12.40pm, Thursday June 11, Canaima airport ....mon dieu

Oh my god, oh my god. I can't believe what I've just been able to do: fly over the Delta Orinoco and Guayana forest. It was amazing. The first flight from Margarita to Puerto Ordaz was mostly over flat plains separated into squares by dirt roads, but the second flight, well, let's just say I will feel okay if I don't see the Amazon.

First the little 12-seater to Canaima flew over Delta Orinoco, navy blue smooth water dotted by sprouting flower islands like hand-printed fabric or fancy wallpaper. Occasionally there are tiny
round islands as well. Miles of this paisley turned into plains of trees as far as the eye can see.


view of the Orinoco Delta

Then all of a sudden a steep cliff emerges up or down and the plains of trees starts again on a different level. At first the cliffs were also tree-covered, but these gave way to sheer cliff faces and waterfalls careening in face-long caves. This is the most breathtaking landscape I have seen - better, even, than Utah - though its impressiveness lies in the scale of its breadth, which one can only perceive by flying over it.



view of Venezuela tepui

Having heard that the rainforest is disappearing by a football field a minute, seeing the vastness of this forest is heartening. It must have taken us an hour to fly across it and it stretched in both directions to the horizon. I am lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky to be here and I have just been served a lunch of thin brown french fries, salad and cheese. Buen appetito to me!

My guide, Anthony, sat with me through most of my meal. He asked if I want to go dancing tonight and said Canaima has everything. So far all I've seen is the airport: a platform with stalls selling jewellery, postcards and such, and a food stand with homemade cake. At 2.45pm I headed to the Canaima lagoon. Anthony is a Caribe indio, born in Canaima. He has travelled around Venezuela and says everything is here in Canaima: beach, waterfall, lagoon, forest, savannah, animals. I'm almost prepared to be disappointed with Canaima, as both Nicol and the dodgy tour booker described it as mystical. They told me I'd love it, that it is the most amazing place. Really? Yet, after that plane trip, nothing can let me down.

My room at the camp is white, with wooden bed bases with white sheets, two twin beds and a double, a bright green tin roof, brown and grey mottled tile floor and wooden shutters and a door. The bathroom is big with a large shower area. I have an hour to read Michael Palin's 'Full Circle' (borrowed from MS upon finishing Auster) in the hammock outside my door. What did I do to deserve such luxury? (Answer: Work full time!)

7.30am, Thursday June 11, Margarita airport ....off to nature

Here, coffee is espresso, though not particularly nice espresso. Must be the Italian influence.

I was driven to the airport (Nicol included a taxi ride to the airport by a friend of hers in my Canaima package) by a lovely curly-haired young man with two daughters and two houses who hates Chavez. He says the Venezuelan bolivar is so low because of Chavez. Venezuelans can't afford to travel. Chavez wrecked the economy. He says Chavez wants to take people's second houses without paying for them; that basics like milk are hard to find because Chavez won't give corporations dollars (Is this true? I've been to the supermarket and everything seems to be there); people don't work because Chavez gives them education and money, which they drink away because they have no ambition. Chavez steals the country's money and gives it to other countries instead of, say, making the hospitals better (an interesting example compared to F's happy experience with the free Cuban physiotherapists).

Chavez had people with multiple identies vote several times for him and he erased all the opposition's marketing so that all people saw was 'Si va!' (Yes, go!, Chavez's campaign slogan). The driver repeatedly called Chavez 'cheaper', by which he meant 'cheater', and cited Panama as an example of somewhere the quality of life substantially improved when the Chavez-like dictator was finally thrown out. He said Margarita ten years ago was the type of place where people didn't have to lock their doors but the 1999 landslide that killed so many people in Caracas sent many of the survivors to Margarita. These were bad people and crime became a problem on the island, so now everyone has to gate, lock and alarm their houses and cars. He thought people made good salaries. I asked this young Francisco what he thought the solution was. Like MS, he thinks many Venezuelans are lazy and don't want to work. They start drinking beer at 6.40 in the morning. That's crazy!, he says.

It would be interesting to talk to some of these lazy, uneducated Venezuelans that hard workers don't like. (I worked for my two houses - why should the government take one from me?, Francisco complained. They won't even let him rent it.) I always think if being pooor is so bad then surely people would choose to work: working must be even worse, or nonexistent, or people are unqualified to do it. How to fix this?

Despite all of this complaining, Venezuelans love their country and love Margarita especially. H, who picked me up from the airport, also expressed a love of Margarita and its beaches. Young Francisco had lived in Caracas, where his other home is. He has been on Margarita for four years and said he never wants to go back to live permanently in Caracas, which is disgusting, too much traffic.

MS woke up at 6am with me and walked me to the tour office, where Francisco picked me up. MS is lovely. He wanted to make me miss him while I am gone and he is always smiling at me. What can the future possibly hold for a Venezuelan and American-Australian? Nevertheless, we do fantasize a bit. Future travel...

Yesterday afternoon, when I got back to the house after 45 minutes at the internet cafe, I found Michel in the kitchen, eating beef. I told him I was ready to play. I admit to having been dispirited that he wasn't around when I wanted him. I had texted him when I got back to Los Robles and waited around for him. When I didn't hear back, I went to the internet cafe. He had come home as I left to find food and email. He said he didn't get my text until two hours after I sent it. I was a little morose, waiting for him to finish eathing, which he tends to do in silence. We talked about calling his friend to ask about an Amazon trip. I said that I didn't think I had time to make it there anymore but that I really wanted to see the Amazon. He said that he distracted me and I should go. It would make 24 days of malaria pills worthwhile (as opposed to all those pills for just three days in Canaima). But I didn't want to waste more time organising. I wanted, finally, to play.

