Interview Time

Last year we didn’t manage to fit in our traditional end-of-expedition interviews, but this year we’re going for it big time! We’ve each prepared 20 questions for each other about the trip, to be answered blind and with no-holes-barred.

Jon’s Questions for Simon
Jon: Welcome to my large and intimidating interview panel, of Me, Myself and I. Thanks for coming, but even greater thanks for a brilliant time on this trip and for your invaluable blogging. There was an amazing amount of things to take in with regards to flora, fauna, languages, delicacies, sports, dances, music, and the list goes on. The blog has been a fantastic method of reflecting back on each moment and experience, be it joyful or sad, hilarious or serious, surprising or predictable; it’s kept our minds ticking and the folks at home entertained and in tune with what’s been going on. Now I’d just like us to look back at some of these moments and find out how the trip looked from your perspective, so think fast! What aspect of the whole trip did you find the most physically challenging?
Simon: Well funnily enough, not Roraima! We walked up and down with challenges, yes, but with relative ease. OK I admit that the final hour was punishing, but frankly that was solely from the psychology of receiving the t-shirts the night before and being lulled into the false sense of security that the trek was prematurely over. But all in all, I’m satisfied with my performance on this mountain. The biggest pounding was down in Chile. The hike up to the torres base camp made me just curl up into a little ball when you set of for Campamento Japones, whilst that long, long walk onwards to Italiano turned me into a zombie. But was it worth it? Absolutely!
Jon: Your words are true! Perhaps the Torres del Paine trek was more demanding due to having to carry more luggage for, perhaps when we talk about the most strenuous days, three times the length of each of the Roraima days. Plus, many of the ascents and descents were of similar gradients to the slopes of the Lost World. Now, out of all the things you brought with you from home, which single item could you not have lived without?
Simon: My money-belt. And that’s it! It’s a liberating feeling, walking through the Gran Sabana, knowing that round your waist is strapped your passport, cash and credit-cards, and that this all ALL you need to carry on and get back home. Everything else is superfluous, an added luxury. Even a few spare clothes; what you stand up in is all the traveller really needs.
Jon: How did the various South American cuisines live up to your expectations?
Simon: Complete, total and utter disappointment. I’m sorry, but the solid food was a disaster. But the fruit shakes, particularly in Colombia were amazing. And the Custard Apple we tried in Bolivia, fantastic, up there with our Cambodian Mangosteens and Rambutans.
Jon: Which of all the countries captured you most, and why?
Simon: I think it has to be Brazil. Because we MUST return, a.s.a.p. And then Colombia and Cuba come a close, equal second. But Brazil has made me eager to sample much more, from Salvador de Bahia down to your beloved Rio, and then to Ouro Preto and the rest of Minas Gerais, together with the beaches of Santa Catarina, the jaguars of the Pantanal, and the exciting railway journeys that are possible in Brazil. One of my biggest regrets with this continent is the lack of thrilling train travel. Just remember India!
Jon: When we set out on this adventure, we didn’t really have an understanding of Spanish. Do you feel that you have managed to get to grips with it a little? How much has your comprehension and active communication of Español improved?
Simon: Well, don’t forget that as a composer I was working quite closely with the poetry of Gabriela Mistral, so Latin American Spanish was fairly well established in my recent consciousness. But I certainly wasn’t prepared for the shock of how it sounds colloquially. Thinking back to all my visits to Spain, I was fairly lost even then, so you would expect that I would have been in need of some intensive remedial work. But the total immersion method in target language really does work: my passive vocabulary has expanded dramatically, and just by the very nature of being here for three months and listening to locals bringing me into a conversation, I’ve gained the ability to understand what’s going on. And I can look enthusiastic, pull the correct face and respond with “Si, claro…” So the next stage will be a stroll in the park…oops, losiento, un passeo en el parque…
Jon: If you could create a charity group to improve Latin America, what would it be called and what would it focus on?
Simon: I need to help address the single, most shocking problem of the continent, which is the grinding, pointless poverty of the massive favelas and barrios which radiate outwards from every single urban centre. Only occasionally can they be pretty; more often they are vile adjuncts to graceful plazas, and something needs to be done. Chavez has a building programme of social housing for the poorest sectors of society, but it’s hardly scratching at the surface of this issue; relentless urbanisation has proceeded unchecked, and the tragedy has a knock-on effect on villages and rural communities which have thus haemorrhaged their population and lost valuable traditions and techniques in the process. So my contribution would be in the establishing of tiny businesses with micro loans on minimal interest rates, to aid both urban and rural societies. It’s called Favela Umbrella…
Jon: Did any of the flora or fauna particularly impress you?
Simon: I really loved the bright purple which can be found everywhere: on balconies, behind the metal grilles of tiny, pastel coloured dwellings, and along the roadsides. And talking of purple, do you remember that massive, purple dragonfly we saw hovering just above a tiny stream as we were hiking in Venezuela? And it was in Venezuela that we saw the most impressive birds, from one long, elegant black and yellow, debonair specimen, to the green parrots and blue macaws. But the pumas and jaguars remained elusive, and, thankfully, so did the snakes and creepy-crawlies.
Jon: We’ve seen many wonders of the world on this trip. Which one exceeded your expectations most?
Simon: Interesting…well, here is one natural, and one cultural. If I had to single out just one experience as being more memorable than any other, it would have to be waking up at Campamento Italiano in the Parque Nacional Torres del Paine, in the woodland dappled with sunlight and hearing the sound of gushing water, then immediately stumbling onto the little bridge over a truly spectacular stream slap, bang in the shadow of a beautiful glacier with wisps of snow blowing about it under an electric blue sky on the sheer walls of Paine Grande. This was unforgettable, and the type of moment where you wish for time to stop completely so you can savour it for hours! And the cultural experience? The churches of Cusco, with their massive, golden altarpieces and ornate carvings. These buildings sum up for me the entire ethos of the continent. And now I could continue and talk about Machu Picchu, but that’s not helpful in answering your question as I’ve already cheated by mentioning two things…
Jon: Any important money-saving tips for future travellers to South America?
Simon: Well, first and foremost, it’s important to remember that this is NOT Asia, and so the cheap five dollar rooms of India don’t exist, neither do the platefuls of Thai fried-rice for a few Baht, so budgeting carefully will be key. But we DID it! Virtually everywhere we managed to get a room for ten pounds per night, and by eating basic food, travelling on buses and buying a few, well-chosen souvenirs, we managed to do the whole thing on about £15 each per day. But that’s not including the £1,800 we forked out on flights during the planning stage…
Jon: Are there any moments that stick in your head when you felt threatened by something or someone?
Simon: well only the street boys in Buenos Aires, and I’m still not certain how serious they were, how much of a joke they saw the whole thing, or just how dangerous they might have been. But we were both terrified by Caracas, which turned out to be a fascinating, vibrant and visually engaging city.
Jon: I wasn't thinking of these aspescts, but they were threatening moments indeed. I have heard many bad stories about Caracas and thought it'd be a dive, but driving through it was stunning with the favelas and the cable car that ascended up the mountainside. The scary thing for me, was the risk of having to fight off rabid dogs. Tokirau, our dog on Easter Island, seemed to be a trouble magnet and we were forever standing between fierce groups of territorial hounds who sadistically enjoyed fighting among themselves. Let's continue. On such a huge adventure, what things did you miss most about home?
Simon: My mum! I’ve bought far too many souvenirs with her in my, considering her clear instruction to me was not to buy a single thing. Other than that, I’ve missed making music. But then over in Latin America, we’ve heard tons of the stuff…

