I'm approaching 5 months here in Venezuela, and surprisingly enough even though I live in a country that is on the verge of collapse in every conceivable way possible, my life here seems to have normalized. Now that my stuff, my car, my furniture, food and packable memories have arrived, I've settled into a work-life routine that is fairly regularized. Wake up, go to work, come home, have a pleasant evening, sleep, and repeat. As such, being able to keep up with this blog has become challenging because its hard to write about the mundane. Nonetheless, now that we've gotten through the summer, which was relatively calm, my schedule should be much more active. One of the perks of working at an embassy is we get both US and local holidays off, which can add up fast. Oddly enough however, this year many of the Venezuelan holidays fall on the weekends, and unlike other countries where weekend holidays are pushed to a workday, here they stay on the weekends. As such, all of those additional days off that I was counting on have not materialized. Further, between the Fourth of July and Labor Day last weekend we haven't had any days off. I note this fact not to complain, which surely would irk any non-foreign service employee, but rather to suggest a reason why I haven't had more to write about recently. Now that I'm settled into my new role at the embassy and taking on more challenging, i.e., interesting work, I'm restricted from writing about it. While in reality, there are only a few overt restrictions on what I can post, the nature of my present assignment here in Venezuela brings with it a greater element of self censorship. I'll just have to write a memoir about my experiences here in the distant future, so stay tuned.
Something of note, however, that I'm comfortable sharing is last week I got to flip thorough President C's diplomatic passport. I couldn't help but check it out. It was about an inch thick, which 50 or so pages tied into it with ribbon and had stamps and visas in it from every country he has traveled to. Besides all of the US visas for travel to the UN, the thing reads like a terrorist watch-list of places to avoid. Just goes to show where his allies are. Something humorous though is that many of the visas in the passport have his picture, looking charming and affable. For all of his US visas, all the pictures he submitted show him with a scowl. Talk about taking resentment to an extreme.
On another topic, this past weekend I went on a road trip about two hundred miles west of Caracas, to a beach town called Chichiriviche. Its a small fishing / beach town right outside of a national park called Morrocoy. I went with a group of three other officers, all recent arrivals. Because I was the only one whose car has arrived, I was tasked to drive, and being that this was my first time driving out of town, the entire trip there was a comedy of errors. We started out at 6 in the morning, with the idea of trying to avoid traffic. The traffic in Caracas is notoriously bad, and on weekends the number of people trying to escape the city is staggering. I reviewed the map before going, to ensure that I was familiar with the route, but soon discovered that no matter how much I studied the map, the art of driving here just takes practice. Fifteen minutes into the trip, I missed the first turn off, which was not clearly marked. Over an hour later, trying to navigate back, I finally was able to get back to the turn and make it. Unlike the US and most normalized nations, where if you miss and turn off, you can just get off at the next exit, turn around and come back. In Caracas, entrances and exits to the freeway are not synchronized, which means once you get off the freeway, to get back on you have to drive around though the city to find a freeway entrance. After driving around through a number of dangerous barrios, we were finally able to find an entrance to the freeway. Problem was, the entrance was going the wrong way, so we got back on the freeway going in the opposite direction. We got off the freeway again, drove though a few more blighted neighborhoods, got on the freeway going in the right direction, but this time, as we approached the turn off that we tried to make the first time, again the exit was not marked, so again we missed the turn off. Eventually, we ended up in the exact place we started the trip, and at 7:00 in the morning, agreed to forget about the last hour and start anew. After finally making the exit, about an hour outside of Caracas, we came to our first accident. Having been in Venezuela for 5 months now, I'm familiar with accident procedures. Essentially, either law or urban myth dictate that if there is an accident, none of the vehicles involved may be moved, and no vehicles may pass until the police have cleared the scene. As such, the entire freeway grinds to a halt for about an hour. Accordingly, I put the car in park, got out and sat on the side of the freeway, along with the thousands of other drivers. Then, an hour later we were back on our way. 
A few more hours into the drive, I managed to hit a pothole the size of a small station-wagon, going 60 miles an hour. I checked the alignment and tires which amazingly were in good shape and continued on my way. When I stopped for gas a while later though, my car would not turn back on. After a brief moment of panic and a check of the engine, I realized my battery cables were no longer connected. I hit the pothole so hard, the cables came off. I quickly reattached them, and we were on our way. After 7 hours we arrived.