We went to Pampatar, to the free government-sponsored movie theatre, Fundacion Cinemateca Nacional, that screens art, independent and foreign films. A modern building, with a roof like an open book, or bird wings, the front 'cover' much shorter than the back, it stands out amongst the palms and old rendered houses. There are Cinematecas in many of Venezuela's cities and they all look the same.

one of the national cinemas

Unfortunately the movie playing was in French with Spanish subtitles, but Rocky Horror will be showing on Monday evening, so we will go. Yay! Rocky Horror in Venezuela with a Rocky Horror virgin. Also on the schedule was Kandahar, Philadelphia, The Scent of Green Papaya, a short film by Ben Affleck and many alternative films from the 1940s and '50s. How fucking cool. I said a government that provides cheap bookstores and free movies to the people can't be all bad. MS replied, yes, that's how Chavez works - rather than doing really important things like giving people decent salaries and good jobs. Who needs money, I said, when books are cheap and movies free! We laughed, but I get his point. Yet mine still stands - a government making (Leftist) high culture accessible by all is great - even if no one does go to see the films. MS goes by himself usually and says the cinema is always empty. It was empty when we walked in yesterday. Not one person, just a movie playing on a big screen to empty chairs in the dark.

Instead of seeing the movie, MS and I walked to a lighthouse. The view from the red-brick lighthouse was beautiful. With wooden doors staggered throughout the way up, there was a continues series of balconies for rest, to feel the wind and stare at the sea. The piece of Margarita ocean the lighthouse looks to is very beautiful. There is the ocean, a narrow strip of beach, long and empty of stalls and people, and behind the beach shallow square pools separated by bars of land like rice paddies. The sun shone down on the saltwater ponds and hills rise up behind them and it was tranquil and beautiful, free of cars and garbage, just swirling dirt trails.

a view from the lighthouse

On the way from the lighthouse, MS and I walked along a road with an Inca-style impressive stone wall - cemented, but the cement was very well hidden between the narrow square stones -overlooking big hotels and apartment buldings with rooftop pools and views of the sea. We stopped at Sambil mall for chocolate (Frey's) at a huge, upscale chocolate/candy shop, with aisles and aisles of chocolate, from dime-store variety to Valentine tuffles. We bought three bars: 73% chocolate for us to keep to ourselves and 63% and 51% chocolate to share. I had a piece of the 51% - it was nice, but I am hungry for the darker stuff.

We finished off our evening at an outdoor bar over three beers each and a plate of battered deep-fried cheese sticks with sauce. Nice. That was dinner.

At the lighthouse MS told me I am beautiful. Ah, the glistening illusions of hormones! And he said it again, when we were looking at a swirling cloud. I said hurricane, he said black hole and I said, yes, where we go through and live this week again and again forever. He looked at me (how he looks at me!), hugged me and said, 'You're beautiful!'

2.30pm, Wednesday May 10, MS's ....waiting

This morning I walked to T's place to get more money off of him and he dropped me off back at the tour office to make my final payment. Walking in Margarita is a hot and barren affair. The sun is relentless and the roads so grey. It is sometimes difficult to motivate myself to go somewhere, especially if it involves a long bus ride, but once I am on my way I am fine, the sun ultimately a pleasure and my sweaty self cleaned by the trickly cold shower upon my return to MS's home.

Now I am waiting for MS to come back from his errands. I am ready to play! It has been an errand-filled two days. Last night MS was so tired he went to bed around 8pm. I was bored. Too tired to write, I read a bit but the last novella of The New York trilogy didn't hold my interest much. I sat around, bored, too hot to sleep, without keys to go for a walk. I finished Auster and finally went to bed around 10.30.

I can't figure out the rhythms of this town. Today, C and the boys (at least A, the younger one) were up at 6am, but often the boys are home in the afternoon, sometimes C is and often K is. When, exactly, is school?

8.00pm, Tuesday June 9, MS's ....finally booked

I have finally booked a tour to Canaima. I still have to get the rest of the money from T tomorrow, as I leave on Thursday for three days.

Today I spent a couple of hours at an internet cafe, booked my trip, and went to La Asuncion, the historical capital of Margarita. There is a grand municipal building there, a brick-road plaza, bright-coloured houses and more greenery.

Municipal Palace, La Asuncion

I walked around, looking for a bakery or an empanada seller or someplace that looked like it would sell something I wanted to eat, but no luck. I did come across a small plaza with stalls selling fruit, DVDs and jewellery, with chairs and tables outside belonging to a hamburger stall and a deli selling empanadas but there were no cheese empanadas left. I continued walking around until I got to the main road where the buses come and kept walking. All in all I wasn't in La Asuncion for that long - definitely no longer than an hour - but I needed to get back to give the tour agent my deposit.

No buses that were the right route came by and I finally took a taxi back to Los Robles. When I arrived back to the agency to finalise my booking, the agent, Nicol, finally figured out that we had met at Playa El Agua when I was there with N and C. The minute I had sat down at Nicol's desk I knew I had met her and I gave her a big smile, but she didn't return it and I couldn't remember where I had met her - had she helped me with bus advice? She remembered who I was when I mentioned being vegetarian, because we discussed vegetarianism on the beach with the falafel seller. I took this as an omen that I was supposed to book the trip with her. It was more expensive than the others (though also an extra day) and didn't include transport to the airport, but also I felt like I was somehow betraying MS. I had to fight with these feelings - it is my trip to do what I want/need to do with it. But he made noises about possibly coming with me, gave me the number of a friend who is a tour guide in Canaima (I called four times but no answer), but I can't wait for MS. I needed to book this trip today for fear that I'll never go - or not see anything else. How easy it is to give up one's will to a boy. But I didn't; well, I haven't entirely.

The trunks of trees here are painted blue and white. Sometimes the top, narrower, band is of another colour but mostly it is blue. I was told this is to keep bugs away.

MS thinks Venezuelans are lazy and don't want to work. I can't say I blame them. Nicol talked about how relaxed everyone is, especially on Margarita, where the common refrain ia 'Tomorrow!'

1.20am, Tuesday June 8, at MS's ....too much Spanish

The three Argentinian couchsurfers are still here after a barbeque. MS and I were at another barbeque, for the occasion of MS's boat's captain leaving to go overseas. I am writing because I am tired of listening to Spanish.

Today I saw a goat. Grazing the garbagey suburb like the cows.

MS's eyes are green, sometimes blue. I like to watch him eat because he seems to savour every bite. His friends like him very much. His filmmaking colleague attempted to explain to me several times how lucky I am to have MS as a 'boyfriend'. He is straight - here the sparkly-eyed Italian photographer moved his hand up and down. Then he put his hands together in a prayer motion. People respect and worship MS, he said, not just here, but elsewhere too. Later, when he was more drunk, the photographer praised MS again, this time to MS as well. MS is a saint, Saint M, and again reiterated how lucky I am.