Some time later, in Moscow, to be precise, the tables were turned…

Simon: Hello there, Jonathan, and thank you for all your hard work on this little blog over the past three months. It hardly seems like two years since we were finishing our Indian trip with a stopover in Jordan, so how has this stopover in Cuba been for you? Have you managed some deeper insights into Communism?
Jon: I love how your refer to our blog as ‘little’… It’s been the biggest yet! Hahaha! Cuba has been a real eye opener for me. I feel that I’ve managed to see communist ideas in action, but I feel more confused than before I arrived here. The two currency system (the peso nacional and the tourist’s, higher-value, peso convertible) has blown my mind because only those who are affiliated with the tourist industry can get hold of the tourist’s money. We find people in tourism earning far more than doctors or other healthcare professionals, and definite rich and poor divides. I was quite shocked to see poverty existing here, but what was even more astonishing was the ration book that our host family presented to us. I can’t believe that a modern day country is still rationing to this high degree. Very post-World War. Most people who visit Cuba are in resorts, far away from the real life in Havana, and I believe that I have learned an incredible amount about Cuban society (and improved my Spanish) by choosing the Casa Particular family home stay as opposed to a hotel. The day at the beach was a fantastic wind down, but no matter how many times I apply the factor 25, I get burned. Still, not as bad as some of our previous trips, but my legs are currently singed fast-food!
Simon: Good points, well made! Let’s turn now to languages! When we started out in Argentina, our first real experience of the Spanish speaking world, how did you handle the transition between speaking Portuguese and Spanish? Has your fluency increased?
Jon: Well, everyone was telling us that Argentinean Spanish was the most confusing and I understand why. But it helped me to learn Spanish quicker because the two ‘l’s (ll) make the sound of the Portuguese ‘ch’ as opposed to their normal ‘y’ sound. Take the word which means ‘to call’, for example. In Portuguese it’s ‘chamar’ and in Spanish it’s ‘llamar’. In Argentinean Spanish the sound didn’t seem different at all to the Portuguese that I knew already, and so I found myself speaking a lot of Portuguese in Argentina and being understood. However, when we ventured around the other countries, I was sure to pronounce correctly ‘yamar’ instead of ‘chamar’. I had already learned basic words and understood the fundamental differences between Spanish and Portuguese by this point, so I was able to communicate. These days my Spanish seems to be coming along quite well, but I still have lots to learn and I plan to watch films with Spanish subtitles turned on when we’re back home. It would be a shame to forget all what I’ve learned, and I believe that Portuguese and Spanish could be learned side by side, and they compliment each other very well.
Simon: Yes, and that’s precisely what I’m going to do when we get back, with the aid of dictionaries and great literature. Now how about food… On each of our massive expeditions, food has been an important feature of our experiences. What flavours and textures have struck you most this time around?
Jon: The Arepas of the Caribbean coasts of Colombia and Venezuela stick in my mind as a stodgy, tasteless staple, but the Peruvian guinea pig delicacy gets the world’s bitterest meat vote. These flavours indeed struck me, but not in the sense that you’re asking. The foods that I would gladly gobble again include the flimsy, tapioca pancakes filled with soft coconut and condensed milk, which we experienced in Brazil, but also the ‘rodizio de pizza‘ where we could eat all the different flavours of pizza we wanted (traditional savoury flavours plus chocolate, strawberry, coconut and more!); the saucy and spicy ‘hot doubles’ from the barraca in Trinidad; the juicy, succulent, rare steak that was delicately charred for us on one of the many churrascarias in Buenos Aires; the tantalising sauce, with the added crunch from ants, that we added to pizza and spaghetti in the Gran Sabana, Venezuela; but the Chinese restaurant in Lima probably served the best food of all!
Simon: I’m salivating now from all these memories. Seeing our travelling through your eyes, or rather tasting it on your tongue, it doesn’t sound so bad after all! But we always say that often a trip is made by the people we meet along the way. Which characters have made the deepest impressions on you in the last three months?
Jon: Hmmm… Difficult. There are always going to be some who I forget, but I’ll attempt. The entire group on the Roraima trek were just ideal and the best. I felt that I bonded mostly with the Japanese duo, Rachael, Lindsay, Moises, Francisco, Polly, Branni and, of course, Bruno, as conversation was always pumping around with these guys. And those of us who went to the salsa bar in Santa Elena just completely relaxed and I didn’t mind making a fool of myself during my salsa dance with two strangers and Polly… She’s a load of fun! Iuigi from Japan also had a great time with a keen Venezuelan woman, who wore him right out (and he’s used to exercise, what with being a second dan judoka!). Martin from the Salar Uyuni tour, Bolivia, was also very interesting and I hope that we can meet him in London sometime. Shirley from the same tour was actually hilarious and we strangely bumped into each other in the same hostel in Sucre, and at the Ecuador-Colombia border crossing. It was highly entertaining watching Shirley teach another guy from the tour, Christian, some Dutch phrases like “noke in de koke” (however you write it!). During our trek in the Parque Nacional Torres Del Paine, Chile, Robert from Oregon State, USA, was a great hiking companion and was a welcome third member to the team. When times got hard and food supplies scarce, he shared some pasta and ketchup with us. Life saver! And Marta, our Brazilian friend from the hostel in Puerto Natales, is just so cheerful and keen to teach me Portuguese and improve her perfect English. We’ll see her in Brazil, I’m sure!
Finally, the family we are staying with in Cuba at the casa particular is just fantastic: Sandra makes fantastic black bean rice and lobster, and Pablo converses keenly about the ups and downs of his country, in Spanish and English.
Simon: Wow, hasn’t it been a privilege to meet all these fascinating people? For me, the person who stands as an emblem for our wonderful encounters just has to be Bruno! Our local guide in Venezuela was of course the best anybody could wish for, but to be accompanied by a friendly and loquacious anthropologist, skilled in the tribal language of the indigenia, deeply familiar with the ethnography of the area and willing to share his skill, knowledge and wit was a mind-blowing, once-in-a-lifetime week!

Well, sadly, we've come to end end of our biggest ever blog, and longest ever trip. Thank you for following and supporting us, for helping us through the tough bits and laughing with us through the bizarre bits! But our travel plans aren't quite grinding to a halt over the next few years. Watch out for Poland, Germany, Guatemala and more, much more Brazil. But only in bite-sized chunks from now on, from weekends to a week. But by now, you already know just how much we can pack into just seven days. Bye for now...

La Vida Cubana (or, Havana Bad Time...)

For our final full day in Cuba, we decided to take it easy. The man behind the bar in the Casa del Ron summed up for us the entire ethos of being a tourist in Havana when he tried to get us to open the day’s batting with a mojito: “It’s very nice…” he swooned, making it sound so tempting. But he was so relaxed, unlike the hard-sell girls and boys on Obispo and down in Chinatown. Yes, it IS very nice, but this distorts the reality of existence here so much, it would be obscene to join in the game. Don’t forget, this team reports back to you what we find BEHIND the façade, and we always deliberately try NOT to be tourists, but to immerse in the local culture of the country we’re visiting. And that’s precisely why we’re not staying in a hotel here: we’re living life around the kitchen table and on the front doorstep onto the street with Sandra, Pablo, Luis and Lisandra. It would be ’very nice’ to sip Mojitos all day (and here I’m talking metaphorically, because they taste of mint from the garden, which isn’t quite to everybody’s palette, and I much prefer the Piña Colada…and, come to think of it, we haven’t even tried the Daquiris yet at El Floridita, but it would really go against the grain to walk in Hemmingway’s footsteps…) but life here is grim, unbelievably grim. Odaline de la Martinez once said in an interview that Cuba was Music. Period. Well, sort of. But it’s hardship too, and the music is just the blessed relief.
Simon was here almost exactly three years ago. And since then, it’s changed. Havana has rotted some more, there are fewer gringos on the streets, the jineteros are harder-selling, and the cycle rickshaws are an act of desperation. It’s not so much pulsating to the sound of Son and the beats of Salsa and Reggaeton, as lurching. And when Simon tried (admittedly in an act whiffing of desperation) to point out to Pablo that Raul and Fidel weren’t immortal and that Obama was willing to develop a healthy foreign policy towards Cuba, meaning that change was just around the corner, Pablo reacted with disdain. They always talk about change, but it has never happened. All his life he’s waited for the change, and now, it’s just too late.
So it was Sunday morning, and Simon went to the solemn mass in Havana Cathedral, complete with three priests, incense, twelve acolytes and a full nave. It was great (apart from the lamentable music, a shame in this of all places…) but of course the clergy here are controlled by the government, just as in the old days in Russia, and of course a high percentage of residents of the city are followers of Santeria rather than just Catholicism. But the priest worked hard in his lengthy sermon, and shook hands vigorously at the end. Later that night, our pair of weary travellers, longing for the journey home, feasted on swordfish and Morros y Christianos. Sandra cooks well indeed, and then Pablo came over to join the duo to put the world to rights. We have further, shocking discoveries to reveal. Let’s play a little game: Cuban What’s My Line. Place these three men in order of salary: taxi driver, street cleaner, doctor. Yes, you’ve guessed it correctly, of course the taxi driver is the richest, he makes a fortune driving around the rich gringos and he gets paid over 20cuc for an airport run. So who comes next? Yes, of course, it’s the street cleaner. So how much does the doctor earn? Wait for it… 500 pesos per month. We just did the maths, and that’s $250 per YEAR. Dollars, US. Per y.e.a.r. I don’t think we need to say any more. Over, and out!

