Cuatro Latinos, un Gringo, y una cucaracha

Ok so here goes, probably the longest update of my life haha....

So we left on Thursday. We were supposed to leave at about 10:30am. That's when Sergio and his mom were supposed to get back from work/school. Well they didn't get back until 12:30 and then we went to lunch because they people we were riding with were also late. So we actually didn't end up leaving the apartment until about 1:30pm. I was so nervous going into this trip because all I could think about was how long the car ride was going to be, and with no one to speak English with me except Sergio.

Sergio also made me carry a fanny-pack to keep my wallet, cameras, and passport in. He said everyone here carries these (which is kinda true) but I told him that in the US we consider people who carry these "nerdy tourists".

Sergio's girlfriend's mom was the one who drove our whole trip. She was a crazy driver, but surprisingly I felt really safe with her behind the wheel. I can't tell you insane these Venezuelan drivers are. Before I continue there are 3 things you have to understand about Venezuela:

1. There are no traffic laws. Well at least there is literally no one who enforces the traffic laws, so people drive wherever they want, however fast they want, and so on.
2. The roads are in TERRIBLE condition. There are potholes everywhere, and parts of the road even missing in some places. Also, on all the roads that aren't major highways, there are speedbumps about every 5 miles. YES, every 5 miles.
3. Because of the drugs and stuff in this country, there are police check-points about every 30 miles or so where they glance into your car and decide if it needs further inspection or if you can continue on your journey.

So anyway, back to the trip, as we started our trip, Senora Eddy (Sergio's Girlfriend's mom) stopped the car about 5 times to buy things from people either standing in the road selling it, or sitting by the side of the road. We bought some kind of chocolate thingy, a mandarin, and some other little fruit that looked sorta like a tough grape. That's the one they made me try. I was so terrified of eating something right off a person from the street because all I could think about was how I would end up getting sick and ruining my whole weekend. But after MUCH prodding from the people in the car, I tried it. You had to bite the skin off, and then put what was inside in your mouth and just suck on it until you got all the juice off and then you threw what was left out the window. It wasn't that bad but the fear of sickness just ruined it for me! (Even though I never did get sick, haha). About an hour into our trip I got to see the place where Andrina (his girlfriend) and I are going to do the zip-lining through the forest this upcoming weekend! SO EXCITED! Sergio is absolutely terrified and swore he couldn't do it with me. But then last night he told me that since i begged so much, if he actually passes his math final this upcoming friday, then he will do the zip-line with me! YAY!

Anyway, as we continued our trip we were never getting stopped at the checkpoints. Which was good for me because I had this vision of us getting stopped and then I show my passport and they don't believe it's real and they arrest me! Scary, I know. But anyway, at like the 6th checkpoint, we finally got stopped. I wasn't too nervous until he wouldn't give my passport back. He studied it for what felt like 5 minutes and just kept looking at each and every page. After shining the flashlight in my face 3 times I guess he finally decided that my passport was legit, and he let us pass through. Whew!

The other funny thing that happened is that at about the 11th checkpoint we were stopped again, but this time the officer told us that he was hungry, and if we gave him money so he could buy chicken, then he wouldn't need to look at our IDs. Everyone in the car found that so funny (after we left him of course). But it is kind of funny that a officer would ask for money for some chicken! haha. So the whole weekend everytime we saw a police officer we would say to ourselves in the car, "pollo?, pollo?" thinking maybe he needed some chicken too! haha.