At the party, they all kept referring to MS as my boyfriend. It felt odd, made me proud, made me insecure. I felt almost like an imposter, or a slut, or like, yes, how lucky I am to inhabit this role for the moment. I wonder what they will think of me later, MS and I all over each other and then I'm gone, just a fling. But I can't think of this. And it seems that such things don't dawn on MS, who lives truly in the moment.

Venezuelans aren't argumentative like Italians and Jews. There was a lot of silence at the barbeque, with one natural-born storyteller doing most of the talking. He laughed and gambolled around and made big gestures and illustrative movements, the centre of attention. I remember MS saying that the purpose of loud music is so that people do not have to talk to each other. The woman whose house we were at talked with me a bit later in the evening with her little bit of English and my little bit of Spanish and I allowed MS's fellow filmmaker sell me a pair of blue dangly fake-crystal earrings that I didn't really want.

We stayed at the barbeque for a long time. Through the afternoon and as night fell we drank rum and Cokes, swam and talked in the small round pool of the host's apartment complex, and danced to a selection of concert DVDs played on a rigged-up television: rock, hip-hop, blues. I have yet to encounter anything on earth as sexy as dancing with MS - and this mostly was not good music to dance to. But I stayed close, my eyes locked on him, his eyes, his chest, I wanted to go home.

But, wait, it gets better. MS and I hitched a ride home in his boss's jeep. MS and I were in the back, with another drunken reveller. Riding in the back of an open jeep, the wind flowing through my hair and touching my eyes, watching the scrubby, hilly scenery of Margarita pass by in the moonlight was not too huge a step down from riding the waves on the catamaran. People ride in the back of trucks in South America all the time. Finally it was my turn.

11.15pm, Sunday June 7, at MS's ....such a nice family

MS has a lovely family. The only raised voices I have heard in the house have been directed to a dog. His older nephew helps put groceries away and the younger one give me his cheek for a kiss when he says hello. The older boy is handsome, with sparkly eyes and quite ways, while the younger boy is a charmer.

Young women in Venezuela seem to like their children. Children are well-behaved and I haven't noticed a mother screaming at or hitting her child in public. The kids on the buses have been quiet and the kids in the plazas have been running happily. I haven't witnessed a tantrum or a child crying because she didn't get what she wanted and many mothers hold and caress their children.

MS and I went to Pampatar today. We took a boat ride around some of Margarita's coastline. There are many half-finished and just-started builidngs. A whole little settlement on an overhang is unfinished but looks more like old ruins than new abandonments, glassless houses in various styles thrown together. A grizzled-before-his-time boatman with big stitches in the bottom of his foot, acompanied by a black-skinned handsome muscular man that appears to be retarded, drives our boat. The black man grunts and whoops, salutes and whistles.

We passed boats heaped with netting, one with a string of plastic drink bottles hanging like Christmas lights from poles on either end of the boat. We passed around men fishing off of a pier and young people standing about, looking towards the shore. Margarita is pretty from this distance. The hills are more striking.

I might have taken this photo from the boat

We had to cut the boat tour short because of problems with the engine. As MS and I walked back towards Pampatar we passed people having huge parties at beach kiosks, with plastic tables and chairs and salsa music.

For dinner we went to T's, where C, her boys, MS and I joined T and his wife, their son and his girlfriend and a young man,J, who is living with them. T's wife cooked hamburgers and I observed that this large gathering was much more subdued than what a dinner with my Italian family would be like.

2.00pm, Saturday June 6, a panaderia in Pampatar

I have bought a cheese-stuffed pastry, two bread rolls and something that looks like a chocolate square of sour gummy candy. I can't wait to see what it is like.

Last night, after we arrived home from Coche and showered, MS and I emailed a bit at the internet cafe then went to a Mexican restaraunt in Las Robles that he had been keen to try. For starters we had corn kernels in a light sauce with what I think was Parmesan and another cheese grated on top. Simple and delicious. MS ate chimichangas and I had cheese quesadillas. If one eats vegetarian here one doesn't get more vegetables but lots of cheese. MS's meat was served with a side of tomato, onion and coriander salsa and hot green salsa. All very nice.

After Coche and Mexican food I'm now used to eating again.

MS thinks that Chavez does good things but doesn't let anyone speak out against him or the government. He doesn't spend enough money on the poor to make the changes he promises real and gives to the rich to keep them in line. He needs the poor to stay in power.

The brown sugar-crystal-covered sweet is not to my taste. I don't know what it is but it is certainly not chocolate, maybe some kind of fruit. I'll bring it home and ask MS.

early afternoon, Saturday June 6, Pampatar beach ....must sort my days out

I am losing my days. I thought it was Thursday yesterday. I am on my own again today as MS is at work. I don't have a big day planned. I will call T, who is giving me bolivars in return for my Euros, to see when I can pick up the money and go to another tour agency around here. Maybe I will go back to Pampatar as well. We'll see.

I think the coffee here tastes different because of the milk - which is powdered and then put in the blender with water. This makes it a little foamy. If I am right about this, I want powdered milk more often. For that I would need a blender.

Trying to catch up with my reporting. On the way home from Playa el Agua on Tuesday, I met a Canadian girl on the bus. The only other passenger, she obviously was not from here - fair skin, blue eyes and all - so I asked her if she spoke English and sat next to her. She was amazing - an environmental consultant working for a few months at a mine in Georgetown (Guyana). She was beaching it up in Venezuela before heading back to the jungle, this time in Trinidad/Tobago. Pretty, outgoing, voluptuous, with a loud throaty voice and long blonde hair she is smart and traipsing about the jungle by herself, not to mention working in the middle of nowhere with a load of men: I am jealous. When we arrived in Porlamar and looked for the bank I needed, she went up to two big, gold-bedecked young black men to ask if there was a branch of the bank nearby. She had heard them speaking English. They talked solely to her. Finally as we were saying goodbye one of them made a comment to me about my not speaking. I responded that they hadn't spoken to me and the Canadian said that she was speaking for me. Jealous and intimidated I was. Attractiveness is so relative.

I hopped on a bus at Porlamar and MS, being driven home from work, found me wandering around a street near his house, trying to find my way home. Embarrassing...

