The adventure begins!!!

Hola!

I finally kicked off my South America tour on Thursday, November 30. I arrived at Caracas airport around 10:30pm. My plan was to stay at a hotel very close to the airport Thursday night and then return to the airport on Friday to fly out to Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela. Because the main road from the airport to Caracas city was washed out nearly a year ago, it can take upwards of 3 hours to take the detour through very dangerous neighborhoods, so it didn´t seem worth it for a one-night stay. Plus the elections were that weekend, and widespread riots and general craziness were expected.

Accordingly, I planned to stay at La Parada Hotel in Catia La Mar (only about 5 minutes from the airport) instead. Because I was having so much trouble reaching the hotel and because I don´t (yet) speak Spanish, I asked Jose to call on my behalf a week before my arrival and confirm a reservation for me. (Jose is a friend I made online while planning this trip, and he lives in Caracas.)

Well, the representative from La Parada was at the airport when I arrived as promised, with a sign with my name on it. I had to wait about half an hour while some other folks he was waiting for arrived. He didn´t speak a word of English, but all seemed copacetic and I was quite relieved that the airport seemed as safe and well-policed as it did. I used the time to withdraw some cash from an ATM (at the official exchange rate of 2144 Bolivares to the US dollar), and then subsequently traded cash at an even better rate of 2500 Bolivares to the US dollar with some guy in the Arrivals Terminal. All looked good.

Then I arrived at the hotel and was informed that even though they had my reservation, they had no room available for me. Instead, I was to pay them the agreed-upon rate for the room and airport transfers and they would bring me a couple of miles down the road to another hotel I had never heard of, then pick me up the next day to bring me back to the airport. Twinge of panic. From everything I´ve read, heard and observed now first-hand, Catia la Mar is not a safe area. I was at least able to persuade them to let me see the new hotel before handing over the cash to the driver, but I was nervous that either I was being totally taken advantage of or something much worse.

Fortunately, once I arrived at the new hotel and passed through the barbed wire and security gates and armed guards, all seemed totally chill. Except no one spoke English, which I´m now realizing is the norm for here. I managed to get some pasta in the hotel restaurant before heading off to bed, and en route the manager stopped me and asked me (in Spanish), "Are you in Room 4?" I replied in the affirmative, and he told me someone had brought something by for me and handed me a little plastic bag. This freaked me out, of course, because at this point even I didn´t know the name of the hotel where I was staying.

It turns out Jose had hoped to meet me at the airport but couldn´t make it, and he had a friend drop off a second cell phone he wasn´t actively using, complete with a pre-paid account he set up just for me to use while in Venezuela. How awesome is that?!?! I went to sleep that night feeling pretty well-looked after in what had at first seemed a pretty sketchy situation.

On Friday I flew to Puerto Ordaz after exchanging more money at an even better rate of 3,000 Bolivares to the US dollar. (Woohoo!!) I met this really cool chick Angie on the plane. Here´s a pic of her and me at the airport in Puerto Ordaz. She was going there for the weekend to visit family and vote in the election. She offered to bring me to meet a good friend of hers who organized tours of Angel Falls and the Gran Sabana area that night. After she spoke with her friend via cell phone and found out that the earliest I could go on a tour of Angel Falls would be Monday, I decided to make my way to Ciudad Bolivar and take my chances there with organizing a tour.

While waiting on an interminable line at the Puerto Ordaz bus terminal (Angie´s sister, Joanna, gave me a lift to the bus terminal) for the next bus to Ciudad Bolivar, some guy came buy and offered to take me there in his car for 10,000 Bolivares. Throwing caution to the wind, I hopped in the back of a two-door coupe the size of a VW Rabbit with a total of 4 other guys, and spent the next 75 minutes with my face pressed up a window barely larger than the palm of my hand, with all my luggage in my lap, doing everything I could to avoid having an obscenely ugly panic attack on account of my claustrophobia. Miraculously, I made it to the bus terminal in Ciudad Bolivar, from where I walked 2 miles up an incredibly steep hill, carrying all my gear, to the old part of town. Luckily, I persuaded Posada Don Carlos to give me their last available room for the night (a 4-bed duplex) for the price of a single room. Even better, I caught Adrenaline Tours just before they closed for the night and jumped on their 3-day tour of Angel Falls leaving the next morning (Saturday) at 7:30am.

Here are some snapshots of my room at the Posada Don Carlos and of Ciudad Bolivar, taken Saturday morning before I left for the Angel Falls tour. Ciudad Bolivar is an old Spanish port town situated on the narrowest part of the Orinoco River. It´s a very popular destination both in its own right, and as a departure point for other attractions in the region (e.g., Angel Falls). Unfortunately, I didn´t stay long enough to see much of the town, but I can tell you it totally shuts down by 9pm on Thursdays. :-(

Plaza Bolivar, Ciudad Bolivar, Venezuela