Our Man in Havana

After exploring South America almost in its entirety, on your behalf, of course, over a period of more than three months, it was necessary for just a little R&R. Do you feel we’ve deserved it, scaling mountains, penetrating jungles and hiking national parks, all in the name of research? Well, it’s pay-back time, and what better place to do it than Cuba? We feel that we have earned ourselves a day at the beach!
Picture this: white sand, completely clear water lapping just one metre away from our sun loungers complete with a wind-activated retracting parasol; turquoise blue, warm sea water to splash about in under a tropical, cloudless blue sky, and a beach front lined with gently undulating dunes and palm trees. The beauty of the paradisiacal water cannot be emphasised enough. Imagine a tiger that is neither orange, nor white, but has a stunning body of light blue, aqua, turquoise and dark blue stripes that ripple as the tiger sighs peacefully. The fresh breeze created a fair few white horses on the surface and also thrusted our parasol high out of the ground and up the beach. We found the spontaneity hilarious but judging by the shock on other peoples’ faces, they seemed to think that Mary Poppins had just had a fatal accident.
Such is the environment at Playa del Este, just 20km from Havanna. And in the name of a well deserved one-day vacation, this is exactly where we ended up. Bliss.
Then it was time to head off into the sunset towards Chinatown for a fantastic oriental feast, including a very hot and spicy shredded pork, chicken with peanuts in yellow bean sauce, sweet and sour balls and egg fried rice. To round off the evening we strolled back along Obispo to buy two types of ice cream: Fresa y Chocolate. Writing this, sipping copious amounts of Cuba Libres, it hardly seems possible that we have been away on our gruelling expedition for the whole of this year, and that by this time next week we will be continuing with our own, individual projects, onwards to pastures new. But what a way to go!

Plaza de la Revolucion

We set off from our home on Aguacate, along Obispo and speedily past the tobacco store, heading for Centro. Just past the Capitolio we spied some rusting old steam locomotives and then headed west along Avenida Bolivar, taking in the astonishing Art Deco buildings which were on the verge of collapse, yet somehow managed to carry on as flats and apartments. Many facades hid cavernous workshops, where maybe, just maybe, sometimes work was to take place. Suddenly the faux gothic white spire of the Jesuit shrine of the Sagrada Corazon swung into view, which inside was resplendent with stained glass, Jugendstil reredos and a massive organ on the tribune. Bearing in mind the geographical associations of Alejo Carpentier, were we now in Cuba or in Paris?

We also stopped at a few small stalls along this wide boulevard specialising in the paraphernalia and souvenirs of Santeria, but somehow we weren’t quite in the mood for voodoo today. There was a wad of Moneda Nacional burning a hole in Simon’s pocket, and so we mingled with the locals (there are no tourists on this strip, nor are there any facilities for them…) by greeting them with the opening gambit “Que bolá?!” which is typical Cuban slang. Result! We started to spend our money on coffee, refrescos and amazingly tasty icecream.

After a left turn and a long hike, our destination suddenly became visible: the Plaza de la Revolucion. We were allowed to proceed right up to the most important seats, and so Jon made himself right at home in Fidel’s marble chair, whilst Simon gave a short speech to everybody in the crowd beneath.

All this hard work caused the famished pair to seek out a tiny restaurant, again working in Moneda Nacional, for a feast of tasty fried fish and black beans. But this was merely a prelude to the succulent, juicy and plump lobsters they devoured back at home that night.

Havana Good Time!

We popped into the rum store at the end of Obispo for some Romeo y Julietas. It took quite some time to smoke these big fat mommas...

The truth is that smoking is not a part of our daily lives but fortunately everybody, including us, knows not to inhale cigar smoke but that the fumes should be savoured in the mouth only before puffing out clouds of hoops and battleships. I’m sure the real Cubans are able to skilfully exhale smoky Che Guavaras but we’ve not yet witnessed that. As for us, we remained casual and pretended we were enjoying the repulsive experience of pure tobacco. Unable to finish our cigars, we left the rum shop feeling quite ill and woozy (I am sure that tobacco is not supposed to do that to people). Neither of us are in any hurry to go back and do it again.

Cuba: Food Rationing in 2011...

We were having a heated, rum-fuelled discussion with Pablo about how proud he thinks we should feel about being British in the run-up to a royal wedding, and so we attempted to flatter in return by suggesting that he, too, had a right to feel proud of his country for having the best health care and literacy rates in the world. Proud of his country? It was then that he gave to us as a souvenir the family’s ration book from last year. And suddenly the harsh truth about life in Cuba dawned.
But who is to blame: Fidel Castro or Jimmy Carter?
When you see us back at home, ask us about the ration book, or better still, ask to see it. We need to raise awareness of the plight here, alerting the bourgeois westerners hermetically sealed in the society of high-mass consumption to the sufferings on the paradise island. It’s not Marxism at work here, it’s a society of class distinctions lurching along under Fidelism. The crumbling, rotting Habana Vieja is a life of impossible hardships: Sandra is amazed by just our passports, for she is unable/forbidden ever to leave the country. We took a little stroll around the southern zone of the old city, where the roads crumbled years ago, the aging facades hide empty shells rather than functioning buildings, and the neighbourhood shops are devoid of any viable produce. We linger outside a house full of women adorned in white headscarves, only to move on when the Santero gives us a glance, and we listen to the sacrificial cockerels, blissfully unaware of their impending doom. We weave in and out of small shops selling artesanias, eventually purchasing enough musical instruments to found our very own two-man symphony orchestra. And eventually we arrive back at our family casa to find Pablo sitting in the street, forlornly gazing into the middle distance. What’s wrong? Well, there’s a problem yet again with the water supply: each house has water tanks underground and on the roof, but the mains water only runs for a few hours, every two days. Missing the slot could prove to be disastrous. During the evening, somewhere between 8 or 9pm, government workers allow water to pass from a reservoir to an accessible supply so that every household is able to take water on board through pump systems. As this only happens every other day, plans for evenings with friends or night walks have to go on hold, or life may become miserable. Water is life! The Cubans rely on this water supply for washing clothes, bed linen and the floor of the house from time to time, cooking and drinking. Bottled water is not really an alternative because prices are extortionate for these guys, so the best course of action which our host family have taken is to install a filter that allows them to drink tap water safely.
One of the most dismaying sides of Cuba is that the two-currency system makes it very difficult for locals who haven’t managed, and can’t manage, to get jobs relating to tourism. Builders, for example, receive their wages in Cuban Pesos Nacionales whereas the owners of tourist restaurants or craft shops have a large turnover in Cuban Pesos Convertibles (CUCs). Just to give you an idea, there are currently 24 Cuban Pesos to each single CUC. It has resorted to a fine divide with some restaurants serving food exclusively for tourists and others remaining loyal to their kind. Most Cubans cannot afford to pay 10CUCs (or 240 Pesos Nacionales) for a hearty meal of fish, beans, rice, and half a pizza if they’re really hungry. For a plate of rice tonight we paid 0.75CUCs, call it 75cents because this currency is pegged to the US dollar. In a restaurant we passed by earlier we saw that a portion of rice would cost a Cuban 2 Pesos Nacionales. We’ve done the maths here, so just trust us. We pay nine times more for rice than Cubans do, and just for your interest, 3 times more for beer. We aren’t complaining because, well take the rice again; we are paying nine times as much for it, but we probably earn much more than nine times the amount of money that they do.

Stuck in Caracas?