In Chichiravichi (the beach) we were staying in kind of this apartment thingy. We arrived there at about 1:30 in the morning. I thought the drive would NEVER end, but thank goodness Sergio talked to me almost the whole way, so it could have been a lot worse. He did make me leave my iPhone and iPod at home though because he claimed they would get stolen.....except that later he told me it was just cause he wouldn't have one and he would feel bad if I could listen to an iPod and he couldn't! GRR!! Let me just tell you, a 12 hour road trip will all Latino music, makes for one LONG road trip. Anyway, when we got to the apartment, we found out the airconditioning was broke. I thought I was going to die. So we went up to the apartment and sure enough it wasn't working, but the good thing was is that it was unbearably hot, and the people claimed they would fix it in the morning, which was good. As we were all sitting in the apartment (which by the way was smaller than my bedroom back in brenham), everyone was fixing beds and stuff and I saw a roach. Yes, a roach. So I whispered to Sergio that I saw one, and he didn't believe me, because then I couldn't see it to show him. So him and I went for a walk to cool-off before bed and we started singing "La Cucaracha, La Cucaracha" and it was hilarious. Then we went back up to the steaming bedroom and all got ready for bed. As we were laying there, sergio and his mom both had matresses on the floor and all of a sudden Sergio's mom saw the roach and started screaming and stuff. It was hilarious! Senora Eddy had to get up and kill the roach for her. Then I opened my big mouth and said "See Sergio, I told you I saw one!" and his mom couldn't believe I didn't tell her there was a roach. So then she was nervous the whole rest of the night.

The first night wasn't too bad sleeping. I thought I would sweat a lot and stuff, but after not getting any sleep until about 3, we all ended up sleeping pretty well in a steamy bedroom with a small fan (We couldn't open the windows because of bugs). So we got up later than expected that next day, and missed our chance to do the Banana thing in the water. Oh well, I say. haha. But we got in the car and drove to the beach. Actually what you have to do here, is drive to a dock where there are about 50 small boats waiting, rent a boat from a guy, and be driven to the island of your choice. So we got in a boat and were off. I was terrified. For those of you that don't know, the ocean really scares me. Mainly thanks to the movie Jaws. And we were in this tiny boat flying through huge waves, I was shaking. And everyone was laughing at me. haha. After about a 25 minute boat road we ended up at the furthest Island we could go to. It was sooooo beautiful. The water was crystal clear and amazingly blue. we got the last umbrella on the beach and laid down to relax a little. Sergio's mom told me I had to put a TON of sun lotion on, so I put a lot of my face and my shoulders....forgetting to do my back....and I'm sure you can guess what happened...I have a very interesting tan line from about 4 inches below my neck down I am BURNED! But anyway. After being at the beach for about 45 minutes Sergio and Andrina noticed that some of their friends were there too! Small world! So I met them and one of them could speak a little english and TRIED to talk to me haha.

We got in the water and just relaxed and enjoyed the day. It was just ok for me, because it was really hard for me to have an amazing time because I had no one to talk to too much. I mean when all six of us (sergio and his friends) went in the water and stuff, the whole conversation was in Spanish so that was a little uncomfortable.

But anyway, after a long nice day we got back in the boat (which i started to feel a little more comfortable with) and headed back to the mainland.

When we got back to the apartment, the manager told us they had fixed our airconditioning, so we were very excited! So instead of going straight up to the room, we went down to the apartment pool where everyone swam again while I read my Ted Dekker book :) . Funny enough, as I am the only freaking white guy on this continent, as I was reading my book, some Latin guy came up to me saw the book and spoke to me in perfect english about that was one of his favorite authors too! He said he was from Texas too and he was a traveling pastor who was spending a few months in Venezuela. How cool is that?!? Anyway, after swimming/reading for about an hour we headed up to our supposedly cool room. When we got there the air was NOT working still, and it was even MORE steaming hot.

So we went out to dinner hoping that maybe it just hadn't been on long enough and it would be cool when we got back. But it wasn't. And let me just tell you. That night sleeping was the worst night of my whole life. I was already even more hot because of my sunburn, and i sweated the whole night, and I had panic attacks most of the night, and I was getting claustrophobic on top of it all! It was bad. Really bad. But the good thing was that everyone else had just as horrible of a night so it wasn't just me!

The next morning we got up and went to a different dock/port so that we could try a different island. This boat ride was a lot shorter and a lot less scary. haha. We got to the island and there ended up being like 5 million people on this island. There were people EVERYWHERE. So as soon as we got there and found a spot under a tree in the shade, the two parents went swimming while us young-uns took a nice nap. After we woke up from our nap, Sergio, Andrina and I went out to relax in the water. There were a lot more people here than the day before at the other island. Andrina is actually allergic to salt water so she cant stay in it very long, so we got back out and chilled on the beach some more, until Andrina fell asleep. Then Sergio and I went back out into the water and relaxed for like an hour. To me, that was the best part of the beach trip. Because I finally just got to hang out with my friend and speak all English, haha. It was just cool to be with my best friend in some foreign country at a beautiful beach, relaxing and stuff. After swimming and napping all day we got back on the boat at about 4 and decided that we could stay at the apartment NO MORE. So we got back, packed our stuff up and headed to the mountains earlier than expected.