Something of note, however, that I'm comfortable sharing is last week I got to flip thorough President C's diplomatic passport. I couldn't help but check it out. It was about an inch thick, which 50 or so pages tied into it with ribbon and had stamps and visas in it from every country he has traveled to. Besides all of the US visas for travel to the UN, the thing reads like a terrorist watch-list of places to avoid. Just goes to show where his allies are. Something humorous though is that many of the visas in the passport have his picture, looking charming and affable. For all of his US visas, all the pictures he submitted show him with a scowl. Talk about taking resentment to an extreme. 
On another topic, this past weekend I went on a road trip about two hundred miles west of Caracas, to a beach town called Chichiriviche. Its a small fishing / beach town right outside of a national park called Morrocoy. I went with a group of three other officers, all recent arrivals. Because I was the only one whose car has arrived, I was tasked to drive, and being that this was my first time driving out of town, the entire trip there was a comedy of errors. We started out at 6 in the morning, with the idea of trying to avoid traffic. The traffic in Caracas is notoriously bad, and on weekends the number of people trying to escape the city is staggering. I reviewed the map before going, to ensure that I was familiar with the route, but soon discovered that no matter how much I studied the map, the art of driving here just takes practice. Fifteen minutes into the trip, I missed the first turn off, which was not clearly marked. Over an hour later, trying to navigate back, I finally was able to get back to the turn and make it. Unlike the US and most normalized nations, where if you miss and turn off, you can just get off at the next exit, turn around and come back. In Caracas, entrances and exits to the freeway are not synchronized, which means once you get off the freeway, to get back on you have to drive around though the city to find a freeway entrance. After driving around through a number of dangerous barrios, we were finally able to find an entrance to the freeway. Problem was, the entrance was going the wrong way, so we got back on the freeway going in the opposite direction. We got off the freeway again, drove though a few more blighted neighborhoods, got on the freeway going in the right direction, but this time, as we approached the turn off that we tried to make the first time, again the exit was not marked, so again we missed the turn off. Eventually, we ended up in the exact place we started the trip, and at 7:00 in the morning, agreed to forget about the last hour and start anew. After finally making the exit, about an hour outside of Caracas, we came to our first accident. Having been in Venezuela for 5 months now, I'm familiar with accident procedures. Essentially, either law or urban myth dictate that if there is an accident, none of the vehicles involved may be moved, and no vehicles may pass until the police have cleared the scene. As such, the entire freeway grinds to a halt for about an hour. Accordingly, I put the car in park, got out and sat on the side of the freeway, along with the thousands of other drivers. Then, an hour later we were back on our way. 
A few more hours into the drive, I managed to hit a pothole the size of a small station-wagon, going 60 miles an hour. I checked the alignment and tires which amazingly were in good shape and continued on my way. When I stopped for gas a while later though, my car would not turn back on. After a brief moment of panic and a check of the engine, I realized my battery cables were no longer connected. I hit the pothole so hard, the cables came off. I quickly reattached them, and we were on our way. After 7 hours we arrived. We stayed at a posada (Bed and Breakfast) run by an Italian woman that was quite nice, for local standards. She prepared breakfasts and dinners, and lunch was up to us. Our first day we just lounged on the beach near the posada, recovering from our long drive. The next day, however, we hired a motorboat and guide for the day. He took us around the park, showed us some caves, mangroves, some ancient Indian rock carvings, and then dropped us off on an local cayo (small island) where we lounged the rest of the day. It was a nice reprieve from the hustle of Caracas. One of the best moments of the trip was when a guy in a boat pulled up with a cooler of fresh ceviche, lobster and octopus. I've never been a ceviche fan, but this guy made up a plate that was out of this world. According to our guide, people come from around Venezuela just to have this guys food.
The next morning we drove home.
The next morning we drove home. Because it was a US holiday and all of the Venezuelans had gone home the day prior, the trip took just over three hours.
A new phrase that I've learned.
TIV
This is Venezuela!
M
No comments:
Post a Comment