Not the most cheerful airport in the world, what with dim lamps hanging from the high, dark ceilings, the plain concrete staircases and, of course, all types of people waiting in utter boredom. The best thing was that we were seven hours early for our check-in! Thank goodness for Church’s Chicken, the best fast-food chicken burgers on the planet! And let’s not forget their awesome crinkle-cut chips with plenty of ketchup! We also requested Coca-Cola in the combo meal and it was delicious, but it was a much cheaper version like the 2l bottles we used to buy for 8p. We also managed a bit of final souvenir shopping, which killed a couple of hours and before long we were rushing to the randomised queue where a few people seemed to be surrounded by an entropy of thousands of suitcases. We, clever detectives, found out that A LOT of Cubans come to Venezuela to buy their expensive electronic goods on the cheap as opposed to paying more for them in their own country. This must be worth it to them somehow but when you consider the price of the tickets from Cuba to and from Caracas, plus the astronomical airport taxes, it’s hard to believe that there’s any point at all. We spent ample time in the queue standing upright until our backs became cranky and we assumed the sitting position for a while before that became uncomfortable also. There was just one more thing for it… Another one of those chicken combo meals each!
At this stage of the game, we had little idea of the true nature of Cubana’s customer service skills: this would only be gradually revealed over the coming days. Yes, days, for we also had scant knowledge of the looming fact that the flight we were about to undertake would, in fact, be lasting three days…
Well, LAN gave us a little bit of a hard time going to Easter Island last month and they didn’t offer us a hotel room and instead made us wait up through the night after which we woke up with our heads inside our empty McDonald’s Mac-litter. I am really looking for good points about Cubana de Aviacion and to give them their due, they paid our night in the hotel on the outer limits of Caracas so that we could descansar before checking in AGAIN about 24 hours later than scheduled. But just as they were redeeming themselves, we found more hurdles to come.
So the flight was postponed until the following day because there was a major technical fault with the fuel lines on the Yakolev-42D. The hotel in Macuto was great, as was the truly spectacular views of the mountains which descend here dramatically to meet the Caribbean. The following day we arrived back at the airport and eventually boarded our Yak. Words cannot fully describe the condition of the aircraft; business class was littered with stray luggage, cattle class resembled a dirty Guatemalan chicken bus, whilst the signs were in Russian, Lithuanian, Arabic and eventually Spanish. The strong whiff of aviation fuel completed the first impressions. We took off, flew for three hours and touched down in a tropical paradise, complete with turquoise water and white, sandy beaches. We bounded down from the plane and over to the tiny terminal building. At some point during this short walk, Simon pointed out to Jon that it didn’t really look much like Havana, the supposed destination of the trip. It wasn’t Havana at all, but Cayo Largo. One hour passed before we were queuing to board the plane again to Havana, hopefully! Up and away we went, right into a tropical storm, complete with lightening and killer turblence. Would our little Yak survive? Wish as we might, but Camagüey turned the next port of call. Our information on this place is rather limited as, by this time, the light of day had completely disappeared and we are only able to comment on the beautiful streetlamp specks! Changing money was successful here though and we were able to tuck into some half-a-job microwave pizza. With a mixture of Tabasco, Lea and Perrin’s, ketchup and ground pepper, the pizza didn’t seem all that bad. Just to be sure, we eradicated the taste with some good value tubs of chocolate and strawberry ice cream. It was about now that Simon discovered just how cheap the local rum was…
Within ten minutes of ingestion, the airline staff gathered the fellow passengers and started issuing tickets for free airport food. If only we had waited a little longer. We were stuffed at this point but, since it was free, we managed to find extra room for the ham and cheese baguette, and the cola. We hadn’t even finished chomping when it was announced that we should be embarking the plane once again!
This time the flight went to Trinidad. Actually, I’m joking, We finally made it to Havana, but I had you there for a second, admit it! Immigration was fairly rigorous, but we got through before waiting five decades for our backpacks. We then queue jumped the passengers who were declaring their TVs, DVDs, computer consoles, microwaves, (you name it!) from Venezuela and strolled right out into the open where we were to meet a large group of dedicated taxi drivers. It turned out we picked the right guy to get a lift with as his car was just the best and all we ever wanted to experience from Cuban automobiles. It was a massive, vintage 1954 Buic. The scarlet red and magnolia stripes on the paintwork were highlighted by the exposed, overheating bulbs of the rear lights, and the whole car seemed to violently vibrate as the engine rumbled during the journey. There was an overpowering whiff of something, like a mixture of engine oil, gasoline, heat on leather and stale sweat. The day after, it became more obvious that this wasn’t just the smell of the Buic, but the odour pervading the streets, dwellings and shops of the city. Let the experience commence!
By this stage it was 3 in the morning, but we didn’t care! Neither did Pablo, who was there to greet us at the casa particular. And what a fantastic house he and his wife, Sandra, have! We were shown to our room, which was immediately up a flight of white, tiled stairs and through a small door. The room is like its own apartment, but without a kitchen and is very cosy with small windows and a couple of tiny Tiffany lights for illumination. This is most definitely the “king of rooms” out of all the ones we have stayed in during the trip, plus the nice family here really enhances the experience! We flung open the tiny shutters the following morning to see one of the many characteristic vintage motors that dominate the city streets!

Cubana de Aviacion

You will hear all about this little adventure in far more detail when we have the time to write. But an important update is in order:
We are still in Venezuela, in a $200 hotel room in the town of Macuto. Why? The airline did not operate the flight. The plane was firstly meant to be a Tupolev, but then they changed it at the last minute to a Yakolev. The Yak has broken down, so here we remain. Maybe we will make it to Cuba safely sometime, but on an aged Russian Rust-Bucket, somehow I doubt it. Happy Flightings...

Venezuela: Getting Out!

Well, our Post-Roraima come-down has been a roaring success. The day after the pizza and salsa party, we all met for breakfast at La Panedaria, then onwards for fresh juices with our Brazilian Momma. People began to leave, each with their own immutable itinerary. We had a fantastic Brazilian lunch at Nova Opcão, and because it was Saturday, there was Feijoada. We promised Brani and Polly that we would see them either in Bulgaria or England, and the rest of the time was spent deep in fascinating conversation with Bruno, whom we will most certainly visit next time we’re in Berlin. Frankly, our entire trekking group was the best we could ever have wished for! The following day was a race to get onto the 13.00 Expresso Occidente bus from Santa Elena to Caracas. Twenty-two hours! But it’s a doddle, and nowhere near the longest single journey we have undertaken on this expedition, or, for that matter, on the other two big ones!
Arriving at the Terminal de Oriente in Caracas, we were, to be honest, terrified of negotiating our way to the airport in one of the most dangerous cities of the whole world. But don’t forget, good fortune has certainly been on our side throughout our travels in South America, and today was definitely no exception. Once again, somebody up there really loves us! Simon was quite anxious to go in search of a café negro, grande y fuerte, and so Jon managed to navigate the pair back to the little panaderia they had used on the outward journey, where he had made a good friend of the Portuguese owner. Yes, there he was, and the coffee was enjoyed, together with some sage advice about handling the city. Another man was beckoned over to show us how to catch the bus to get to the metro station to take the train to catch the airport bus. Sounds complicated, doesn’t it? And at precisely this point, as the intrepid duo marched slowly and purposefully past a taxi driver who was pretending to be buried deep inside the daily newspaper, he sprang into life, chasing them with questions about destinations. He must have been having a quiet day, for he agreed to take us to the airport (and this is from a bus terminal 18 km the wrong side of town) for just 150 Bolivars. Deal.
We sped into downtown Caracas past the Teleferico to El Avila, we saw the towers of the Parque Central, we saw the new cable cars ascending to the hill-top barios, we admired all the shanty towns clinging to the mountains and painted in jaunty colours, some with pastel shades, others co-ordinating to make the Venezuelan flag. All along the way we chatted in fluent Spanish with Eduardo as he pointed out the sights, described all the dangers, and gave us his take on Chavez. What a truly fantastic city this appears to be! The autopista sped us through tunnels, over bridges and down to meet the sea at Maiquetia. The airport is here, and we thanked Eduardo, promised to give him a call next time we’re in Caracas, tipped him 20 Bolivars para una cerveza, and headed off to the departure hall. Will we manage to find an internet connection in Cuba? Who knows, but the next seven days are going to be spent exploring La Habana de Cuba: Habana Vieja, Centro, Vedado. All with cigars, rum and Santeria....
Cubana have messed around twice with our flight details, and it’s now a night flight. Check our progress online or on teletext if you can, it’s an old Russian Tupolev aircraft and who knows just what will happen! It’s CU 311 on 4th April, scheduled out of Caracas at 22.30. Wish us luck and keep your fingers crossed!

Venezuelan Salsa!

