Venezuela Part 2: Caracas

Bastards. I leave London and they go and open a second blues club on Charlotte Street. They have needed one of those for ages and now I am no longer there they create one. Oh well. Its somewhere new for whenever I get back, assuming it stays open. Charlotte Street Blues is the name. Would love to know if anyone has been and if it is any good. I got this news from a random mailshot from Guanabara. Ironic. Brazilian seems the flavour of the day. Met one in Angel Falls who was really cool, tomorrow I head into Brazil (the country I have most wanted to visit since I was a kid), chatted with one today from Manaus and now even Guanabara is telling me about new blues things. Its a shame I will only get to spend a week and a half total nipping in and around the Amazon, but when I finish up in Argentina I can spend 2-6 months there with some Portuguese I will have learnt. But for now I will have to mumble by in Spanish and subsequently get a haircut here. Here is a brutally hot and sticky Ciudad Bolivar. Half ten at night and topless with a beer, I find myself sticking to my diary. Original Sin is on the tv. Angelina Jolie is still one of the best looking women around. My mind is buzzing with drink and general things. Ana contacted me for the first time in ages. She still has a part of me for herself somewhere. Dom has left and so I am travelling solo properly for the first time in ages. Ah a fan has kicked in. Light relief. Mayra contacted me and is seeing a Bulgarian guy in Washington DC. She may as well cut lose her fiance. Caracas job is up in the air. Doorman has turned off Angelina Jolie. I can only assume he is trying to punish me for stopping him from listening to random crap on youtube.

Anyway Caracas or first a bit of Maracaibo. I said nothing much would happen. I was overcharged for the internet, some bitch refused to serve me at the restaurant because I was a tourist and made up some bullshit about believing I was with the other girl. Then I accidentally smashed a bottle all over the station floor. It looked petulant. It was only incompetence. I have written fuckhole other guy. My time here in the bus station passed as unpleasantly as expected. The Brazilian I just met was also not served. I can only assume they don't want to make any money. Hmm we have some weird dubbed stuff. I wish the night porter would just fuck off. We left Maracaibo eventually and were in the process of being cryogenically frozen by the airconditioning when we stopped abruptly on the bridge. We had to unload all our luggage and as the bus company would not do it, we did it ourselves. We filed it through an electronic scanner and put it all back again. I wish they would stop wasting my time. They did however foil my plan to blow up the Maracaibo bridge. So it had some purpose. Dammit they don't have msn messenger.

I arrived early in town and used the tube to get to the rendezvous point with Dom. I have started to use the word subway. I think I am slowly being Americanised. I waited for ages for Dom and in tangled Spanish I think I implied to the woman at the hotel that we were a gay couple and she was not keen on renting us the room. I asked how much for two beds and then for one. I meant in case Dom did not turn up, but I think she read it differently. She mentioned to carry my passport and beware the police (oh she was right on that one) and eventually an internet cafe opened up. Dom was very late. He had read the older of my messages about meeting at 10am and so I waited two hours and he eventually found me in the internet cafe. Ah Springsteen's complete New York City concert. Should be good to write to. We left the internet cafe and went to check in. A short whistle and the police had us. Off we went. A complete bag check. They searched everything. We had our passports so that was ok. They wanted drugs. I told them drugs were bad. Dom had a spare aspirin somewhere. They were satisfied with his explanation. They wer concerned with my multivitamins and took a sniff of my socks. These guys just will not learn. They emptied everything and then asked us if we wanted to contribute some money. We politely declined and went to check in. Dom's Spanish convinced her we weren't a gay couple and we got a room that we eventually took for six nights. It was a sex hotel, but not as active as the ones surrounding it. Albeit Sabana Grande is apparently dangerous and the hangout for the transexual prostitutes. We had a bit of a crack pot assortment of fellow travellers. There was a Dutch guy who figured I was too loud but it probably meant women liked me. Then he discerned I was a capricorn and I am not sure what relevance that had to anything. He worked for the BBC, criticised us for interrupting his phone call with his lawyer and then abruptly disappeared. Next came an American who worked for IBM. He had been changing his money at the official rate of 2.1:1 with taxes making it 1.98:1. He was badly uninformed. He had also been out to the strip clubs the night before and paid 820 Bolivars Fuertes for one hour with a prostitute. That equates to $410 for one hour. I think he's put Original Sin back on. Thats a lot of money. For one hour. He could have had 10 prostitutes in Colombia. He's mental. She must have been a supermodel. Except he thought one of the prostitutes on the street was stunning. 'She' would come to the hostel later in the week sporting a two day old beard. It's possible he's a closet homosexual or he may not even have realised they are transexuals given the fact he is changing his dollars on the official rate. Either way he was a fool and an idiot in the same breath. For that one hour he could have seen Angel Falls and climbed Roraima. Using prostitutes is a desperately sad pasttime anyway, but paying that much is damn stupid. Especially when you are incapable of telling the difference between a man and a woman.

