Aaron and Anne-Sophie

We’re back in DC and I’ve posted highlights of our almost 500 photos (Colombia and Venezuela Album) to give you an idea of what our trip was like. Both are gorgeous countries with amazing cultures and friendly people, but face challenging political problems.

Anne-Sophie joined me in Bogota and we got to see different sides of the city. In one section, we found a student hang out of hippies, and other sections crowded with holiday shoppers, food stands, and street performers. It’s hard to feel alone there. Both Colombians and Venezuelans are generally extroverted affectionate people. People like to see each other and be seen. They spend an average of 20% of their income on beauty products. They are people that live for today. They’re not shy about public displays of affection, showing off their body, drinking, eating, singing, and dancing. They have lots of children. Every bus I took included pregnant women, breast feeding women, and/or women with several children. This could be cultural, but also economic. Some people literally have to figure out how to live each day, and so they have to enjoy it. It’s hard to make plans when your political economic world is so uncertain. Hence, their sense of time, especially outside the major cities, is not so punctual. Despite their improvements in development that caused us to sometimes expect too much, we occasionally ran into road blocks in our trip. We found this out in the next step of our travel to Cartagena via Medellin, where we spent 7 hours in an airport in an unorganized mess.

Eventually we made it to Cartagena, perhaps the most beautiful colonial town in Latin America. The Caribbean vibe is contagious, and the racial make up of the locals changes vastly to include Afro-Colombians. The music changes to Caribbean rhythms too. It’ a good place to start Anne-Sophie’s quest to try every type of fruit juice they offer that aren’t common in the US, such as lulo, guanabana, and zapote. I was determined to find good mariscos, or sea food.

We continued on to Santa Marta, where we could enjoy the beautiful beaches of Tayarona and Taganga. Given that most Colombians take Christmas and New Years week off (some are required to use their vacation time this week), cities like Bogota become dead, while touristy beach towns like Santa Marta are still open and alive. So we spent our Christmas relaxing on the beaches and visiting an evening mass.

Venezuela

Travel into Venezuela went smoothly, but once we reached Maracaibo, we were hit in the face by the prices. Not only are things more expensive in Venezuela, the official rate is actually half that of the black market rate. We didn’t know that all the prices of products and services are based on the black market rate. So if the guidebook says something costs 10 dollars, that’s approximately 23,00o Colombian pesos and about the same amount of Venezuelan Bolivares at the official rate. However, the actual price in Venezuela would be more like 50,000-60,000. We were determined to not exchange our dollars at the official rate, but problem was finding a trustworthy buyer of our dollars, which we couldn’t, since most things were closed for the holidays. We were forced to stay in a por rata hotel, or in other words a hotel that sells by the hour, and couldn’t eat until we got our money changed for a better rate. Already we could tell that Venezuela is harder to travel independently in than Colombia because of their screwed up exchange rates. So Venezuela didn’t make a good first impression despite the funny songs we heard on the ride over saying how Maracaibo was the greatest city and another song saying men shouldn’t beat their children. Still, Maracaibo is crucial to understanding Venezuela, because it’s where they get the oil, it’s most important export for decades. It’s the only region not to support Chavez’s party, because they feel they don’t want to share their wealth. It’s also important historically because it’s where the Spanish surrendered to Simon Bolivar, to gain independence. Finally, it’s where Venezuela got its name, since Spanish explorers felt the houses on the lake of Maracaibo was like a little Venice, so they called it Venezuela. These issues in a nutshell sum up Chavez’s policies. He wants a greater united latin america, like Bolivar wanted. He wants to replace European and American colonialism and imperialism with pride in their native heritage. Lastly, he wants to help the masses through series of programs and socialism. This, his brash egotistical personality, and questionable hardball politics locally have made him hated by many US leaders and many Venezuelans. Many love him though and you see signs or grafitti saying things like “socialism or death.” Ironically, Venezuela is more American than Colombia in many ways even though Colombia is currently allies with the US. It has more American products and businesses. There seems to be a Subway and McDonald’s in every town. It probably does more business with the US, especially with the oil. They love baseball. Chavez himself is a huge fan. In Colombia, you’d most likely see a telenovela on TV, while in Venezuela you’d most likely see the game on or an American TV show dubbed or with subtitles. There are still tons of problems, such as beat up roads, crime, and an unstable economy hurting the country, which brings to question Chavez’s effectiveness in bringing what he promises. Corruption, opposition, and too much spent on unnecessary changes could be some of the reasons. Still, aspects of his socialism aren’t all that extreme. The US and France probably spend a higher percentage of its income of public social and governmental policies than Venezuela. The country runs on an capitalistic market economy. The problem with any policies like his in Latin America, is that it hurts the profits of the rich corporations in the US and the rich in Latin America, so any leader that doesn’t ally himself with the US, is painted as a radical socialist. However, Chavez has taken it to a whole other level, mostly because of his need for control, self-promotion, and ambition. Many we met would say Chavez is crazy equally as much as they would say Bush is stupid and crazy too. Obama, so far, is generally thought of as a competent chance of improvement and loved by the Afro-Latinos. Oddly enough, many Americans are afraid to travel to Venezuela because of their political differences, despite Venezuelan love of almost all things American. The only problem here for Americans though is the exchange rate and crime.