In the evening, MS and I went to pick up his sister at their friend's house. T is a colleague of MS's father and is originally Dutch. He left Venezuela in the early '90s when the political situation was unstable but returned seven years ago. His is the first fancy house I have seen in Venezuela, with white tile floors and blue walls, lots of clean open space, a living room of couches and art objects. Mostly while I was there I listened to everyone talk in Spanish.

When we got home, MS made us arepas. He fried them in soy oil (rather than grilling them on a hotplate) so they tasted like popcorn - so delicious! We stood at the kitchen counter stuffing them with avocado and cheese. Perfect. Then, satisified in our tummies, we retired to MS's room to listen to music.

MS is very sweet to me. He is chivalrous - always making sure I go in a door first, kissing my eyes - though he is certainly not beyond asking me to do things or help out. He was great when my coughing was at its hacking, racking worst (did I mention I've had a cough since I left Melbourne?), getting out of bed to walk to the house and make me milk with honey. Also, I love his accent. English is better when it is spoken with an accent and spoken just a little bit wrongly sometimes.

Cows and horses graze in the suburb on garbage-strewn weedy empty lots. It is strange and, for me, a bit disgusting, but nice to see them as I walk to or from MS's.

I am back on Pampatar beach. Not for a swim but for something to do, somewhere to be. I called T but the mobile phone kept cutting out and I had difficulty understanding him. I will walk around the town a bit later.

Every town and suburb in Venezuela has a Plaza Bolivar. It is always well-kept, with a statue of Bolivar and benches.

Plaza Bolivar, Pampatar

Staying for a while somewhere allows me to finally get to know the place a bit. I now know where to catch the buses and how to get to and from them!

7.00pm, Friday June 5, at MS's ....my life as a movie

I have just had the most awesome day. I can't believe it was mine. MS and I went to a resort on Coche Island, Coche Paradise. We paid $500 bolivars for all-you-can-eat-and-drink, a room, access to two pools (one looking out over the beach) and the beach chairs belonging to the resort. I have never been to a resort before as it is not really my kind of thing - but it was just the thing! In addition to the pina coladas, a cool room and double bed were most welcome.

MS and I arrived at Paradise in the early evening. We ran pretty immediately to the pool to play in the water and drink cocktails. The resort was fairly empty - off-season and midweek - so it was quiet and we had the pool to ourselves. After romping around the pool for a bit, I wanted to go to the ocean. MS thought the water too cold but for me it was warm and I swam by myself for a bit. The main course for dinner that evening was something nice. I am not sure what it was nor if it was purely vegetarian, but I ate more food than I have eaten in a long time: rice with mushrooms, salad, bread, pasta with chees and vegetables, two glasses of red wine, fruit and a cookie for dessert.

After dinner, more drinks down on the beach. There was no one else on the beach. We watched the light ball of sun disappear into the water and I found myself getting a little attached to MS in a way I didn't want.

So, imagine me in a resort with a curvy pool complete with bubbles and a clear view of the sea; palm-lined walkways, a prehistoric-looking lizard-like animal meandering around or frozen in place near the pool; other lizards scuttling about; a big red parrot with blue and green under-feathers. Imagine a white-sanded beach with shaded sun chairs. Imagine me there, the only woman not in a bikini, with armpit hair.

The next morning I woke up earlier than MS and kept dozing until finally I got up to use the bathroom and take a shower. MS was awake when I emerged from the shower and we barely made it for breakfast: scrambled eggs with tomato, capsicum and onion, hot chocolate, arepas, sliced white cheese and, best of all, fried plantains. A little kitten purred in my lap while I ate. It was heaven.

After breakfast we walked down to the beach and MS found his workmates from the boat that he films tourists on. He organised for us to ride back with them. I had two short 'swims' while MS brought cocktails for the first mate and the photographer. The first mate, buff, dark, tough-looking, tattooed and handsome, sang MS's praises. He told me that MS is always happy.

The ride on the catamaran is one of the most awesomely fun things I have ever experienced. I stood on the prow, held on to the mast, and enjoyed the rough ride when a large wave would come, causing the boat to crash down into the water, soaking me and making my feet leave the platform. I helped by jumping at the appropriate moment and it felt like I was flying. MS had his arms around me most of the time, but for a while I stood there by myself, jumping and laughing with joy. No one else stayed out on the deck for a soaking but nothing would have made me leave. Nothing I can write expresses the sheer fun and joy and awesomeness of flying by catamaran, soaked with the salt of the sea.

12.30pm, Tuesday June 2, Sambil mall food court ....nothing is smooth

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.

1.30pmish, Monday June 1 ....not what I expected

When C called me this morning to see if I wanted to join her at the beach, I told her I was going to climb a mountain with MS. We didn't go mountain climbing like I had hoped. We stayed in bed. MS and I late-breakfasted on avocado, tomato and cheese sandwiches. It felt great to eat and I allowed myself coffee again. MS brought out the Spanish olive oil we bought at the supermarket last night and it was delicious. I drove with MS and K to the bank, then back again to wait for N and C to come here and cook.

I am bitten by multiple mosquitoes. There don't appear to be any glass windows in this house: just bars. This keeps the house cool but full of mosquitoes. I think I am the only one who gets bitten. I have mosquito bites all over my legs, feet and fingers. The rash on my left arm seems to be growing in proportion with the shrinking of my eye.

I've put on a load of washing and handwashed my sarong and shirt and, ah, I will have clean clothes again (though I have not been smelly at all while travelling). Three couchsurfers just arrived - N, C and S (male). There will be a lot of Spanish spoken tonight, I suspect.

Oi, I'm really not up for being social in a language I don't speak. I haven't had a chance to be alone in the past couple of days. The problem with Venezuela is that there is no point in saying, I'll just go for a walk. There's really nowhere to go - it isn't pretty or interesting to walk around - just walls, gates and garbage-dribbled empty lots. Otherwise, I would go for a walk now.

Yesterday afternoon, MS and I went to the beach. I was starving. We walked in the heat along deserted roads and caught a bus to the local beach - the one used by Margarita families rather than tourists. First we walked through an old fortification currently being renovated and with a good view overlooking the ocean. Inside the walls, we walked onto a stone floor with pink-painted galleries on four sides, one of which had been a prison. Up stairs on the far end was a rampart with a view.


view from Castillo de San Carlos Borromeo

MS said that private companies put on concerts here but the locals protested because it is a public place. The guard at the door told MS that the government has now agreed to hold any events open to the public and Castillo de San Carlos Borromeo will have longer opening hours.

