toward the center of town. Now, our original plan for the Gran Sabana was to hike, Roraima, the legendary flat-top mountain (tepuy) that inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ‘s Lost World. But the first thing we found out upon entering Santa Elena was that Roraima was closed for cleaning during the week. We had arrived in the depths of off season hoping to enjoy the lack of tourists. For the same reason, the national park service thought it an appropriate time to clean the trails. But when one door closes, another opens; so after pouting for several minutes over our poor luck we set off to look for another open door. It happened to present itself in the form of a charming German-run hostel and two Swiss girls who were traveling South America. Besides a comfortable room, the hostel offered a 2 day tour of the savanna, and the Swiss girls: wonderful company and curious insights on my American idiosyncrasies. Eager to get acquainted with our new travel companions and have another country-stamp on his passport, Kamil was quick to invite us along when the girls said they needed to go to the Brazilian boarder to obtain a Venezuelan entry stamp. So we all pilled into a taxi and headed to the line. Brazil was nice. I bought some souvenirs, took some pictures, and practiced some Portuguese. It’s in my plans to return someday.

The next two days was spent exploring the Gran Sabana with Gustavo, our guide, and his three children. With our party now quadrupled, we hit the vermilion dirt road with our sights set on El Paují, a once thriving town of miners, indigenous, New Agers, hippies and artists, and home to what Gustavo referred to as “the abyss.” Rain pounded the earth as we rolled into town, turning the streets into rivers of orange. To reach the abyss required a respectable hike, so we sought refuge in a tiny convenient store to wait out the storm. I think it might have been me who casually pointed out that the rain had let up some and, already a bit restless, suggested that we continue.

It was when the rain let up that our adventure began. Our lively party piled back into the jeep and continued along the orange road, until we reached the edge of an ostensibly crossable river, full but not excessively so. Gustavo decided to ford nature’s fence; but nature triumphed, as it often does. The jeep plunged into the river and we unexpectedly dropped like a rock into the deepest part: thud! Gustavo guns it and the tires, instead of propelling us forward, sling massive amounts of mug onto the bank behind us creating a hole beneath the right rear wheel. And the worst part? At this point the rain begins to pick up again and the river begins to rise. Water starts entering the drivers side door, submerging the peddles. Our smiles quickly bend into worried frowns and later we all confessed our individual designs of how to best escape, fearing our refuge would became our ruin. Once clear that we weren’t getting out alone, Gustavo´s son, Aldolfo, scrambled out the window, onto shore, and off to seek help.

While following Aldolfo out the window seemed like a prudent course of action, Gustavo advised us to stay put. The seasoned guide knew the personality of his land, and flash floods, he said, did not pose a threat on the savanna. So trying to get over our jitters we cracked open some beers, made some sandwiches and enjoyed a nice lunch in the middle of the river. Thankfully the rain eventually eased and the water level stabilized. We soon quit the jeep and ventured out into the clean, sunny savanna. Another jeep arrived soon after but the, rescue attempt failed due to some crummy cables. So Kamil, Aldolfo, and I set off to see the abyss. It’s worth noting the grades of preparation for this hike. I, in my leather hiking boots, Kamil in worn sandals, and Aldolfo, bravely barefoot.

The grueling climb rewarded us with remarkable views from the top. The abyss turned out to be, not a deep crevasse as I had imagined, but a small mountain with a steep, cliff-like drop that dramatically reviled the Amazon Basin and some of the most stunning views I’ve ever seen. A sea of jungle green extending on for miles before stumbling into mountains in the distance. The beauty was in its expansiveness, impossible to catch on film, and so we enjoyed the view with naked faces. Our awe was interrupted by dark clouds approaching, so we quickly started down the mountain. By this time, the jeep had been pulled out of the river and the rest of the group was waiting for us at the trail head.