We spent the rest of the day looking for money changers and in my desperation I accepted a deal of 5.6:1 from a random guy in the shopping centres. Its a fun game, although its very time consuming. At 5pm we went to meet Valentina at Altamira station for a street party. My God the women of Caracas are stunning. They were streets ahead of the women from the rest of Venezuela. Puerto Rican levels of good looks all over this party. The street party itself was really good, even if a lot of places sell 220ml beers. What a pointless size. We went out for the street party. DJ's and live bands all over the streets. Live theatre, art deomstrations, skateboard ramps. The whole area was really buzzing. Streets were alive with people kicking back and drinking. The nightlife of this city looked amazing. We met a lot of her friends and went drinking with them. They even had pints in one place. Most of them had lived in London at some point. The skateboarding was really bad but fun, the theatre involved people walking around with lemons in their mouths. The techno was good. We ended up having to go back for reinforcements of money and then we decided to head to Greenwich Bar to meet Gabriela. We walked all the way there but she had left before I got there. Still the bar was good. Like a Camden bar. English and American rock music and a sociable crowd. Dom was offered to change Euros at the bar, some ugly local girl latched onto us for dancing and a local gay guy propositioned Dom to go back to his. Another guy ended up trying to stick his finger up Dom's arse. He ended up pulling a random curly haired Venezuelan girl on the way to the toilets and so incurred the wrath of her boyfriend and two other guys. He figured we would end up in a fight. Luckily we did not as I ended up on my own at one point and the three of them looked like a fair match for the two of us. We were picking up a lot of numbers as everyone seemed to love London. Some random capped guy made friends with me and wanted to introduce me to everyone. The gay guy was trying to get us to come to his beach house for next weekend. Dom ended off somewhere with some short blonde girl. Cap man introduced me to some croupier girls from a local casino and then to a local journalist for the tv called Mafer. Me and her got talking for ages even though it was in Spanish. Dom ended up not finding me and left around 5am. Gay guy told me he had gone, cap man disappeared and then Mafer offered to give me a lift home. It was 6am and the sun was up. Ah at last a city with London esque nightlife. All the people in the bar still believed Dom looked more English than me. Dom had ende up going home alone and walking across Caracas randomly. No trouble besides being offered a cup off coffee buy a random tramp. Mafer drove me back and after both of us had a piss in the streets we carried on chatting. We ended up listening to a massive Beatles omnibus and I remember pulling in the car to the tunes of 'Yellow Submarine'. Bit surreal to be pulling a Venezuelan journalist, in a car, outside a sex hotel, at 8am, listening to the Beatles. She wanted to have sex but we had nowhere to go. Did not occur to me we were right next to places that rent by the hour as its so unusual in the UK. We arranged to meet up later and it felt like a clandestine tryst, only it never happened. Stupid of me to postpone stuff. Should have acted when we were both in the mood. Oh well you live and learn, only to repeat the same mistakes with more panache. Ah the mosquitoes are upon me.

We slept in very late the next day as is understandable really. Ah apparently I am missing 100 pounds on my credit card, but it was a false alarm sounded from home. Was my Panama-Colombia flight. I know have a new place to stay in Korou though I will need to watch the rocket launch on the beach. Oh well. Needs must. We tried to sort out the rest of Venezuela and realised we were in trouble for both time and money for Roraima. We would end up missing it and have to come back after Brazil. I texted Mafer for meeting up in a random hotel that night. Felt quite creepy really and she cancelled so it was an unproductive day. We watched some hobos eating leftovers in one shopping centre, did some washing, went out to San Ignacio shopping centre but everything was dead. Some weird red and blue chemical erased the pages of my notebook and some e-mail addresses. Unsatisfactory day, but at least the Fed finally won at the French Open. Congratulations. Could not have happened to a nicer guy. I hope Nadal now wins the US open.

