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...