Now you just can’t beat a live band, and after a wonderful meal at the ant pizza place with Benet and his entire family, three children plus Susan who had really made a great effort and was in all her finery, together with all the porters, it was suggested by Rainer that we go to a local bar where we could dance. So we went!
The bar area was dark and moodily lit, serving all manner of rum cocktails and countless cans of ‘light’ beer, and in the brighter room behind, a live four-piece were playing their hearts out, with about twenty people observing, swaying or salsa-ing. Now this most certainly isn’t the type of music we came across in Colombia: it’s much faster, more basic, more naïve. The keyboard player elaborates on some simple chords (three, to be precise) and at will lets his right hand jig happily up and down the keys merrily; the bass player lays down a simple riff and sticks to it; the conga drums lend a very Caribbean flavour to the little combo, whilst the star of the show is the vocalist and drummer: he sings, he constantly rat-tat-tats on not one, but two snarly snare drums, and he splashes enthusiastically and frequently upon his massive cymbal. Can you hear this in your head yet? It’s not Salsa because it’s far too fast and frenetic, it’s not Forro either for the same reason, but when two people take to the dance floor (our porter and a prowling cougar) it all becomes clear exactly HOW you respond in dance to this music: it’s fast-forward ballroom.
The gringos give it their all. Yuichi hits it off with a very keen and willing older lady, Rachel moves elegantly and with experience, politely rebuffing the amorous interests of at least two more of the porters, Simon initiates a conga to the pounding of the congas, whilst Jon and Polly bounce and twist around the floor like experts in a whole new style of dance. The locals, many of whom, by this stage of the Friday night, are literally blind drunk, gaze on in amazement, snapping away with their cameras and videoing us with their phones. Happy days indeed!

Monte Roraima: The Descent

What a day this was! Very costly to our knees, quadriceps and calves I must say! The route to and from the top Roraima was mostly a roughly 60degree incline, with easier pistes and some harder climbing wall ones. We descended in about half the time it took us to hike up the unique monster mountain, but in some ways, ascension was mas facil. One very sketchy slant covered by loose rocks and boulders required great care, especially since it was on the side of a steep mountain drop and was slippery due to the heavy spray from the overhead waterfall. Thankfully there were no accidents, but sooner or later, every one of us stumbled on large stones or exposed tree roots on the easier terrains. Much further down in the Gran Sabana, closer to where we camped on the first night, the strong flow of the river swept nobody downstream whilst wading through knee-deep, remarkably! We set up our final camp here and shared, yet again, delicious food before Beneton and his team supplied us with awesome t-shirts displaying a map of Venezuela and the text “I didit”. We had to love them! They were fantastic souvenirs to receive before turning in for the night.
I guess walking back across the undulations of the Gran Sabana the next day counts as the descent too, in a way, and this was the most difficult day of all. Waking up and putting on our new “I didit” tees placed the psychology into our heads that we had finished the trek and that this was just a light 3 hour walk back to meet the jeeps. We had forgotten about the steep ups and downs and with our legs being slightly done in from the day before, it proved a bit of a challenge. We all came through though and it was so thrilling at the end to see our new friends satisfied with their accomplishment of their dreams. We stopped for a delicious lunch of BBQ chicken (straight from the churrascaria!), rice and salad, in the tiny village of San Francisco de Yuruani. This was delicious, but the cooks on Beneton’s team were also wonderful and they whipped up full-marks food like this every day, so it wasn’t like we had been deprived of good quality food like this, it was just great sitting on a table together back in civilisation. Drinks were in order, but not before a long shower, to spend the evening congratulating each other and exchanging contacts. We’ve formed some great friendships here and we’ll be staying in contact for sure! If any of you are reading this, thanks for a fantastic time on the trek!

Monte Roraima: Exploring the Tepuy

The Lost World on top of the table mountain was very extraterrestrial and is like nowhere else on Planet Earth. On the big day of grande exploracion, Jon sets his sights on walking through the infinite-looking rock formations, with Michela (the infamous Italian!), Yuichi and Seyha (The jolly Japanese duo) and our great Guyanese guide, Beneton. Without Beneton, we would have got lost very quickly as there are no distinguishing landmarks on the merciless 200+km2 surface. Sure there are some rocky features, such as the ‘Flying Turtle’ and the ‘Maverick’ and do you remember the Moai statues we were observing on Easter Island? There was the odd naturally occurring Moai look-alike here and there, complete with their stone hats. But these few rock formations would no way be enough for us to find our way back to camp later. As well as these marvels, there were entire glittering quartz crystal valleys, which mystically illuminated themselves using the tiny amount of sunlight that was penetrating the thick cloud cover. It was like being on another planet!













Meanwhile, we were heading to Beneton’s country, Guyana, and also to Brazil. To be more precise, we were in search of the ‘Triple Point’ frontier marker, which separates Venezuela, Guyana and Brazil, and we couldn’t help but climb the large bollard just to be in three countries at once!

Venezuelan people don’t really see it that way as on their maps they have a large extra chunk that overlaps with the Guyanese territory which they call the “Zona de Reclamacion”. In fact, they feel so strongly about this that some Venezuelan with a lot of spare time on his hands took the trouble to climb Monte Roraima, just to remove the plaque from the Guyana side of the monument. In the rest of the world, Guyana has the right to this land and that border is officially shared by the three countries. And as Beneton said himself, “It’s not the plaque that’s important, it’s the land.”

Climbing Monte Roraima

Another story better told in pictures! Admittedly it was easier than we thought, though that may have been facilitated by the continuous stops to take spectacular pictures of the most beautiful mountain that we’ve ever climbed. Most of our team felt the same and the group met up sooner or later along the way, but there was Bruno (from Berlin, who studies the anthropology of the Pemon people in the area of the Gran Sabana) who is ‘der koenig der Roraima’ (the king of Roraima). Since it’s pretty much on his doorstep, he has climbed it four times now and has done the picture taking thing already, so he hikes it fairly regularly to keep fit (and what better way?). He really has the fitness of a young athlete and this is evident by the fact that he ascended it in 2hrs:10mins, as he revealed over our rewarding beers. Go Bruno! The rest of the team were fantastic companeiros all the way up and the interesting conversations we had seemed to take our minds off the gradient!

Why not pop back to this page soon, when we have managed to upload some thrilling shots?
...
And only 2 weeks later, here they are!

Haben Sie na baba si gyza gesehen?

We didn’t quite expect to hear such an insulting phrase from Brani, the future president of Bulgaria, and at the time we thought that his beautiful wife to be, Polly, was equally shocked. Don’t be fooled! She is just as much of a minx and she wasn’t shy at all, but was only held back by a sore throat or cold. Mr Bulgaria lives in Germany and has done so from a very young age, which explains his brilliant German language skills, but also an amazing standard of English due to the fact that they learn our language from about the age of ten, maybe younger still. Having moved from Bulgaria with his family, he has remained very much in touch with his mother tongue, so basically we had a tri-lingual genius on the team! He couldn’t help but sometimes mix his Bulgarian into his German sentences. Can you help us to decipher the title of this blog, “Haben Sie na baba si gyza gesehen?” We can get some from our German, and of course we know the Bulgarian part too (they are our first Bulgarian words!!!) but maybe it’s best, and more fun if you work this one out on your own. It may be difficult in ‘Google Translator’ though because Bulgarians actually write in Cyrillic. “Haben Sie… gesehen?” means “Have you seen…?”
“… na baba si gyza…” is a completely different kettle of fish!

Treking the Gran Sabana

Following the tight squeeze into the jeep, our Speedy Gonzalez driver tore through the gentle undulating hills of the Gran Sabana like there was no tomorrow. It would have been more enjoyable had we not been feeling a little queasy. A ride like that should never be undertaken on an empty stomach, and Jon felt a lot better after taking up Francisco’s (an awesome Argentinean from Buenos Aires) offer of a square or two of his chocolate. Each of the “small” blocks were like a whole bar and the milk chocolate taste and silky texture was simply divine! Once in Paraitepuy, we had arrived at our starting point for the trek towards Roraima and were immediately hit by the warm and somewhat dusty air of the surroundings. We had also heard bad stories about hungry swarms of mosquitoes and even smaller and subtler puri-puri, so of course the occasional wasp and small fruit flies weren’t going unnoticed either. Our guide, Beneton, whipped up a light lunch of delicious ham and cheese sandwiches to pump us full of energy for the forward march. The distant view of Monte Roraima and his neighbour, Kukenan Tepuy, was marvellous and clouds blanketed themselves around the mountains and in between, whilst leaving the extensive savannah completely clear. The grassy hills and valleys were varying in shades of greens and light-yellow, and also patches of jet black due to controlled burning like we saw in Burma last year, plus high coppices hid very well the loud insect life and the sharply screeching ducks. The first day was very enjoyable and a bit of a doddle, since crossing the streams merely involved short strides from stone to stone and we ran at the massive, steep hills with determination. In all honesty, however, we hadn’t used up any of our battery power by this time as it was only day one. For even the best of us, this was shortly about to change as the true ascent of the target Tepuy neared.

