3.00pmish, Sunday June 28, AA airplane ....to the US

My South American adventure is over. I had a great last day with S, who said she would miss me. Last night MS rang me on her mobile and chattered at me for 20 minutes or so. I think I understood about three quarters of what he said - I hate mobile phones. It was so nice to hear him speak, his cheery sentence structure and distinctive voice. I had already been missing it. He followed up with a message to S's phone telling me not to miss him too much - we would see each other soon. I think that's what it said - S took the phone away from me too fast. I love that he called and texted. I love that he doesn't hold back those impulses. It is lovely to be that well-regarded.

I must finish the tales of the last days of my Venezuelan adventure. Take your mind back to the Amazon, a group of four disappointed excursionistas wondering what exactly our guides had in store for us.

When MS and I arrived back at the river from our failed attempt to weave a path through the forest, we found Tito and the boatman beaming over beautiful huge fish they had caught. MS took photos but it pained me to see such beautiful creatures dead, one huge fat fish gutted by a spear.

MS and I played in the water for a bit, me finally ditching my bra and shorts for my swimsuit. Dinner that evening was platanos, avocado, rice and a salad with tomato and cucumber. We were provided with a bottle of red wine this time and for dessert a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting to celebrate...something. I can't remember what. A birthday? A holiday? Silence reigned while we were eating, but I talked for a couple of hours with Andreas, about Germany and its social democracy, lazy Berliners.

In the evening, MS and I decided to experiment sleeping together in a hammock, partly because we were both so cold the night before. I got into the hammock first and when MS rolled in, me trying to move to one side of the hammock, I burst into a hysterical laughing fit. I couldn't move and it was all so awkward and immobilising. It has been a long time since I laughed like that. Us trying to get comfortable in a hammock was hilarious. Finally I found myself with my head on MS's chest and our legs tangled together and I actually slept for a while. But when I woke up I shifted a bit and suddenly felt suffocated, like I couldn't breathe properly. I allowed a slightly panicky feeling to overtake me and finally told MS that I was uncomfortable and suggested we sleep in different hammocks.

Back here on the plane, we are stuck on the runway waiting for paperwork to be completed because one of the fuel tanks isn't working. This is not a problem for flying, the captain assured us, but the plane still needs dispatch permission to fly with one out-of-order fuel tank. The captain spoke to us again to explain further that the legal requirement of 12 fuel tanks is excessive to the practical requirement of only eight working tanks for the plane to fly, and even if they suddenly broke, gravity would come to our rescue. The problem of the busted fuel tank is thus a problem only for the maintenance men. If this was a problem, the captain said, he certainly wouldn't be flying because of all the billions of lives on the planet his is the most important one.

5.00am, Sat June 27, bus, ...my life as romance movie

I am in Maracay. The bus stopped and I transferred to a new bus. Almost too late. I didn't really know what was going on, but the bus driver figured out I wasn't meant to be on the bus.

The last blog trailed off because MS got me. After getting off the bus at the darkened rest stop, I peed and had a meander, peered at a black body of water and got bored. I got back on the bus. Soon I heard knocking at the curtained window. I peered out but didn't see anyone. I couldn't think why someone would be knocking at the window. I heard it again, looked again, saw nothing...and then I got it. The tall, thin figure walking away from the bus was MS. His bus, too, had stopped here. His bus left a half an hour after mine did, and here I have been at this rest stop for half an hour. I gathered together my things and ran to the door that separated the passenger area from the driver's booth. It was locked.

I am passing a lake with the hues of sunrise. Now back into green farmland. On this new bus, on the top level, I passed through a beautifully green, treed lush town, with single houses set back on grassy hills, curving gentle stone stairways leading up to them. In the half light it looked like the nicest town I've seen in Venezuela. Simple concrete houses, but fewer walls and gates and better upkept. Rolling jungly hills with the sparkle-lights of habitation. I have also passed a shantytown; a settlement of standard rectangular houses row after row in a field; and an industrial area. I suspect I am now on the outskirts of Caracas, industrial with farmland and a view of the hills in the distance.

Last night, confronted by the locked white door, I knocked and knocked to no avail. I went back to my window in the fourth row, back to the door, pounded on the closest window to the door, and finally gave up. I started to write and saw MS pass by my window. I knocked on the glass, scaring the girl in front of me, but he didn't hear. Then, suddenly, the bus started moving. I couldn't figure out what was going on as only a few of the passengers were on the bus. I am puzzling over this mystery, pen still poised over paper, when I feel a touch on my arm and there is MS, between me and the door, grabbing my hand as I gathered my things again. I was full of joy.