Monday morning came upon us. We had a cultured day. First we went to Museo de Belles Artes. Lots of the rooms were shut, but those that were open were good. Afterwards we went to the Museo de Aret Contemporaneo. There was a lot of stuff on Brazilian architect Niedermayer (which was interesting for Dom as most of his stuff is in Sao Paolo), some weird stuff focusing on water and some really good modern art. The art galleries in Caracas have a high reputation on the continent and they did not disappoint. Both of us were beginning to think that Caracas would be a funky place to live and maybe I would live there before I left the continent. We went to a tower. The viewing point was shut for refurbishment, so we illegally took the elevator to the top. Security did not challenge us because we don't look like tourists. Neat trick. The elevator guard got bollocked by the tower guard for this oversight. We walked all around the plazas and churches in the centre of the city. They are pleasant but nothing special. You don't go to Caracas for the architecture but for the gritty urban nightlife and energy. A bit like a South American Bucharest. We did some clandestine black market trading in a jewelry store opposite the theatre for 5.9. Best rate so far. In the evening we met Suhail and her friends to go to some stand up comedy. Should be interesting. Comedy is usually the hardest thing for another language. We learnt some interesting things about the Bolivar under Chavez. When he handed Obama the book on 'US Imperialism' the exchange rate jumped from 5:1 to 7:1. You are only allowed to get dollars if you have a credit card and you have an allowance of only $2,500 a year for travel. Any more and you have to use the black market. The comedy bar was an interesting place. Chique lounge bar. I have no idea where we were but we got rum and mixed up some cuba libres. There were women in skin tight silver catsuits on the door. Very sexy. Ronnie, one of Suhail's friends runs a language school. He has to go to New York for one month in september and offered me the use of his flat for free for one month and a salary of 1000 Bolivars a week. I can't take my money out of the country but as its paid fortnightly I can at least live well for two weeks and then go on a huge shopping spree. Nothing is confirmed yet, but Dom reckons my luck is unbelievable to always stumble into good things. If he confirms I will live in Caracas for one month and then go to Bogota for two months afterwards. Everyone loved the comedy. I only understood bits of it but it was a fun productive night. Shame there appaers to be some bastard in the hotel who snores like a whale every night. So loud its almost intentional. Every damn night. Someone needs to execute him.

We sorted out a tour for Angel Falls in the morning and got a price of $250 or 1450 Bolivars. Now it depended on the exchange rate for which we would use. We wanted to go to El Avila national park. The police had other ideas. Some cock followed us all the way down the road shouting to us. We ignored him but he caught us at last. They took our passports and claimed we had errors. Dom did not have his passport but only his Spanish ID card. I had mine. Apparently my departure card said next country to be Brazil which was wrong. I informed him politely that as its a departure card, Brazil is indeed the next country. He then claimed we needed vaccination cards for Tetanus at the borders. Firstly we came in at two different border crossings and neither of us had one. Secondly if it was true, it was the fault of the border officials. Thirdly it was bullshit. I said I wanted to call my embassy. They threatened to deport Dom and said they would take us to prison. We sat back. We could be fucked here. They wanted money. I refused to offer any in case they charged us with bribing an official. We refused to pay. I was happy to call their bluff as my stuff was in order. They kept us there for an hour or so and still no car. The guy asked us fro 6,000 Bolivars. We thought he meant Bolivars Fuertes as in $3000. We refused to pay. They sat there for ages and eventually let us go. Brinksmanship won the day as they had nothing on us. They had not aggresively stolen anything and so obviously lacked total corruption. The hotel owner later pointed out they meant Bolivars and it would have been $1 for us. We had risked prison for one dollar. Still it was the principle and you always need to stand for your principles. They probably thought we were nuts for refusing to pay such a small amount and got frustrated with us. They threatened Dom with prison if he did not carry his passport. I think they realised they were buggered. They were going to have to release me and I could have produced the passport to fuck up their only possible case. Useless stupid, fuckwit bastards. I started prepping for my interview on the thursday (Dom had to help me with the grammar categories as other countries actually study English grammar, unlike the natives). We went to El Avila and decided to take the cable car up, after other options proved fruitless. I did not want to risk walking on the highway (illegal), when they fuck us for legal stuff. The Brazilian girl had problems her first day in the country when they said her visa had expired and an English girl here was given an entry stamp from 2007. Police are bastards here, though those guys were the only ones we had problems with. We got student rates for the cable car and headed up to the park. Was a long, cool journey, although I am not particularly fond of cable cars. Its up in the mountains surrounding Caracas and there is good hiking along with great views. When we came back we were stopped by the same police again. At least they are persistant. This time they looked for drugs. We had nothing. At this point we decided to keep taking the long route too and from the hostel to save the hassle. Its a sad state of affairs. They say Caracas is dangerous. The only danger seems to be from the police. We went looking for good exchange rates for Angel Falls. We looked through jewelry stores and then we found an expensive export/import business. They sent us across town to their other store. In this centre we bumped into the gay guy from Greenwich. His Gadar must be immense. How did he find us in a city of 5 million? This time he invited us a movie night with his female friends at the university. Sounded good, but he never actually contacted us. We found a jewelry store in the floor below the ground level that changed for 6.2:1 but we had to come back the next morning. Suhail's friend was offering 6.3:1 but we had just made the deal with the shop and were changing $540. This is the best rate we have seen and is definitely a place worth visiting if you want to change your Bolivars on the black market in Caracas. That sentence was phrased to be tagged by search engines. Karen's sim card was attracting weird attention. I got a text from some random pregnant girl who could not text properly about me abandoning her. Dom wanted to know what I had been upto in Venezuela. I swore it was nothing to do with me, but it took 4 texts before she realised I was not who she was looking for, but I wished her luck searching for the errant father. We ended up going to Greenwich Bar that night but not much was happening and we had to make it to the exchange in the morning and then head to San Francisco De Yare.