The Lost World: Monte Roraima

Well, it must be said that this was to be one of the trip’s greatest highlights. It was at a very young age that Jon became introduced to a film version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous novel, ‘The Lost World’. He would sit with his brother, Rich, and they would both stare silently into the box, watching in fascination as the team of scientists in the plot, who are in search of the world’s last dinosaurs, become stranded on top of the high Plateau that protrudes gigantically from the dense jungle below. Even more hair-raising for us were the brutal, blood-curdling, roars of the monstrous beasts and the sound of the large trees falling down as they barged through them threateningly. A couple of months ago, a young trekker injured himself on top of the plateau and the emergency helicopter was called to the rescue in order to save him the painful descent on foot. Unlike in the novel, it was the fault of the inexperienced pilot that we could catch a whiff of kerosene, as he crashed into some of the irregular rock formations that dominate the plateau’s moonlike landscape. The dinosaurs that we saw didn’t obliterate any flying machines, but they were larger than we expected and the seemed to roam slowly and in single file on top of the Tepuy (table mountain).

It was only recently that we heard of Roraima and up until this point, we thought that such a film location was entirely fictional. Doyle did get his inspiration from this mountain, and how couldn’t he? This dream of visiting the Lost World became reawakened in Jon’s mind and this resulted in the team being led on an expedition of discovery, with fantastic guides and porters, and an intrepid bunch of interesting international backpackers from a variety of backgrounds. Couldn’t have been better and we shall now reveal!

Pizza Hormiga!

The night before we set off on our mammoth mountaineering expedition, we went with Bruno, an eminent German anthropologist, for a bite of pizza and plenty of Venezuelan cervezas! He suggested that in order to get into the local spirit of the indigenous Pemon Indians, we try a pizza anointed with their favourite spicy sauce, Cumachi. Have you ever eaten ants before? Well, us neither, but these little critters come in a smoky chilli sauce which is crunchy and packs a mighty punch!

Santa Elena: Enjoying the Views

One of the greatest pleasures in life, either when you travel or when you live in Cornwall, is to draw back your curtains in the morning and pause for a few seconds as you take in the wonderful views. Now when you stay in 'budget' accommodation around the world, you're more likely to see concrete, garbage and rusty iron than herds of wilderbeast roaming majestically across the savannah, but this morning, just for once, our hearts missed a beat as we realised what good luck we've been having on this expedition. Take a look!




Can you see the guava tree in this shot?

Sometimes travelling can be one big problem-solving excercise. Take this, for example: Caracas is so dangerous (due to La Inseguridad) and so tricky to negotiate with large backpacks, we were seriously scared as we planned our journey through the city last week. Just imagine our amazement and delight to find out that we had purchased tickets which would deliver us not to the expected bus terminal La Bandera, but to the Terminal Oriente, exactly the place we needed to be for our onward connection. So the problem wasn't just solved, it merely evaporated!
Our next major worry was just how, exactly, were we to find our way safely back across Caracas on our way to the airport and onwards to Cuba. The problem was compounded by money issues: don't forget we can only use the cash we are carrying (to get the best exchange rate) and that there are expensive taxis to consider (the airport is at Maiquetia, 26 km away on the northern coast) and there is a hefty departure tax to pay just to leave the country, but we're not quite sure just how much this is going to be. So the logistics of this problem were, quite frankly, huge. Should we try to arrive on a night bus and then go directly to the airport, or should we try to stay overnight in the city and then travel onwards? All this is further complicated by the fact that muggings, express-kidnappings and fake taxi drivers are commonplace here. What to do?
Well, it turns out that Cubana de Aviacion have changed the time of our flight from midday to an evening departure. Problem solved immediately: night bus, taxi to the airport with plenty of time to spare. Somebody up there loves us! Oh, but wait, just hang on there a cotton-picking minute....
This means that we'll be clearing customs in Havana sometime after midnight, with no airport bus, and nowhere booked to stay. Out of the frying pan.....

Venezuela: Santa Elena de Uairen

Before you read much further, go and take a look at the map and find out just exactly where Santa Elena de Uairen is. Roughly speaking, you'll need to be looking at the bottom right-hand corner of Venezuela. Just about on the border with Brazil, and fairly close to the border with Guyana. There's just one road. The rest is pure, pure countryside. This area is called Grand Sabana, and the beautiful, lush, undulating forest and grassland is punctuated by the astonishing and other-worldy tepui which rise up solemnly and vertically from the ground. But being so close to northern Brazil (and only five degrees north of the equator) it's Amazonas. We're in the Parque Nacional de Canaima: there are two main modes of transport; boat and plane. Sometimes the rainforest is just too dense for anything else. But if you're expecting us to visit the Angel Falls, well, humble apologies, for during our planning stage we realised that now it's the dry season and that the famous waterfall would just be a mere trickle. Frustratingly though, do you remember that our Orinoco visit had been thwarted back in January? This was due to unusually high levels of water in the river: this dry season has been exceptionally wet! And we have just heard that the falls have been worth seeing after all. This might well mean another trip to Venezuela!
It's a country that needs a little time to be loved. After Colombia, it came, quite frankly, as a bit of a shock. It's just not the happy playground of the Caribbean that Cartagena turned out to be; it's displaying so many of the 'indicators' of a third world nation. And the growl of the monster sized engines in virtually every vehicle (almost every tiny bus seems to have been re-engined and tuned up to growl like a racing car!) is bordering on the bizarre. But the oil wealth seems not to touch the ordinary citizens, who, quite frankly seem to be struggling very badly.
So our little love affair with this country is fairly on-and-off and very much rollercoaster. The landscapes are fantastic, but Chavez is a disappointment. Yet down here in Santa Elena, we've managed to find something special: a little town that is far more than simply a border post. The surrounding countryside is spectacular, the climate is varied (sometimes unbelievably hot, followed by refreshing breezes) and the town itself is great to spend just a few days.
Remember the food halls of Asia which we raved about last year? Well this afternoon, as we walked along regretting the omnipresent burger stalls and arepas hereabouts, wishing for a Malaysian-style food court, we turned a corner and lo, as manna from heaven, there immediately in front of us was an impressive covered hall of about thirty independent snack bars, cafes and restaurant serving everything from menus del dia, to Brazilian-style Churros and fruit shakes.
The Brazilian influence extends to language here, too: conversations swing between Spanish and Portuguese with ease and fluency.
Here the indigenous people are the Pemon, and yes, of course they have their own, unique language. But this area might be considered somewhat isolated today, in times past it was considered to be the last frontier. Remember the film The Mission, which tells the story of the Jesuits and the Guarani in the 1760s? Well here the Pemon lived completely isolated from the outside world until 1922, when the Capuchins began to set up missions to convert the tribes throughout Southeast Venezuela. And this is exactly the year of the founding of the cathedral of Santa Elena, which we stumbled upon during a walk out of the centre of the town.

Over the Orinoco

Well, look up to the subtitle and scroll right down to our first few blog entries. We promised you the Rio Orinoco, and this should have happened sometime back in early January. But, due to water levels in the river delta, it didn't happen at all.
A promise is a promise, and here it is! We crossed over the Orinoco at Ciudad Bolivar on the way to our final goal in Venezuela, Santa Elena de Uairen. Here is the mighty river:

So we left Coro on the value night bus to Caracas, which delivered us direct to the Terminal de Oriente in time for a very early breakfast of hot coffee and pan de manteca, as well as the chance to buy a ticket for the 8.00am day bus straight out again, direct to Ciudad Bolivar. We saw a little of Caracas by night, and a little of the hills surrounding the city. Very beautiful, but the city: very dangerous, no time to linger! The first few hours of bus journey out East delivered magnificent views of the mountians, the mists and the favelas. Magical, but best enjoyed from the safety and comfort of the bus. We arrived in Bolivar around dusk, just in time to secure a ticket on the night bus down to Santa Elena. Dawn was breathtaking, and suddenly, as we reached the village of San Francisco, we glimpsed Monte Roraima from the bus windows. This is going to be the experience of a lifetime!

Coro: Getting Out of Town!