At a bakery I got something for breafast called a quesadilla, but it bore no resemblance to the Mexican kind. It was a bready pastry with a strange topping. Apple, I think, but exceedingly sweet with an indescribable odd flavour that I couldn't stomach. I ate around the topping but the quesadilla was only small. Mostly I drank Coke Zero. After finally filling my stomach, I went into the water. Pampatar was full (but not overfull) of people, mostly families with lots of cute little girls. The water was waveless and a few small yachts floated nearby. The beachside stalls were better upkept then at Playa el Agua and there were fewer people selling jewellery on boards and handing us artworks. There was an ice-cream seller with a computerised repetitious melody that drove us a little batty. MS and I played in the water, we sat in the shade cast by palms on the beach and MS taught me the words for sand, palms, clouds and boats (arena, palmeras, ollas, botes). I was also dealing with my discomfort with public displays of affection, especially when the boy displaying affection is not a long-term partner. Clearly, though, my discomfort was limited...

Despite the calmness of the water I like Pampatar better than Agua - it has more character and feeling. I've discovered that palms do not necessarily make a beach beautiful. They can just simply be there in the background not making much of an impression.


Pampatar beach

For our evening snack MS made chapatis - lovely, warm, dense and chewy - which we ate with pumpkin soup made by MS's sister. I went grocery shopping with MS to an enormous supermarket. It wasn't white like in America and Australia, so was more pleasant, with huge aisles. Nevertheless it was crowded.

MS invited me to his room that evening, which he built in the back of the courtyard. He meant to build two little flats, but inflation rose and he could no longer afford the building materials. The rectangular building remains hollow except for the one finished room with beautiful decorative wooden girders. We had a great night in that room.

?, Sunday May 31, at MS's ....things get better

I arrived at MS's house in the suburb of Los Robles on Friday evening, probably around 8.00. All I wanted was a shower, especially in the hopes of relieving my itchy eyes. It was a while before I got one.

MS lives in a big white house with a large red-tiled courtyard in the back, dominated by a big tree that drops large red fruit and makes everything magenta. There are five dogs and three cats. We enter the house through a gate into the large, tiled kitchen/dining room. Once again there is only cold water in the trickly shower. I haven't explored the house but it seems to sprawl with a bunch of white-walled rooms.

Another couchsurfer, N, Argentinian, was here when I arrived. I thought he was hot, with his necklace and curly brown hair. Also, MS's sister, C, and her husband K live here with their two sons (teenage and adolescent). MS is Venezuelan but grew up in Buenos Aires. He films tourists on their ocean tours and has couchsurfed around Venezuela but not seen all of it yet.

MS cooked N and I a dinner of pasta and meat sauce. I scooped up the sauce around the meat. I don't think beef flavour enhances sauce. Ms is warm and we had a good chat, easy and personal right off the bat - not that I'm not usually like that.

After admitting that I was worried about trying to find the buses to the beach and finding my way back, N offered to take me to the beach with him the next morning. MS had to work. I woke up at 8.00am and read while I waited for N to wake up. N and K appeared around 9.30 and K made us breakfast of tiny toasts with butter and jam. N and K needed to go to the bank, so I tagged along in order to later be dropped off at the por puesto stop to Playa el Agua. I had a brief wander around the mall where the bank was. I don't like malls in Venezuela any more than I like malls anywhere else, but I did buy another disposable camera ($30 bolivars) at a Kodak shop.

N's very sexy friend C, also Argentinian and also a couchsurfer, is working as a waitress while living on Margarita and she joined us for the afternoon. C, with her big husky voice and large eyes, was the one who knew how to get to the beach. We met a few friends of hers close to the far end of Playa el Agua, past all the umbrellas and beach chairs, stands of food and drink. Also past where others were swimming.


Playa el Agua

This is Venezuelans' idea of a beautiful beach. I feel like I'm always a negative voice, critical and complaining, and I am trying to throw off that role, but I don't want to lie about my trip and my impressions. For me, compared to Australian beaches, Agua is ordinary. The water was olive green and cloudy, the food shacks sometimes dilapidated and hodgepodge, the sand dark, flat and stirred up by feet. The beach doesn't have dunes or beautiful beach scrub. On the far end is a pretty sand hill with green vegetation, but that is all that stood out.

A handsome bearded man selling homemade falafel, and who explained his belief in Indian subcontinental spirituality, told us that Agua usually has good surf but today is calm. There were waves breaking near the shore, but the water was shallow for such a long way that I couldn't play in them properly. Also, despite the relative smallness of the waves, they were powerful and knocked me down. I couldn't hold up my weight against them and kept tumbling backwards. Despite this, it was much welcomed to finally be in the ocean after my days of hot and humid waiting.

After my solo fight with the waves I joined the others, who took turns swimming. This was not a good day for me. N isn't particularly talkative with me, and though C is lovely, she and the others spoke Spanish and I felt bored and lonely. I wished I was on the beach by myself as being alone is never as lonely as feeling alone with people. One of C's friends, a computing professor, spoke some English and I chatted with her and the falafel seller, who also spoke English. Eventually I decided that it would not be rude to read. I read, I went back into the water, I walked along the beach, I had a beer. C left around 3.00 and the others had left before her. N napped and listened to his MP3 player while I alternately walked and read. At 5.00, I woke him up. We had been warned not to stay too late or else we'd miss the last por puesto back to the city.

N and I had begun walking back towards the road when a man stopped us to say that a tortoise had been found on the beach. Playa el Agua is dotted with orange tape and stake enclosures around small areas of sand with signs reading 'tortoise eggs, do not step on.' N had explained that Agua is famous for its huge tortoises, and a volunteer society protects their eggs by erecting barriers and helping make sure the hatchlings get safely to the sea.

We turned back around so that we could see the tortoise, but when we got to a site of commotion, all we saw was a dense circle of excited people, some men up on a raised platform directing the activity below and whistling and shouting, someone digging a hole and other people walking around inside the enclosure. I assume that eggs were found and were being buried. I did not see a tortoise.

N and I caught a por puesto back to Porlamar and he left me near the bus stop to Los Robles. When I got back to the plaza with the big, tacky, iridescently painted clamshell I tried to remember how to get back MS's. I walked for a bit, realizing I had no idea which way to go.

