Venezuela was Weird

My trip to Venezuela was. . . weird. Really, there is no other way of putting it. Actually, you could technically say that I was kidnapped in Venezuela. I suppose it diminishes impact if I add that I was kidnapped by a sweet, albeit crazy, Abuela. It’s true. To look at the facts: If someone offered to pay me a million dollars to tell them where I was in Maracaibo, Venezuela, I would not be able to do it. However, wherever I was, there was no public transportation and I couldn’t very easily leave the house I was in and walk around where I was because this city is huge, pretty dangerous and it just wouldn’t make sense.

In addition, this woman, who I lived with for a few days, I couldn’t tell you her name either. I’m telling you, this whole thing was just plain weird.

So let’s start at the beginning. I was a bit nervous for Venezuela because it is sort of on the traveler’s Do Not Go list. But of course, this was also a lot of the appeal. I tried to get 2 people to go with me but both guys separately backed out, the first because his mom said she would disown him if he went and he had promised that was the one country he wouldn’t go to in South America, the second just because everyone told him not to go. The owners of the hostel I was staying at in Santa Marta, Colombia offered to let me stay at the hostel for free if I would change my mind and not go to Venezuela, they were that worried about it!

But obviously I went. The difference was big just crossing the border. In Colombian customs, we waited in seats in an air-conditioned room. In Venezuelan customs, we wrapped ourselves around this strange bar and I passed my passport through a tiny window of such tinted glass I couldn’t see anything behind it, it was like passing my passport into a void of mystery and who knows what they did with it. And next to the customs window was a picture of a man carrying a bloody child saying to stop the holocaust of Palestinian’s in Israel.

Just entering the country, there was more trash on the roadside than I had ever seen in one place. We are talking trash as far as you can see, even in the middle of nowhere, I have no idea how it got there. We did drive by some interesting salt lakes though.

One smart thing that I did, though it was weird, was to change money on the bus. I have never heard of changing money on the bus with a fellow passenger before but I got a decent rate and people are hungry for dollars. The problem with Venezuela is the money is so devalued you can’t take it out of ATMs, it all must be exchanged on the black market.

It was fortunate that I did exchange money because, silly me, I thought that the bus that left from the bus station in Santa Marta would end at the bus station in Maracaibo, Venezuela, not some random sketchy place in the city. Luckily I had money for a cab. But then the bus driver, as well as the people around me on the bus who were distressed that I was there alone in the first place, told me I can’t trust a taxi. But I definitely shouldn’t walk because that is suicide. Hmmmm.

As I was debating, the Abuela made up her mind, grabbed my hand, and said that I was coming to her house with her. She told me she lived alone and I could stay at her casa. There was definitely no room for me to object, she was determined and had quite the grasp on my arm.
Arriving at her house was a bit awkward, I was a little unsure how to act in the situation. It was interesting to see her house though which looked like what I expected a 50’s home would look like if everyone froze time and went and hid in a bomb shelter. But at the same time, it was your typical grandmother’s house full of photographs, clutter and knickknacks, ceramic cats, coo-coo clocks and wooden houses on the walls.

She told me that it was best if I slept in her bed with her because it was cooler in there (down-right frigid with the AC cranked up to be honest). I opted for my own bed. The whole house was full of fans because Maracaibo is one of the hottest places around.

The next morning I woke up and expected to take a taxi into town. I had hoped for more time in Venezuela but didn’t have a lot so I decided against going somewhere touristy. I thought it would be best to go to a typical Venezuelan city and experience as much of typical Venezuela life as I could, and maybe take a day trip to a little city since Maracaibo is so big. Well, to be fair, I did get to experience plenty of typical Venezuelan life with this woman.

I went into the kitchen to find that she had made me breakfast. And planned my day. She told me that her neighbor was going to take me around the city in the afternoon. So we spent the morning hanging out in the air conditioned bedroom of hers. I think she was mostly lonely and wanted company. My Spanish isn’t great, but usually I understand that gist of what is happening. Not with her. She talked so quickly and had such a thick accent, I was lucky if I understood 15% of what was being said. I found out later she didn’t understand hardly anything I said either! But she told me it was ok that I didn’t understand her, and I think it was, she just wanted someone to talk at.

And she talks a LOT. And she really was a little crazy. So I sat there was we watched exercises on TV. Then she decided to do some exercises in her pajamas. I was pretty much in the way wherever I sat because the room was small. I was ducking and bending to avoid the unpredictable limbs of this 89 year old woman as copied the exercises that looked like were filmed in the 80s on the beach. It’s ok, it kept me on my toes.

We spent most of the day cooking. Then later one of her neighbors came over. I introduced myself and held out my hand to her. She stared at me. And stared. Then stared some more. Is everyone in Venezuela a little off?

Eventually the other neighbor came to take us around the city. It was huge but the historical center was nice and colorful and I was happy to see the sights. It was a little awkward because I knew I had to pay him and didn’t know they had agreed on a fee, just one of those situations without precedent.

More time was spent cooking and hanging out in the house, my time in Venezuela mostly consisted of just being in the house with the Abuela. Eventually the neighbor came back and spoke to me this time and I could understand her more than the Abuela. My last night there, a man walked into the house. Much confusion ensued when he told me that he lived there. So much for her living alone. But he was really nice and I felt a lot more confident with my Spanish because I actually understood everything he had said. Before the Abuela’s craziness had been wearing off on me and I had become convinced I didn’t speak any Spanish because I couldn’t understand her. So that was a relief.

That last night I asked the Abuela for a needle and thread to sew a hole in my pants. She ignored me so I figured I had already asked enough of her. I said that she was crazy, and she is, but I also cannot stress how kind she was to take me in and feed me and everything too. I think that the situation could have been really bad if she hadn’t have found me.

My plan was to take a taxi (her neighbor) to the bus station the next morning, but actually go to a hotel near the bus station and spend more time free to explore Maracaibo and not feeling like such a captive. There would have been no way I could have told her I wanted to stay there but not at her house without hurting her feelings. The bus that I was supposed to get on left at 5am, so I had to leave at 4 and set my alarm for 3:50.

At 2:45 am, the light comes on in my room. The Abuela is standing over me with a needle and thread. She is in full make-up and nice clothes. I couldn’t tell if she hadn’t slept at all that night or had gotten up and done herself up that morning. Either way, she had decided that 2:45 am was the best time to sew my pants, which she did while I got ready to wait for the taxi. I told you my trip was weird.

Then, she accompanied me in the taxi and waited while I bought my bus ticket, so alas, I found myself headed back to Colombia earlier than I had expected. But to be honest, going back to Colombia felt like coming home and I was happy to be back in the safety of Colombia.

Another strange thing about Venezuela was the road signs. Chavez (who everyone that I talked to said they thought was crazy) likes to put up bulletin boards everywhere that he does something . So there are all these bulletin board say that people should work with Chavez and that he built this school, etc. My all-time favorite though is a picture of him hugging a child. The child looks wary and positively squished, while Chavez, with his arms around the kids looks like he is enjoying himself entirely too much.

As for danger, I have to admit, maybe it was just from all the warnings and the locals being scared too, but I did feel uneasy in Venezuela. It just had sort of heavy energy. It seems like a country that could have had a chance but really was ruined by Chavez and his craziness. But that is another discussion.