Corrrr-o! This was only a little frustrating, but we shall reveal all!
The ticket office was due to open at 7 in the morning; the tickets to Caracas from this office were half the price of everybody else and the advice was to get there early! So we made it to the bus terminal just after 6.30, when all the counters were shrouded in darkness and it appeared that, save for a lone man perusing a broadsheet newspaper, we were the only people around. We positioned ourselves slap bang in front of the office window, and waited. Eventually the newspaper man piped up, in rapid and impenetrable Spanish, which we were tempted to ignore, were it not for the fact that what we did manage to glean from his oration was that he had numbered us seven and eight. It began to dawn on us that he was the ‘marker’, and that other people had arrived earlier than us but weren’t waiting by the window: perhaps they had gone off to do some other chores and would return presently. Now what would you do in this situation? Would you accept your number in a non-existent queue from a stranger, or would you pretend to ignore him and plead ignorance and language barrier, thus ensuring that you had become number one and two?
Well, given the appalling, blatant if not flagrant culture of queue jumping in this continent, we decided upon the latter course of action. And we badly wanted the tickets. Now as soon as the office lights had been turned on by the manager coming in to work, people began to appear as if by magic, from every angle, converging upon the two weary travellers. A peroxide blonde woman of a certain age became the most vocal, especially owing to the fact that she had been appointed queue member “Number One”, or should I say “Numero Uno”?. She ranted. She ranted some more, accompanied by a pretty black girl, who seemed to think she was number two. Now their flimsy argument definitely smelt of number twos, and so the British pair stood their ground, blocking all access to the window and impressively holding down the argument completely in Español. Blonde Number One screamed that she had been here since 4.30 in the morning to buy her ticket, and Simon tried to explain that actually she was in error, because she hadn’t really been here (pointing to the ground beneath him) at all, and that she had been over there (pointing to a distant location in the terminal where she had been loitering. And by her rules, we could have argued that we had been there since 1pm yesterday! But all to little avail, whilst Jon took a slightly different tack, by maintaining until he was blue in the face that we were at the head of the queue because that’s exactly where we were standing, and, furthermore, where we had positioned ourselves twenty minutes previously when there was only Newspaper Man standing some few meters away. He also pointed out to them that they should relax because the number of people in the queue anyway did not exceed the capacity of the omnibus, which is what they were making out of this to be honest. And after all, we were British, the world experts in queue etiquette. As all this was heating up nicely and getting itself into full swing, the manager decided to pitch in with some choice comments. What we picked up from his particular version of Spanish was that if the squabbling didn’t cease immediately, he wouldn’t be selling any tickets at all, and that nobody would be going to Caracas. Ouch. The squabbling continued. The manager continued. What we then managed to pick up was the manager’s entire take on the situation, and suddenly things began to swing dramatically in our favour. It became clear that, in his inflated opinion, in order to secure your position in a queue, you need to be physically present in it. Now this clearly isn’t rocket science, it’s just common sense. To underline our inside triumph but also to shut everyone up, and in perfect Spanish, Jon suggested to the assembled throng that they should all consider growing up. The squabbling continued still. The manager emerged from his office and physically began to arrange the members of the mob into their positions in the queue. Meanwhile Jon Number One and Simon Number Two successfully purchased their cut-price tickets to Caracas.
As they hastily walked away from the crowd, it suddenly dawned upon them that they would be sharing a night bus and a long journey with all these people, later on today. Perhaps they will all have forgotten about it by then? They might even turn out to be fun people…
Caracas was filling us with dread, as we were expecting to arrive at Terminal de la Bandera and then have to schlep a further 18 kilometres out to the eastern edge of the city to the Terminal Oriente to catch a bus to Cuidad Bolivar and beyond. We read our tickets with surprise and glee: this bus would take us direct to the eastern terminal. So no wonder it was a cut-price ticket: for people travelling to central Caracas, it would be a major inconvenience. For two guys hoping to get out of town, it was divine providence and so we celebrated with two piping-hot Venezuelan coffees! And they only(!) cost half of our complete bus journey!

Later, just before leaving, the globe-trotting gastronauts sought out the one and only central restaurant in Coro serving a late almuerzo. Washed down with fresh rasperry juice, Jon had some kind of unidentified fried fish with beetroot and arepa (barely passable) and Simon had the local Caribbean delicacy of goat. It was, without doubt the most revolting, repulsively worst meal he has ever eaten...

Venezuela: Further Impressions

Well, following yesterday’s little rant, some much-needed research has been carried out:
Firstly, Chavez has implemented massive programmes of adult education to boost literacy rates, and quality medical care is now available to the poorest sectors of society. So it’s not all doom and gloom here in Venezuela. But somehow the place seems to lack the sheer vibrancy of Colombia, and for all the friendliness of the people we meet, there are far fewer smiles.
Now Coro has some very pleasant facets, but quite frankly, after spending lots of time in Cartagena, there’s just no way it can ever really thrill. But let’s just take a look at face value:

Zamora is the old, cobbled street with the most interesting windows and doorways. We dropped by San Clemente which dates from the sixteenth century, and then proceeded to the cathedral of Coro, which is a Minor Basilica and one of the first sites of Christian worship on the entire continent. There is something about the religious fervour of ordinary people in both Colombia and Venezuela that seems to be on a completely different level to most of the rest of South America, so that’s saying something! Shrines are absolutely everywhere, and treated with the utmost respect. On our first full day in Colombia, we arrived bright and early at the little airport in Pasto. The Avianca crew were just arriving for work, and a smartly uniformed pilot walked purposefully up to a faded wall poster of a famous painting of the Virgen from the shrine near Ipiales, kissed his hand and touched the poster. So all is not lost in the battle with the ‘missionaries’ for the people have their traditions, and hold them dear. And on the subject of mission, this is exactly the word Chavez has used in his crusade for the provision of services to the poor and the outcast.

As we headed back to the sanctuary of the hammocks in El Gallo for a second evening, San Francisco beckoned, with its cloister and soothing lighting. So Coro is a relaxing place to spend a few days, and tomorrow our programme will be an entire twelve hour slot of doing absolutely nothing.

But this lack of action is quite deliberate, for then we are making directly for the very bottom right corner of the country (that’s a technical term, of course) via Caracas. It’s going to involve two consecutive nights on buses, and a transit through one of the most dangerous cities of the world, where La Inseguridad describes the urban terror of opportunistic crime. Once we’ve reached Grande Sabana, there will be Brazilian food to eat and an entire mountain to climb! Wish us luck, keep your fingers crossed, and hope to hear from us by the end of the week.

Coro and the Surroundings!

After swatting more mosquitoes than I can count on two hands, our room in Santa Ana de Coro became completely inhabitable, but just in case any more crazy little critters squeezed through the netting in the windows or under the door, we placed, and angled, the two fans carefully so that they blew around the whole room, covering every inch. We learned from our past trips that mosquitoes and other biting bugs don’t do so well in the face of wind, which thereby formed this rationale. Once convinced of our accurate fan precision positioning we headed out of the comfort of the hostel and went in search of a late night bite. Not a soul was out in the streets and everybody’s lights were either off or the shutters had been fastened so that nobody could break in. Should we have really been out? Well, things turned out as we rewarded ourselves with a neopolitano pasta, Coca-Cola and beer from the only visible restaurant, which was well lit up. On a Sunday night, it seems that everybody is inside. Perhaps as a Catholic country, they treasure Sundays as rest days. We’ll find out if Mondays are equally quiet, or not, tonight as we have one more night here before the next stage of the journey. After the meal it was pretty much straight to bed, and when we woke up this morning, low and behold, there were no mosquito bites! One has just managed to stick its needle-like proboscis through my sock at this moment though. NEVER let your guard down!
As for today, what was in store for us was a real treat! Taking a short, ten-minute hop on the frantic local bus just to the outskirts has never been so easy and the prize at the end was sheer brilliance! We disembarked from the vehicle and marched on for ten more minutes along a short avenue, which came to a dead end. Well, most drivers would call it a dead end, but pedestrians would call it something like a ‘live start’. Certainly the start of an awesome day, even though the day was rolling by already! The concrete disappeared beneath a sudden steep slope of sand, where we eagerly continued hiking up to the brow, pleasantly being shaded by the trees’ wide spreading branches and leaves. At the peak of this sand hill, we were stunned that we had truly reached a large desert of both gentle and raised dunes. It appeared like something straight outside of Aladdin’s cave, and although this sounds absolutely magical, meeting forty thieves was not at all high on our agenda. Least of all here in Latin America!
We discovered that we weren’t alone as we heard numerous shrieks from the nearby thorny shrubbery surrounding us, but it was soon revealed that goats and their kids were the culprits! The wild goats roam freely across the windswept dunes, not really seeming too phased by our humanly presence. That being said, one kid was following far behind his mother and she appeared literally frantic as she choked out a large gruff, whilst projecting her grey and off-pink tongue fiercely forwards in the direction of her beloved. The little baby continued scampering through the sand, which slipped away from his hooves on every step, but he made no real effort to obey his ‘madre’ and hurry up. The rebel!
Having visited the dunes making up the Parque Nacional Los Médanos de Coro, in the harsh midday sun, we are fortunate not to have fried today. The only thing that caught us out were the sneaky grains of sand that filled our shoes, but we had fun making sandcastles out of it all, once emptied!