We safely enacted the money transfer and avoided the police in the morning. They were happy with 6.2 and you may be able to squeeze a higher rate. We made a profit of 160 Bolivars paying for the tour in Bolivars so we confirmed that. It was too late to go to San Francisco de Yare so we slept in a bit and then did some prep for the interview the next day. We ended up eating pizza on the roof and I went to see Terminator Salvation. Its quite good. Better than the third one but not as good as the first two. Uneventful day really.

The next day we got up and Dom went to the festival with an Aussie guy from the hostel. I passed the interview. It was late to start as they did not realise Chavez has been fucking around with the clocks. Will mean I have to adjust by half an hour in Brazil. I got on the fucking course. Now I have to balance up Caracas with Bogota somehow. Makes most sense to continue travelling Peru and a bit of Bolivia after the Galapagos and then come back up north for three months. Will see how it goes. All hangs on the Caracas job now. Had to wait so long for the others to come back I almost died of boredom and lost the will to live. They had met some Venezuelan guys and had gone drinking with 4 local girls and paid for nothing all day long. They did not see any dancing devils, but they did get hammered in an apparently excellent street party. Shit. I got to hang and eat food with the old guys in the hostel. Damn interviews. We went out to five different clubs in Sabana Grande that night. The famous salsa club was awesome, but useless if like us you don't dance salsa. Too much salsa lol. Clubs were decent. The last club switched to all sorts of music and had some awesome live dancers. One looked like Mayra which was odd. Not sure if it was a club, a whorehouse, a mix or a school disco in Spanish. They told us we had to leave unless we bought a drink. Dom snuck off to the toilets and pissed in a bottle. This fooled noone, as both me and the bouncer had watched him walk all the way round the outside. We were turfed out. Rough end to an ok night. I had struggled to motivate myself out of the funky mood of boredom. It ended as a damp squib for the final night but was still funny.

We had to get up early to buy bus tickets for Ciudad Bolivar. Oh yeah on wednesday we had wanted to go and see Venezuela play at home in the world cup qualifiers, but sadly they play in Puerto Ordaz. Its the twin of here and I can only assume they play there because it is sappingly hot and would fry any Andean football team. I went to meet Stephanie in Altamira and she was an hour and a half late while I burned. I had left after an hour though, so we did not get to meet. I think it may have been revenge for me not naming a time on the monday. Why does this computer not have msn messenger? We had some Chinese food for lunch and it was heaven sent as we had been living off Wendy's gypo menu for days now to save money. We killed some time before the bus by watching 'The Unborn'. It was ok and a bit boring like most horror films. We chilled in the bus station afterwards and took another ice box to Ciudad Bolivar. Caracas was a class city. I hope the job offer comes through and I get to come and live here for a month. Would be good fun if I was earning money and I now know how much I need to get by in this country. Can also do the newly reopened cable car and Catatumbo Lightning in Merida when I pass back and forth from Bogota.