In Venezuela, you can be fashionable, but you can't eat

Ruben’s friend Larry is in Venezuela for a few months and he put me in touch with him. Hopefully we can meet up for coffee sometime this week, and maybe he can help me out with some references in Maracaibo. I later learned that the whole situation was totally screwed up. Stay tuned.

I had to go to Sambil, a very large gigantic mall. I had to spend 6 hours in Sambil for a small amount of information. It was painful. The mall may have been the largest I have ever stepped foot into. It was so large there were often 3 versions of the same store on different floors of the mall. Very impressive. Well maybe that’s not the right word. Ridiculously gigantic. I found it amazing they could stock the shelves full of certain high-end clothing products, but then have no eggs and milk or toilet paper in the regular grocery stores, at the same time.

On the way home tonight, Miguel had to run into a store quickly. He left the car running on the side of the street with me in it for a few minutes. I was super ridiculously nervous!!

On my last day, we did a little touring of the city. I got in some history (well what I could understand…) we visited a building that was dedicated to Venezuela’s independence (starting with Amerigo Vespucci) an we also visited an old house that was It wasn’t really that exciting until we went way up in the mountains to a little stores that sells all sorts of glass products. My Spanish is slowly getting better. I can speak a little more fluently, I am remembering words I want to use, I can understand more easily. It’s feeling good, I’m getting comfortable, like putting on that old sweatshirt that doesn’t get enough use anymore. I’m bringing it back  Hopefully it will be even easier for Puerto La Cruz, at least something will be!

Driving through the city on the way to the airport was surreal. Brightly multicolored shanties overwhelmed the sides of the highways, and as we traveled under a bridge in a mountain they surrounded you, from the sides and from above. It looked as though we were going to drive right on into them, and they were beautiful. But, knowing how dangerous it would be to stop your car in this vicinity was a bit creepy. Upon arrival to Caracas, I paid Miguel 500 USD, a RIDICULOUS amount for Venezuela for driving me for the week. But what do I care, it wasn’t my money.