Venezuela: Santa Ana de Coro

Well. We’ve made it, down the long (and straight) road into the colonial town of Coro, in the mid-north of Venezuela, on the Caribbean. Tomorrow we’re setting off from the UNESCO heritage town to see the famous, heritage sand dunes, and hopefully, the bright blue Caribbean again…
But first, we’ve got to tell you about how we made it here. We boarded our bus out of historical Cartagena around 6 in the evening yesterday, after completing our visits to all the churches of the city. Earlier in the day, Simon had gone to the midday mass at the Franciscan Tercen Orden, which lies at the boundary of Getsemani, and as we prepared to leave, we took one last spin around the wonderful Plaza Trinidad, where, suddenly, and for the first time this week, the massive, fortress-like wooden doors of this grand old church had been flung open, almost as if they knew it was our last chance to visit. The faded grandeur within was exactly what the façade had promised. And then, as we trundled along Calle Media Luna for one last time, this time heavily laden with our backpacks already groaning with souvenirs and gifts, the doors of the tiny San Roque were open as the lights illuminated the blue east wall for the early evening mass. We were on our way…
The crowded town bus to the terminal took a whole hour, edging slowly through the suburbs of teeming market stalls and tiny, brightly-painted bungalows, each surrounded by bars and fences. Salsa pounded from every angle; the bass lines carry the furthest, with their hypnotic rhythms which make the whole body pulsate. A tasty Menu del Dia refreshed the intrepid travellers as they set off on a fiercely air-conditioned night bus to Maicau, the last town in Colombia before the Venezuelan border. Countless police checkpoints tended to impede the progress, but each little village provided a tropical taste of yet more pounding salsa. Terrific! The road signs were fascinating too, for between Barranquilla and Santa Marta we noticed some large yellow ‘beware’ signs which seemed to be alerting night-time motorists to the presence of large ant-eaters in the road!
And then at 5 am, we were in Maicau. We were bundled into the back of a por puesto. The man said it would cost 20,000 pesos. Yes, yes that’s fine. What’s a por puesto, you ask? Well imagine all the cars in a 1970s cop series set in Los Angeles. We’re talking big, really big, old American cars here. That haven’t been serviced or cleaned since the 1970s. Very Venezuelan, very exciting! Our backpacks go in the trunk, which fails to shut; each time the driver tries, the lid just gently and languidly springs up again. But soon a screwdriver fixes the problem, and we’ll be needing that screwdriver a little later, as it’s the only thing able to open the lid… “What’s that Senor? 25,000 pesos?! Now you know that’s not what we just agreed with the other guy! Right, ok then, we’ll just get right out of this petrol fume-ridden, rusting death trap and wait until you can stop lying. Oh, what’s that, 20,000 would be fine?” And we’re off along the road to Paraguachon, the border controls. Dawn is breaking, and as we walk up to the office, the cock crows.
Our smart visas speed our entry, and soon the automobile is off once more, tearing along the road at a hair-raising speed, with four other small concerns which raise all hairs yet further (and we’re not just talking eyebrows here!) Firstly, the pot-holes (well, craters is a more apt description) mean that we can’t just proceed in a straight line: to avoid these massive depressions in the road surface, we have to weave along. And weave we do, at maximum speed. Next, there is the racing line to consider. Now here in Venezuela, they drive on the right: nominally. But it’s much, much more fun to drive on the left, or in the middle. Well that’s what it seems like at any rate. And then there’s the overtaking. Of course it’s a race, and a pretty whacky one, at that. Overtaking must occur at every available opportunity. Especially when there’s a blind corner coming up, or even better, the brow of a hill. And finally, there’s playing chicken. You just put your headlights on full beam, honk your horn furiously, and drive straight at the oncoming vehicles.
The road to Maracaibo has many fascinating diversions, such as the teeming bird life around the Gulf of Venezuela. The villages have a high indigenous population, and we notice the women in long, flowing, colourful robes. But the garbage, the garbage. The country has no environmental policy to speak of, and especially in the town of San Rafael del Mojan, we become acutely aware of one of the very real problems facing Venezuela. In suburban Colombia it was bad, but here, it’s much more hard-core. We arrive in Maracaibo all in one piece, and even manage to dabble on the black market money exchange within seconds of setting foot in the bus terminal. For those of you who may wish to travel to Venezuela in the future, don’t worry about trying to find the black market: it will, without any doubt, find you. Now let’s not forget that there are two exchange rates: the ludicrously high, artificial, yet official, exchange rate of 2.15 Bolivars to the dollar, and then there’s the black market. We achieved a rate of 6.5 Bolivars to the US $, which we considered great! (Us naïve novices thought we were getting a great deal, but still improved on our exchanges when we changed money with our hostel at 7.8 Bolivars to the dollar.) Now which option would you choose? We met a fellow traveller earlier on in our journey who ranted about how expensive Venezuela was, but it was revealed that she used her ATM card and was receiving less than a quarter of what we’ve been getting!
As if by magic, a bus boy appears in front of us screaming ‘Coro! Coro! Coro! (all bus boys shout everything three times in Latin America) and suddenly we find ourselves on a typically Venezuelan bus, bouncing along the highway. The curtains make it tricky to see out of the front window, but the rosary and picture of the Sagrado Corazon lend a spiritual fervour to the expedition. Wind buffets us from the open side windows, and the salsa is set to maximum decibels. Arriba!



The bridge over the Lago Maracaibo affords amazing views of the oil-rich metropolis with its skyscrapers and super-tankers. Columbus himself was the first European to set foot in Venezuela, on his third voyage in 1498, when he anchored within sight of Trinidad. It was only when he found the mouth of the Orinoco that he realised it was not an island, but an entire continent. But it was Amerigo Vespucci who visited Lago Maracaibo in the following year and noticed the thatched homes on stilts in the lake, calling the land ‘Little Venice’.
And what’s Chavez managing to achieve with all this oil wealth? Well, take it from us, this is our final country in this vast continent, and we’ve been everywhere apart from Guyana (and we might even be setting foot there, next week) and Suriname. This is a continent in a mess, and that mess is perhaps even more shocking than India. Yes there is the rural poverty of the campesiños and the hard life they lead managing to scrape by with basic agriculture. But it’s the urban poverty which is the most shocking, most depressing. This is a continent of favelas, with little cohesion and little in the way of support networks. The Base Urban Communities of the Liberation Theologians are swamped by the sprawl of urban confusion; the North American Pentecostalism which is growing exponentially deliberately attempts to thrive on offering a solution to this municipal nihilism. And yet, and yet. Look around, and everywhere there are shrines to the saints. There are fresh flowers, and there are candles. But why hasn’t Chavez managed to follow the model of Cuba and create a world-class educational system (and I’m not thinking of El Sistema here, more of that when we reach Caracas in a few days’ time) and a world-class national health service? With a socialist agenda AND massive oil revenue, surely it’s possible to create a utopian state? What has gone so badly wrong in Venezuela that has turned this into a country ‘on the edge’? Allende tried in Chile back in the 1970s, but that experiment didn’t even have time to get off the ground. But we’ve just come from Colombia, which of course now has a seriously right-wing regime. But in a very short time that regime has completely erased the drug problem, even turning around the reputation of Medellin from being the world’s most dangerous city to a perfectly peaceful and prosperous place. So if the right can do it, why, oh why, can’t the left? Oh, and feel free to respond to any of this in the comments box.
So we arrived in the small historical heart of Coro with it’s charming multicoloured colonial architecture, windows and doorways, and headed for El Gallo. This enclave is a haven of tranquillity in the streets, which after dark are foreboding and menacing. But where is the threat? A few stray dogs, a few passers-by, but none of the muggers we have been expecting. Maybe everybody is at home, behind the shutters and the bars, just waiting for life here to improve. Even just a little.