Good detective work, team.
So Ive been hangin in Barquisimeto, Venezuela for the last few days. Its been pretttty sweet. Im doing a little but of work for SOA Watch, the organization I worked for in DC (though not as much as Id like), and Ive been meeting a lot of people, including a very friendly communist leader named Tigre.
Getting here was a hilarious mission, and I considered not posting about it for fear of my parents finding it. So, Hannah, when you stumble across this, maybe use your judgement about bringing it to their attention (actually, use MY judgement, and dont show it to them).
I bought a plane ticket for Barranquilla, Colombia since it was dirt cheap, and about an eighth the price of what it would have cost me to fly directly here. Plus, the two cities are like an inch apart on the map. Aside from Barranquilla appearing to be a total wasteland, the arrival time (2:30 a.m.) must have also factored into the utterly ridiculous price of the ticket.
So, I arrived at the airport in the weeeee hours of the morning and decided to wait there til the sun came up and I could take a bus to Maracaibo, a major city on the Venezuelan side of the border. (Un)Luckily, I was able to pass most of my time with a free-spirited 60-something entrepeneur-turned-yoga instructor who hit on me pretty aggressively until about 5 a.m. when I walked her to her taxi and told them where to take her because she spoke absolutely no Spanish.
About an hour later it was light and I decided to get in a taxi myself so I could get to the bus station. If I could find the quotation marks on this keyboard, bus station would definitely have quotes around it (in both instances). The taxi driver, after telling me that gas costs more on Sundays so he had to charge me more, pulled up alongside a bus as they were both still moving through the street. There was a little back and forth (as they continued to drive), and the taxi driver told me that he found my bus. So I threw him the money, stepped out of the taxi, walked along with the (still moving) taxi until I could get my bags out, ran over to the (still moving) bus, threw my bag in the (moving) storage space, and jumped in. I figured the bus driver was in too much of a rush to stop for me.
Two minutes later, we stopped at the bus stop (quotes), which was actually a bustling arepa stand, and we waited there for (quote) fifteen minutes, which, in sixty second minutes, was actually an hour and a half.
We finally left, and it turned out that the bus wasnt going all the way to Maracaibo. Woops! I had a 5 hour ride, though the driver did his absolute best to make it shorter than that by passing cars on the two-lane, two-way road whenever he felt like it, including when there was an oncoming vehicle, or if someone else was also passing. I finally arrived in Maicao, Colombia, and befriended a woman who told me she also planned on taking a bus from Maicao to Maracaibo (where I could eventually get a bus to Barquisimeto).
This (quotes) bus turned out to be a 1982 Chevy Impala, which uncomfortably fit 7 people on our three hour ride to Maracaibo, during which we stopped at at least 10 military checkpoints, not including the border (which was no problem), and I had my passport checked.
Ok, so I arrived in Maracaibo and got on a buseta, which was a pretty nice mini-bus and embarked on the last leg of my journey. Again, my passport was checked time after time at military checkpoints, and at one point, I couldnt understand one of the soldiers questions so a nice guy translated for me. This, however got everyone on the bus to realize I was from the U.S., and they assumed I spoke no Spanish since I needed a translator. So after that checkpoint, the driver, to calm my nerves, popped in a compilation of U.S. American music videos, and I watched Sinead Oconnor, while listening to the rest of the bus gossip about the gringo.
6 hours later, I arrived at the bus stop in Barquisimeto and got picked up by my hosts, safe and sound!
Sorry that was so damn long, but I did condense a 26 hour event into a few minutes.
Love and miss you all. Also, I didnt have to sign in to blogspot...thought that was kinda weird. I know Google is to blame (thank).
3 comments:
Glad to hear that you made it safely to your destination. South America can't hold you down! Did you pack your tiger print underwear?
No tiger print, but i did have to pull my tangita out of my bag for the soldier carrying a machine gun at the border...
Hey bra, I figured not to tell mom anything, Michelle told me the story when she got an email saying you made it safely. When i told mom that you had emailed Michelle saying you got in safely mom replied "yea jake sent me the same email". It was then i knew she had no clue you jumped out a moving car. My lips are sealed. miss you bro.
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