We made our peace with Venezuela when we finally got our money changed at a decent rate and got to visit Coro with a relative of a former ESL student. This region is an example of the diversity of terrains in country, because it’s more desert like. We continued on in the long cold bus ride to Ciudad Bolivar. For some reason, buses with air-conditioning, feel they have to use it at its highest. There, we had to take a tour to see the most visited site in the country, Angel’s Falls. On the way there, we stop in Canaima, a waterfall filled lagoon, which was a blast because we got to walk behind the one of the falls. However, we were worried the whole day by the overcast weather preventing us flying to see Angel’s Falls. No flights had gone the day before and no flights had gone all day. Yet by some stroke of luck, the clouds cleared for an hour, which was long enough for us to fly by and see the world’s highest waterfall, 1 km high. It’s difficult to get to, because it’s part of an enormous and high tepuy, or flat topped and cliffed mountain, that are common in this region. When it’s cloudy, it makes it hard for planes to maneaver around them. It was originally discovered by the outside world by a man with the last name of Angel, crashed on this tepuy. His plane is outside Ciudad Boliver’s airport now. Somehow, we were the only flight in 2 days to see the falls, and nobody else besides the pilot were on the flight with us in the little 6 person cesna plane.

We continued on Tucapita to take a delta Orinoco tour. Just south of Trinidad and Tobago is a huge river delta filled with wildlife and a traditional tribe called the Warao. Here we saw monkeys, a river dolphin, exotic birds, and tarantulas. We were supposed to fish for pirahnas too and ride a traditional canoe, but couldn’t find anyone, since most were hugover or still drunk from partying all night for New Years. We spent most of the night listening to the sordid stories of our tour guide about him and the Warao people, and drinking rum with some Basque travelers. The Warao are generally quiet people, at least with us tourists, except when they’re drunk. We got more than an earful from a drunk Warao farmer complaining about his life and telling the same story over and over again. Similarly, the Warao party was the same CD over and over again in their poor lighted communities. Luckily, we avoided too much fireworks like we experienced in Guatemala, which felt more like a war zone walking outside near midnight. They kept it to a minimum on the river, and their houses are spread out along with river requiring a boat to get to each one, so we only had to experience our camp’s fireworks.

To finish our trip, we ended up in Caracas. Although many people said to avoid it because of the crime and lack of tourist attractions, it’s located in a beautiful place near a large mountain and sea. Otherwise it’s a large city with dirty tall buildings and terrible traffic. Still, we had a great time on the nearby coast and going up the teleferico to get the views from the mountain with our Venezuelan friends.

There’s so much to see and do in Colombia and Venezuela. Don’t let their political situations scare you away from the outgoing lively people and stunning landscapes. You’ll need some Spanish to help you make the most of it and ideally you should take more time than we did. We covered a lot in a short amount of time. Still, I think we got a good taste of the country: its people, food, music, history, geography, and soul. And it’s soul is as colorful and bright as the colonial houses you find there.