It was dark and I decided it was probably not a good idea to keep wandering. So I sheepishly called MS, walked back to the plaza, and he picked me up. I made sure to pay attention on the way but I'm still not sure I could get to MS's place or back again.

When we arrived back at MS's house, he made us very nice coffee. He said it is normal percolated coffee with whole milk, but it had an extra flavour, a bit nutty or spicy. Delicious. I presume it must be the flavour of powdered milk, which is a bit frothy from the blender. I had a little pack of milk biscuits and one of salted crackers. And that, along with the morning's bread and the afternoon's beer, was all I ate that day. I love this not being hungry thing. I've lost weight, even despite all the cheese I ate with S. I hope I can keep the weight off in NY with its pizza and Mexican food. Maybe if I move to Brisbane, where it is hot and humid most of the year, I'll be thinner.

MS asked me if I wanted to go out for drinks with him and I said yes. I thought that something might happen between us and before we went out I practiced saying no, using my swollen eye and red blotches as an excuse. I do look terrible: my left eyelid is huge, making my face uneven, strange and red. I felt itchy and ugly. Nevertheless, I did not say no.

4.00pm, Friday May 29, Plaza Bolivar, Porlamar ....live music

I presume you remember my email in which I let you know that I did recover S's phone from the hotel room, so this morning was not a disaster.

After a long, hot and ugly bus ride to the central neighbourhood of Porlamar, I am sitting behind a statue of Bolivar, listening to PSUV-sponsored (United Socialist Party of Venezuela) music. There are guards in green standing on the stage and now a woman is singing. In Venezuela, as well as in Buenos Aires, vendors (here, on buses) put their wares into the hands of passive passengers, talking through a spiel and collecting the wares again, hopefully leaving a few behind for people who buy the goods. Almost everyone accepts the goods and gives them back again. When Sandra and I were on a bus with sellers spruiking charity cards and chocolates, a couple of guys and us were the only people on a full bus who politely declined.

I have been told that Margarita beaches are beautiful, but the highway from the ferry is uninspiring. On one side arise hills in the near distance. On the other there is cactus and desert scrub for only a short distance before giving way to brownish grass and a nondescript landscape. On the hilly side of the highway, every so often a strip or square of houses or apartment buildings appears, quite close to the road and seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

I have just watched a girl in a black mini-skirt, maroon top and red bits in her uneven hair walk by, a rare sight in a city where most women dress the same: tight jeans, tight top, hair-coloured long hair.

I need to get out of ugly urbanised areas full of traffic and beeping horns. I am over it. I will never travel like this again. Tours are beginning to look really good right now; next time I will organise to stay longer with couchsurfers or book hotel rooms in town centres. I can't do anything here in Porlamar with this big backpack. Not so much because I am worried about someone stealing my stuff but because there are hordes of people, narrow sidewalks full of street vendors and little, tiny shops. I would just get in everyone's way.

Couchsurfing is wonderful. Without S I don't know what I would have done. She is 7 years younger than me but is looking after me like my mother. The couchsurfing hosts I have met are passionate about couchsurfing and love meeting people from different countries. But they live in suburbs and go to work and I have to work around their schedules and figure out how to get around (which I am lousy at). Oh well, I am learning all about how not to travel.

There's going to be a dance - girls in lime green tank tops with blue-flowered skirts, also printed with big red flowers. I cannot seem them anymore as the crowd has massed.

It is cooler here, clouded, and I am hungry again.

11.15am, Friday May 29 ...small victories

I am at the ferry terminal. About six or seven people each with one eye covered in a white bandage, just walked in. How weird.

I just watched an ad on the waiting room television that featured close-ups of a couple kissing, full-on tongue kissing, very close up. I've never seen an ad like that before.

Yesterday morning I attempted to follow the Lonely Planet Venezuela's directions to the por puesto to Mochima, a national park renowned for its beautiful beaches. This did not work out. I walked for 15 or 20 minutes until I found a bus station, but none of the buses said 'Mochimo' and when I asked someone for help she said there was no bus there but didn't know where I should go. I walked on for a bit, but the neighhbourhood began to look quite dodgy, with run-down houses, a mission, blaring sun, workmen lolling around, wide long roads. I decided that I better turn back since I wasn't even sure if I was going the right way. I called MM to see if she was available to play in the afternoon.

When I got back to the hotel room I found that the bar of chocolate S had given me, which I completely forgot about, had melted all over everything in my bag. I washed out my purse and its contents in the trickly shower, wrote, and napped before waiting for MM to arrive at Plaza Bolivar.

MM first took me to the tourist office to get a map to show me where the Mochima por puestos are. I think I was walking the right way after all, it was just much farther away than I expected. Then MM took me to beach, blessed girl. She asked me what I wanted to do and I said 'I'm desperate to get to the beach!' So she took me there, first stopping to get her friend, also a couchsurfer. The beach was nice for a city beach - big and long, with many little wooden huts selling beer, ice-cream and other treats lining the back edge, and a row of square wood and palm shade structures standing mid-beach. The water was calm and warm.

The three of us, MM, her friend and I, drank light beer and chatted. I ran down to the water for a wade. Another friend of MM's, J, joined us. Once he came the dynamic changed, like when Mr. I arrived at M's apartment before we left for the salsa club. J was smiley and chatty and the centre of attention, and didn't speak English.

After three and a quarter beers I really had to pee. I asked if there were bathrooms around and was told no, the ocean is my toilet. So I put my bathing suit on and went for a short swim. Before I finished my fourth beer I had to pee again, but I tried to ignore it. By the time we walked back to the por puesto stop, I couldn't hold out much longer, so I asked if I could go in the woods on the side of the road. Yes, MM and co said.

(I am on the ferry now - it has assigned seats!)

So I crunched unsteadily over prickly bracken, sat on a conveniently placed log and quickly peed. When I emerged, everyone started slapping me. Many, and large, mosquitoes had discovered me in the woods. So now I am scratched and bitten up. The bites aren't too itchy, though, not as bad as the mango welts that have invaded my neck and inner thigh and swollen my left eyelid. Luckily the welts aren't very noticeable. Maybe if they were, or my pimples were back, I'd be left alone on park benches.

