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.