After day two of touring the savanna we took a night bus north and by the following evening were swinging to sleep in hammocks hung at the edge of the great river Orinoco. I wrote in my travel journal on April 15th, “Yesterday we charged over the hills of the Gran Sabana in search of roaring waterfalls. Today we seek silence and tranquility in the wilderness of the Delta Orinoco. As we await dusk at the river’s side the sounds of motor boats denote signs of civilization that were absent in the boundary waters. Nonetheless, I feel a resemblance. Last night disappeared for me and I woke to the sights and sounds of a big city: Puerto Ordaz.” Deciding to pass up the tours offered in Puerto Ordaz or Ciudad Bolívar, we and the Swiss girls (who had now become faithful travel companions) headed to the capital of the Delta Orinoco opting to hire a local. We arrived in Tucupita around mid-day and asked the first person we met in the bus station how to get a tour of the Delta. The guy made a phone call and soon after, Robin showed up. We bargained a good price for 3 days, 2 nights and he sounded legitimate (although his proof was a notebook of comments left by previous tourists) so we paid half up front, gave him all our bags and walked off to pursue the plaza while he went to buy provisions for the all inclusive trip. It didn’t take to long to start wondering whether handing all our bags over to a stranger had been such a good idea. We decided that no, it was not, and hoped hard that he would come back at the agreed time and place. Thankfully, Robin was not a con-artist; but we still had to chastise ourselves for rash and reckless trust, which depending on the context can be either a virtue or a vice. In this case, a vice.

With our bags safely back in our company, we boarded the motor boat, and our tour of one of the largest river deltas in the world commenced. The scenery of the Delta proved to be fairly repetitive. At times I felt like I was traveling along interstate 70, heading from MD to OH: a wide, multi-lane waterway with nothing but trees on either side of you for hours at end. Besides the redundant scenery, however, the resemblances were few. Howler monkeys hung from trees along the shore, river dolphins jumped from the water at night, bright pink birds and bright blue butterflies added color to their green backdrop. Warao fishing communities stood on stilts at the river’s edge. Houses with a floor and a roof, but no walls, lined a single boardwalk that stretched from the first to the last house, boats floating underneath. The violent sun shone strongly and the mosquitoes bit frequently, but the people were warm, like their climate, receiving us well, sharing their culture and showing us their wilderness.

To give back to those who receive us when we travel is an important gesture not practiced often enough. It’s a lesson I learned attending Church of the Brethren work camps during my high school years and has stuck with me ever since. Traveling is more meaningful, and thus more enjoyable, when you’re helping those who host you. Of course whirlwind sightseeing tours don’t often offer opportunities for volunteer service as time is tight and knowledge of the destinations is limited. But once in a while chances do arise. The night before we were to return to Tucupita, Antonio, our guide, invited us to attend his sister’s class across the river. Curious to see what school on the delta was like, we agreed. When we arrived at the one-room school house we learned that the classes were a government social program (Misión Ribas) that allows high school dropouts to finish their degree. After observing for awhile one of the two teachers asked if I would help her with the English lesson. Even though they were in charge of teaching basic English to the class, they themselves knew very little. So for the next hour I sat down with one professor and gave her crash course in English grammar and pronunciation, while the other continued teaching math and geography. Very appreciative of my help, they proposed I come back to teach full time, in exchange for Warao language lessons. I told them it was tempting but unlikely.

As we took the boat back across the river I thought about the common criticism directed toward the government’s educational missions: the substandard quality. How are the professors supposed to teach what they themselves don’t know? And how will students learn if the professors cannot teach? I understood the exceptional circumstances of this particular example (English is the subject the professors are least likely to know and the delta is extremely isolated) but nonetheless worried that it reflected the rule rather than the exception. In any case, substandard education is better than no education at all. The same goes for service, I think: it is better to contribute what you can, than not at all, if even for one hour.