We decided we would drive all night until about 1 and find a hotel, rest in air-conditioning, and then drive the rest of the way to the mountains in the morning. And that's just what we did. BUT this was the best part of the ENTIRE trip, and by far the funniest!

During our trip we were looking for a place to eat and spotted a Burger King! One of my favorites!!! So thank God they stopped there so I could have a taste of home. Funny thing is Burger King is also their favorite fast food restaurant too. I knew then that I was meant to be here, since all of my friends in the US hate Burger King. Also, Venezuelans love mixing their ketchup and mayo to dip their fries in! Just like me!! Speaking of which, weird enough, Sergio and I found out that pretty much we're twins. It was kinda scary to find out how much we actually have in common.

At about 1 am we decided to look for a hotel. Now, hotels here in Venezuela are NOTHING like in the United States. They are all gated, and most have only 5 or so rooms. So we drove up to this hotel gate at 1am and honked the car over and over again, but the attendant wasn't there. So Senora Eddy got out of the car opened the gate herself and we drove through. SCARY! We drove up to the main office but all the lights were off and no one was there. But of course Senora Eddy got out of the car again to go check. When she got out dogs started barking and one came out. I told Sergio that it was just like a horror movie and I thought we were all going to die. You need to know too that Sergio is deathly afraid of large dogs and these dogs were a pretty good size, so he already said he wasn't getting out of the car. Well we sat there and honked and honked and honked and flashed out lights and no one was coming out. So we drove around the back, which happened to be a dead end. At this point I'm getting really nervous. And what does Sergio do? Scare me of course, and I seriously almost wet my pants.

Well as were just going to leave a guy came out of the office with a shot-gun. Yes he was carrying a shot-gun. Thank God he didn't kill us. All he said was that they were full so we ended up getting the name of another hotel down the road and leaving. As we left and drove down the road we saw another sign for a place to sleep so we turned in the entry. As we turned in I noticed a sign that said "Motel" and Andrina started yelling in Spanish of course "no, no, turn around, go somewhere else!! (I later found out that in Venezuela, Hotel is a place you sleep, and Motel is a place you go to meet hookers). So that was hilarious!

We drove another two blocks and pulled into what looked like a home driveway. But they claimed it was a hotel. So of course what do we do? We honked and honked at the gate until an old grandma came out. She told us she had a few rooms and let us in to stay. As soon as we get out of the car Sergio notices huge dogs again and freaks out. I told him it was Karma for scaring me earlier. The funniest thing is the dogs ended up begin right outside of our room window. Anyway sergio, his mom and I stayed in one room. While Andrina and her mom stayed in another. But there was air condition and it was NICE to sleep with it. They called it a hotel, but in my mind it was a Bed and Breakfast. We laughed soooo hard that night that we could barely sleep. You could tell we were all tired because EVERYTHING was hilarious.

The next morning we got up to head to the mountains. By this point in the trip the weather was getting colder the higher up we went so I had to get a jacket. We drove for about 2 hours through very winding roads up the mountains with BEAUTIFUL scenery. When we got to the national park, Sergio's mom and Andrina couldn't get out of the car because they had altitude sickness, so we just got out and walked around and ate Arepas again. SO GOOD!

We drove to another couple of mountains and it was very nice! I was so glad to get to see this too.

Then we began our million hour drive home. As always, the drive home felt MUCH longer and I thought I was going to die from being in the car so long. Plus all these Venezuelans do is eat. We stopped like 5 times to get food. It was crazy! At the restaurant we stopped at for "lunch" (at 4:30pm) I wasn't very hungry and Sergio's mom told me that if I didn't eat, she would force it down my throat! hahahahaha. I love her!

We ended up getting home about 10pm and I was soooo happy to be out of that car. So all in all a great amazing trip.

PS. It takes a LONG time to put photos up so I'm just going to put them on facebook.