The taxi driver that brought me to the ferry marina told me that I'm finding myself safe and sound in Venezuela because I'm pretty. Ha. It brings me idle older men! It happened to me again today. I sat down in the park to eat my breakfast of a bread loaf and on the second bite a man with a crutch sat down to talk with me. Again I had trouble understanding him but he continued talking. He suggested we walk by the river, so we did, very slowly. I told him I was waiting for the Museo de Antonio Jose de Sucre to open at 10.00am. He came to the museum with me. At least someone understood the young female guide's Spanish explanations as she took us through the mansion to see portraits of Antonio José de Sucre - a friend of Bolivar's who won many crucial battles in South America's fight for independence - his diamond-studded swords and other personal and household artefacts. The ground floor of the museum showed a collection of current artworks for sale, some of which were very good, some of which appeared quite amateur to my unstudied eye.

After I left the museum with my suitor he tried to get me to go in a car with him, maybe to his house - at least somewhere with a baño (bathroom) and comida (food) anyway. I took out my Spanish conversation book and cobbled together a sentence to communicate that I wasn't comfortable. I walked with him a bit more, failing to understand him but afraid he was saying something about marrying me (he kept showing me an official document and pointing out his last name and I think said something about being with me all his life), so I finally said that not being able to talk in Spanish was making me tired and I was going to go. 'Adios!'

I still ask, where are all the hot 30-something Australian men telling me how beautiful I am and wanting to marry me when they see me sitting on a bench by myself?

After leaving the gentleman near the museum, I walked through some nice streets with old, colourful, low houses and achieved one of the small victories on this trip that I cherish in the face of all my self-made adversities: I found a place to buy a pen!, a shop selling papeles (paper) and related articles. It was very cheap. This is a relief as writing with my blunt little pencil was difficult. Now I have a cute frosted light green-blue pen.

My ardent stranger was only part of another one of those mornings: neverending fun with yours truly. I meant to catch the 7.00am ferry to Isla Margarita today. I woke up on my own at 5.18am and got out of the hotel and into a taxi and was at the terminal by 6.00am. I was confused as to whether the terminal I was at sold tickets for both the expensive and cheaper ferries. I had a sneaking suspion no, but I didn't see where another ticket desk would be. As I was waiting in the long line I realised that I had left S's phone charging in the hotel room.

So I wouldn't be catching the 7.00am ferry.

This wasn't a disaster. What could be a disaster is losing S's cell phone. MS, who I am couchsurfing with on Margarita, texted last night to say he had to work all day today, so I was expecting to spend the day on Margarita with my backback,limited in what I can do. So, arriving six hours later seemed in many ways a good thing. However, I have wasted time and money.

I stayed in line in order to purchase a ticket for the afternoon ferry and after a half an hour I got to the window and realized, as I thought, that it was only selling tickets for the rapid ferry. I was pointed in the direction of the other ticket booth, which I eventually found. I waited in a much shorter but very slow line and, after trying to say that I wanted a ticket for mid-day and struggling to understand what the woman behind her plastic window was trying to tell me, I accepted a piece of paper on which she wrote a message for me to take back to the other ferry window, that I wanted a 1.00pm ticket. The cheap ferry, I finally understood, only goes once a day. So back to the other ferry terminal again.

Once I finally had a ticket in my hot little hands, I got into the cab of a nice taxi driver, who, when I asked whether he liked Chavez, said 'no' quite quickly, but then said 'mas o menos' and explained that (I think) Chavez does good things for the poor, like make sure they have food, but everything he does isn't good. Some good, some bad. I said that was normal.

W had expressed distrust of Argentina's current government, thinking the Left and Right are essentially the same people, but Argentina's pretty young female president is considered by
S's father to be one of the several Latin American reformists trying to achieve social change.

It is still very hot here. It means I'm not very hungry, only thirsty. Such a welcome reprieve! I can subsist on a loaf of bread all day despite getting used to big meals at S's. I hope this lasts for the rest of my time in Venezuela - it makes things easier and cheaper. I look at restaurants advertising arepas and cachapas and think, 'it's too hot!'

That said, MM's friend J cooked a lovely pasta for us for dinner. He sauteed onion, little yellow peppers, tomato paste, hunks of chicken on the bone, zucchini and green olives with water and olive oil and made a shitload of pasta, a big roasting pan full of dinner. The olives were different than any I've tasted - shrivelled and thin like kalamatas, but green. I left the chicken to the others and gorged on pasta. We all did, five of us, and still half the pasta was left. An orange and white striped kitten circled around us as we drank pear nectar and twirled spaghetti on the second floor balcony of MM's friend's big Venezuelan abode. It was a very nice evening, though everyone was speaking Spanish so I edged around the borders of boredness for a while.

10.00pm, Thursday May 29, Hotel Italia ....up early

Tonight I killed two little round cockroaches. One I drowned in the sink, the other I crushed on the wall with my diary. It left a lot of slime on my diary. I also squashed two tiny baby cockroaches.

Some of you make fun of my discussion of pee, but doesn't everyone have this problem? I know I pee more than anyone else but everyone has to pee. What do you do when you find yourself in an unfamiliar place where nothing looks recognisable and you really have to pee? So, yes, this blog is mostly about food and pee. A few people I studied with were working on theses about the body, more specifically, the neglect of it in philosophy. One co-worker was using the body in a Marxist framework, discussing how contemporary expectations of workers view people as if they are only minds and not bodies. These ignored bodies complicate the simplistic model of the mind-only worker and citizen and her relation to work and civility.

So, yes, pee isn't something we are supposed to talk about in politics, society, but is one of the few universal aspects of our experience in the world. Such experience has added tensions when travelling.

Okay, off to bed. I have to get up at 5.30am to catch a ferry.

10.30pm, Wednesday May 27, on the bus

This bus has leg rests! My calves are supported and I can elevate my feet a bit. This bus is much nicer than anything Greyhound ever imagined - double-decker even.



9.00am, Thursday May 28, Hotel Italia, Cumana

The driver kept the lights off in the bus, so no reading or writing.

I arrived in Cumana, Venezuela's oldest city, at 5.30am, waited for a long while for a bus into town, then wandered around in the area of Plaza Bolivar while waiting for the hotel to open at 7.30am. As I wandered, a stream of young men, some in military green, most in civilian shorts, emerged from a big old building, shouting, and ran around the Bolivar statue and then on down the street. I assume that the old building is some sort of military school.