The next day we returned to Tucupita and found our way to Puerto la Cruz, a costal town in the north. Kamil had a friend from Canada who was vacationing in Isla Margarita so we caught the ferry the following afternoon and arrived in Venezuela’s vacation Mecca after sundown. We spent our last weekend doing the 3 musts of Margarita Island: clubbing, beach bumming, and shopping. What makes this island different from more beautiful beaches in Venezuela is the thriving night-life, the duty-free zone, and the tourist infrastructure. On Sunday afternoon we caught a ferry back to Puerto la Cruz, then a bus back to Caracas that ushered us into the city by 2am. A friend picked us up from the station and before we knew it we were home, incredulous that the trip was over and amazed at everything we had seen. Classes started the next day.

School now, Facebook later

Holy week was a welcomed hiatus from my academic activities, but also a stern reminder that the trimester was coming to a close. Only two weeks remained the day classes resumed and I had yet to write two very large and important papers looming on my to-do list (one on the 2007 student Movement in Venezuela and the other on 21st Century Socialism). After being out of school for one year and a half I had apparently lost the important skill of pacing myself and acquired the dangerous habit of procrastination. Studying abroad certainly has its advantages and disadvantages. For example, the different culture, language, and political perspectives have all enriched my academic experience here. However, the general distractions of living in a foreign country (e.g., the temptation to explore ), and especially in a laid-back Caribbean culture where “taking it easy” and “partying” are national pastimes, does little to correct my lack of motivation to start a 20 page paper. Aware of being caught in this less than propitious environment for academic accomplishment and recognizing that time was not on my side, I set out to beat the system. My first step was to lay down some ground rules that would make these papers my number one priority for the next two weeks. Up until this time I had been intentional about balancing energy for friends here, friends/family back home, school, travel, extracurricular activities, internship, and personal time all while trying to stay healthy and happy. Balance is hard to come by and almost always something gets neglected. To make up for the neglect, my mantra for the next two weeks was: Work hard now, Rest later; Study now, Sleep later; Write now, Travel later; School now, Facebook later. I sought to eliminate all the distractions and temptations that lurk around my kitchen table where I set up my lap top. I assumed an unusual sleep schedule, often napping during the afternoons and working at night when no one could invite me out for a coffee, or convince me to catch a movie. Needless to say, my strategy was successful and the papers were turned in on time. While I wasn’t sure it was possible, I am capable of high levels of productivity here. This experience has inspired me to develop a disciplined routine for this trimester that will allow me to follow the Venezuelan news more closely, write more regularly in my blog, keep in touch with friends and family, study, travel, read outside of class, study Portuguese and live the moment. So far I’ve been faithful to this syncopated rhythm, which has helped me feel more settled, grounded, productive, and priority oriented.

Holy Week

Almost two months ago I ended my last blog entry announcing a super road trip during Holy Week with my two housemates and Pedro, a Venezuelan friend from the university. It’s hard to believe how quickly the time has passed since then. Mid-march has turned into mid-May with a blink of an eye. My former housemate, Stephanie, left for home a month ago, I’m well into my 2nd trimester here, and I have seen the majority of Venezuela by now. Perhaps my ambitious schedule makes the weeks glide by faster. Since I only have one year in this country, I want to soak up as much as possible: the politics, the culture, the people, the language, and the scenery. I’ll try to fill you in on how I’ve been doing.

Until Venezuela the traditional North American road trip had been absent from my repertoire of ways to experience Latin America. But since gas is cheaper than water, most middle class families have several vehicles, and Venezuelans are incredibly gracious, traveling by car here has become quite common for me. During Holy Week vacation, we took that norm to the extreme. The trip turned out to be a five day, 1100 mile, whirlwind circuit through Western Venezuela. Our first stop was La Vela de Coro, a small, friendly town known for the beautiful, bright-colored facades of its colonial houses. After a brief tour of one of the town’s historic homes and a visit to the Francisco de Miranda monument, we continued onto the sand dunes of Coro as the sun began to set. The dune-scapes were nothing like I had ever seen before: rolling hills and steep cliffs of golden sand stretching toward the horizon made us feel as if we were in the middle of the Sahara Desert.


