I am eating yucca frita - fat yucca chips. I am in the mall to cash S's cheques but there isn't enough money in her account to cash all three. Now I do not have enough bolivars to pay for a trip to Canaima (I need $2800) and I have to decide what to do. Take a lot of money out with my Travelex card at the official crappy exchange rate? It is a huge loss. Or just wait another day or two to go on the Saturday excursion and stay here in the mall rather than walking around all over with the $1700 bolivars I do have? Or I can go to the movies today and be cool for a change.
On Sunday, MS and I slept in again. I asked him if it was common for couchsurfers to have sex with each other. He said no, and that he hadn't slept with any of his couchsurfers before but he had thought I liked him. This amused me because I didn't think I had been giving out any such vibes. I do remember thinking when I came back from the beach with N that I had been talking more to N than to MS that first night but that I should turn my attention to MS because he is the nice one.
On Sunday N, C and S did come around to cook as promised. They made overly-limey guacamole and a nice pasta salad from which I had to pick out pieces of ham. Everyone spoke Spanish so I was bored and trying to hide my moroseness. I left to go read outside in the back courtyard. I did so desultorily, the big dog wanting me to pet him and throw a wood block. This was another of my bad days, feeling sad and bored and wishing I was in a hostel or that I felt rude enough to go off and do my own thing.
5.00pm
I chose to go to the movies. I went to see A Night at the Museum, but it was dubbed in Spanish so I walked out and asked the usher if there was a movie playing 'en Ingles'. He sent me to 'Knowing', which I soon discovered to be a colour-saturated and slightly silly science fiction thriller with Nicholas Cage and Rose Byrne that took itself very seriously, as these movies usually do. I love how angels come to earth on a space ship: Heaven AND aliens!!
After the three Argentinian couchsurfers left on Sunday, MS took me for a walk along a beach. We promenaded with other strolling and jogging Margaritans along a bitumen road. The beach to the left was not for swimming because of the heaps of dead fish that roll onto shore. I could smell them. It is a shame because I found this beach nicer than the others, probably because of the absence of refreshment shacks: it seemed more clean and expansive. MS and I sat on a rock on a cliff above the ocean and watched the sunset turn the sky and ocean different shades of blue. When we returned home, MS gave me an alfajor, a famous Argentinian cookie - a dulce de leche crumbly sandwich covered in chocolate. A treat respected by the entire family.
On Monday MS had to work, so he left early, leaving me to sleep. I woke up around 9am, had leftover guacamole and chapatis and made my way to... The idea was to find the nearby mall where MS said I would find tour agencies. I went to an internet cafe first to look up agencies and detailed maps and was completely unsuccessful with the latter and only minorly successful with the former. So I decided to wing it and get on a bus and hope I ended up passing one of the big malls. I didn't. As the bus kept going, farther and farther away, I remained philosophical - until the land started to look familiar. I saw a sign for Playa el Agua and thought, well, that's where most of the tour agencies are, I guess it is destiny. So I hopped off the bus, walked for a bit and decided that, though familiar, this definitely wasn't where the por puesto to the beach had stopped. Lo and behold, I saw pass a bus, a bus that said 'Porlamar - Playa el Agua'!
I finally arrived at the beach after a long bus ride. The driver was annoyed at me because I couldn't say where I got on the bus and he didn't know what to charge me. I didn't pay as much as I should have. I started walking along the street above and parallel to the long beach and, almost as soon as I began, I spotted the woman who had helped me at the bus stop when I first arrived in Porlamar. She hadn't managed to communicate to me where the bus to Los Robles was, only the route number, but she had tried to help me despite speaking no English. Once again she was accompanied by her long-haired daughter who speaks a little English, and this thin, colourful woman with purple eyeshadow gave me a big hug and asked me what I was doing at Agua. I said 'Miro por tour to Canaima.' She understood and shuffled me off to a man in a little tour company hut. When I emerged she and her daughter were waiting for me to show me the jewelry she sells (and I assume makes). I would have bought a nice pair of webby gold earrings with green and white beads ($40 bolivars) but I didn't have enough money on me. I intend to buy them - mostly in thanks for her friendliness - when I get back to Agua with my tour payment.
I continued walking along the avenue and stopped at two more tour agencies. At the second, a strange, slightly hyper man told me all about the tour, kept starting new sentences before finishing previous ones, exclaiming about whether he should say certain things and then coming out with such as, 'I notice you are left-handed. Me too. We are more creative.' He had a slightly spiritual notion about nature and said he was born in Los Angeles but needs to get out of cities, which oppress the spirit. He also asked me what else I planned to do in Venezuela and I said I wanted go to Amazonas. He told me I was lucky to find him because he had done tours of Amazonas. He would bring me more information tomorrow, when I come back to pay: he booked me for a Saturday two-day tour to Canaima and Delta Orinoco. He also invited me to meet up with him so he could tell me the truth about Chavez - facts from both sides.
The third tour company gave me a better price ($2500 bolivars) and said I could make a Thursday trip. So I have to think about whether to go for the cheaper Thursday trip (what I want) versus the one offered by the slightly dodgy but much more helpful nature lover.
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