My hotel room has light grey tile floor, yellow walls and two twin beds: tile platforms laid with mattresses covered by pink, yellow and blue horizontal-striped sheets. Each bed on either side of the narrow room, near the door, has a towel and a sheet folded on the end and hard tall pillows. There is a small television up in the air in one far corner, near the bathroom, two small bedside tables, one beside a bed, the other at the far end of the same bed. The best part of this dingy room is the dark bright pink toilet paper. The shower is a cold small stream with some acompanying trickles, the ceiling stained pasteboard. I am used to it now and it is alright, though at first I missed Allan - I've never been in such a budget hotel by myself before. However, the room is cleanish and the bugs in the bathroom are small and not cockroaches. I am waiting until 10.00am to call MM.

8.45pm, Wednesday May 27, Rodavia bus station ....the best part begins

I am starting a new notebook! And I forgot to bring a pen. This little pencil will only last so long since I can't sharpen it, only pick at it.

At 10.45pm I will take a night bus to Cumana, which is near the beaches of Maracaibo and the beaches of Isle Margarita. I will meet MM (female), who has recommended me a cheap hostel, in Cumana. MS (male), who lives on Margarita, will host me (with his family) and help me organise my further travels to Canaima and Amazonas. This is, of course, thanks to S.

I have given in on my plans to be strong and do this travelling thing by myself. As usual I expressed my anxieties - making poor S worry for me and organise others to help me. This is a point of couchsurfing, I suppose, but I'm not as fearful as I sound. I am anxious beforehand, but I know things are usually fine when I get where I'm going - all my difficulties so far, while throwing me into funks, have been minor. Nevertheless, I am happy to have MS to help with organisation and S's 2001 Lonely Planet Venezuela with maps - though it does make the load I have to carry on my back heavier.

I also have S's old mobile phone, which She insisted I take, so my technology-less plans are also only a heroic ideal. S feels better being able to know that I am safe. It does make things considerably easier, except that now I have to make sure not to lose the phone. Here, every other street stalls sell phone recharge cards - a much better system than Australia's.

I am taking the more expensive bus to Cumana. It is really only a few more American dollars, but again I feel like I'm chickening out from an authentic experience. I was worried that the cheaper bus won't have toilets. Seriously, this is my only concern! I have visions of those hardy folk who travel in rickety buses with chickens. I'd love to be that sort, but my bladder... maybe one day, when I'm more experienced with all this, or can ask if there are plenty of toilet stops.

Today was a very low-key day. I am strangely tired - now and earlier. I had a decent night's sleep, waking up at 8.30am surprisingly ready to get out of bed. F was gone for his torture at Guantanamo (physical therapy) and I had the apartment to myself. I decided to have a go at making arepas. It is simple: mix water and arepa cornflour until the right consistency, put in salt as well, make into a ball, flatten and put on the hot plate. I made two and ate them with black beans and mozzarella. It was too much food. I was stuffed. I did dishes and then grabbed my book. I read for a short time in a way I haven't been able to in awhile. I was waiting for F to come home at 11.00am, when I would accompany him to the bank to transfer money. I felt so tired around 11.30am while reading that I lay down and napped until noon.

I spent the afternoon with F and A. F made us butter-sauteed plantains with cheese in the middle and black beans. I was stuffed again. We also downed a bottle of Chilean white wine together, while F talked about his childhood and studies and lifestyle. We agreed we each are weird compared to our peers. He finds other elderly gentlemen too conservative and makes friends with the couchsurfers. I told him my friends are often older. Two glasses of wine made me tired again and the third woke me up to tipsiness.

When F and I went out to run our errands we passed a truck full of little mangos at half the price S bought them for at the market two days previously (1 kilo eaten in two days!): 2 kilos for $5 bolivars. So F bought 4 kilos. I ate 2 mangos when I got home and now have an allergic reation - itchy around the mouth. If I don't scratch too much I should be fine. After my zits have finally gone the last thing I want is a blown-up red face. But mangoes are always worth the risk.

S came home at 5.00, earlier than expected. Around 6.30pm, a little restless, I invited A for a walk and she wanted to know where to, so I said 'Por helado'. She definitely was up for ice-cream. I was still stuffed, really, but... The gelato wasn't as good as what we had at the mall. I had Oreo and lime flavours, but the lime was creamy as well as limey (when I said this and S tasted it, she laughed and laughed - because it was true!, unexpected, and not very good). Lime here is called limon and lemons are called limes. Their relative prices are reversed as well, with limes coming cheap and commonly available and lemons expensive and harder to come by.

While walking I asked S about her couchsurfing experience, specifically how many weeks out of the year she spends alone. She has had 30 couchsurfers already and has only been in couchsurfing for a year. She said that mostly she doesn't hang out with her surfers during the day; often they are here to study or research or just do their own thing and she takes them to a party on the weekend. Of course this news made me feel bad - that I need to be babysat. Let's face it, I do.

Violent movies accost me from the television in the bus station. Both times I've looked up at the screen it showed a roomful of men pointing guns at each other. In a city that has a problem with violence in public, why show movies such as this?

12.11am, Wednesday May 27, bed at S's ....replete

I call Caracas the city of hanging string. There are many sculptures consisting of some form of (usually) metal strings hanging to the ground, usually in some sort of cube pattern, and creating shadow illusions by the way they are positioned.

I felt completely replete after the beer and alone-time to write. When I got back to S's apartment, she was home and had brought with her another couchsurfer, J-L. He came to exchange money with me but his card wouldn't work in the ATM machines and it was finally barred, so no exchange from him. S's dad wrote me another cheque instead.

S had problems getting home this evening due to delayed trains, which caused such overcrowding that someone felt free to yank one of S's earring out of her ear. So she walked to M's and she and J-L had dinner and beer with M. Tonight she and J-L called couchsufers in Cumana and Isle Margarita to help host and find tours for me. I'll be off tomorrow evening on a night bus.

My pimples have finally faded and no new ones arrived, my face is tan and my hair is great in this humididty - curly and neither dry nor greasy. I'm finally feeling attractive again.

And this brings me to the end of notebook 1, where I am writing on the inside back cover now - farewell my fine red friend.