Prepared to save a few bolivares, Pedro had packed his tent and so instead of checking into a hostel, we headed to a breezy beach and after a several attempts managed to set up our accommodations for the night. Drifted to sleep with the moon framed in the archway of the tent door and the sound of gentle waves coming into shore. I’m sure my slumber would have lasted the entire night had I not, at around 2 am, been abruptly awakened by two brusque voices quickly approaching our quarters. The first thought that flashed through my foggy mind? “Awww shit, we’re in trouble. These guys are totally going to rob us.” My fears certainly weren’t assuaged when the two men began violently shaking the tent, demanding that we wake up. Pedro, who was closest to the door, bravely poked his head out to see what our mid-night visitors wanted. “Get out of the tent,” they shouted, “You’re talking to the police!” I relaxed a little, reassured to know that at least they weren’t two thugs looking to run off with our car, but then remembered that many Venezuelans are more afraid of the police than the criminals, because the police are often criminals with immunity. Pedro sluggishly gets out of the tent to talk with the police.
“What are you doing here?” they ask.
“Sleeping,” Pedro replies frankly.
“And who’s that in there? Why are you hiding?” they question Stephanie, who had sat up in the tent to observe the conversation with groggy eyes.
“I’m just waking up,” she explains, slightly confused at the query. To avoid being interrogated myself, I remain frozen flat at the far side of the tent, pretending to sleep. The police don’t see me and so proceed with their final orders.
“Well, you can’t camp here; you need to move your tent 50 meters to the right,” they inform us. “It’s for your own safety.” We thanked them and they left. I’m convinced that if we had been camping 50 meters to the right, we would have had to move it 50 meters to the left. But afraid the officers might come back and give us more trouble if we didn’t move the tent, we reluctantly relocated it 25 meters to the right before falling back asleep.

The next day we toured Coro in the morning sun and then spent the afternoon living the phrase, “I want to see what I’m not missing.” Took a trip north to Punto Fijo to catch a glimpse of one of the largest oil refineries in the world and then headed off to sultry Maracaibo. We spent a few hours meandering around the plaza, perusing the flea markets, and strolling along Maracaibo’s own Lake Shore Drive. Soon we were ready to escape the suffocating heat and continue south to the Andean town of Mérida. Night fell as we climbed the mountains. To prevent car sickness we kept the windows down, letting the icy air rush in to sting our faces. We stopped in a steep mountain village to throw on our warm clothes, incredulous that only a few hours earlier we had been sweating bullets. Few cars passed us on the tortuous road. At one particularly deserted point Pedro suddenly stopped the car and said, “It’s time to listen to the silence.” We all got out, turned our faces toward the sky, and marveled at the stars above. We arrived at Pedro´s grandparent’s house late, travel-weary, and grateful for a warm bed and a roof over our heads.

While in Mérida we thought it appropriate to hike one of the many trails that snake through the Sierra Nevada National Park. At around 10am, on our last day, we left the trailhead shamefully unprepared for what awaited us. Pedro had been under the impression that it took only three hours to reach the lake, our final destination. Instead, it was a grueling 5 hour, fast paced hike there and an exhausting 4 hour return trip. Our biggest mistake was that we only brought 2 packs of Social Club crackers and 1 banana for each person, not nearly enough to fuel our bodies for the strenuous journey. While the hike through the cloud forest was beautiful (at first) and the deep green lake at the top provided decent views, I think my favorite part of the hike was the laughs we shared. We got so goofy because of the ridiculous pain we felt and ended up just laughing at it all to stay sane. We made it back to the car as the last bit of light was leaving the earth….exhausted. Left Merida early the next morning. The sky was blue and the mountains that had been mostly hidden by the clouds during our stay were spectacularly reveled.