MS led me off the bus and said we were crossing a river and took me to a bench on the barge that was slowly carrying both of our buses and trucks and cars across the river. He had no idea where we were either, but thankful for small favours we kissed and kissed and I was party to another one of those killer smiles. I am so glad he persisted in getting me off that bus.

In fact, we kissed for too long and we had to run to catch his bus, mine having already left the barge. We took running jumps onto his bus, which had already started moving off, and waited till we caught up with my bus. I wasn't sure what exactly was going on (and was half hoping I'd have no choice but to end up in Valencia with MS) and wanted to keep touching MS but suddenly I had to rush off the bus to face mine, boarding sheepishly.

5.45pm, Sunday June 26, bus ....over

I have just gotten settled on the bus to Caracas for my 12-hour ride. MS and I kissed goodbye many times. He still smiles at me. I talked of coming back, we talked of meeting in Italy, but I wonder what shall happen. Do we meet again or does our month stand alone as something out of a book someone else was writing? It is difficult to imagine emailing MS, but I look forward to reading his writing (he has a blog where he posts his creative writing).

Last night wasn't great. I was sad because MS wouldn't dance with me and I wasn't over it in the morning. I was sulky. I wanted so much not to be sulky but I couldn't talk myself out of it. I blame it on hormones. I did find my goodwill this afternoon after MS asked me what was wrong. Thankfully - MS and I could leave each other on a good note.

MS has just appeared on the bus for more kisses. He looks beautiful when he smiles and everything about him loosens up and his eyes crinkle.

The sunset through the darkened bus window is also beautiful. Grey cloud a few shades bluer than the sky, glowing white clouds, flat and spread, a holy white glow and beachy peach glow highlighting the darkness of the dark clouds. The sky has been such a welcome co-traveller with me.

They don't believe in reading lights on buses in Venezuela. It is already getting too dark to write and there is much to report. I shall have to wait till sunrise. Viewing the mountains, wandering amongst the rocks searching for passable rainforest, bush-whacking with a barefoot Indian, rice, plantains, avocado and red wine for dinner. Today's falafel...

[About an hour later...]

The light is on. The bus has stopped after only an hour of travelling. We are somewhere with bain marias, fridges and hawkers, a place I saw only fleetingly as the power went out just as I stepped off the bus. I feel like I am in a romantic comedy...

early in the morning, Thursday June 25 ....a disappointment

Yesterday was a disappointing day. The point of this excursion is to walk up a tepui, a four-hour trek through the rainforest. However, there was no small boat waiting at a village to take us to the beginning of the trail down a narrow canal, so we couldn't go. We took the tin-roofed boat into the small channel, a beautiful ride where tree branches scraped the boat and it had to be steered between the lush banks of the forest, but a tree branch crossed our path, ending the journey. We stuck a tree branch in the water to see how deep it was and it was considerably deeper than person-high. That ended our chance to climb the tepui.

felled by a tree

Instead, our guide, Tito, took us to another spot down another canal. Our route to shore was perilous, our feet balancing on underwater tree branches to keep us only knee-high immersed in the river. Or not balancing. I failed to negotiate the tree branches and fell in. It was funny but I kept myself from laughing because I was in no mood for hilarity. I was sour about not going on a 4-hour Amazon walk (the boys were more philosophical than I). I had eaten a huge breakfast - two cheese-stuffed arepas and eggs - and then a big lunch of potato salad and a cheese sandwich. I was stuffed and needed to walk!

But now today's breakfast is about to be served. It is cloudy, drizzly-droppy, the mountains disappeared behind clouds. My clothes are still wet from my accidental river dip, which by the way, was only the first to occur. On the way back to the boat Sylvano, then MS, both lost their balance. Only Andreas and our guide survived.

Having fallen into the water and clambered up hills of volcanic rock strewn with the occasional flowers and low vegetation, I get a good view of the tepuis. This is what we get instead of climbing one. It IS a beautiful view, just not a walk through the Amazon.

I am still surprised at all the rock in the Amazon. However, I am not unhappy to be wet on this hot, sunny day.

After everyone has shot their photos we go back to the boat and this is when Sylvano slips in front me and the MS behind me, though I don't see him because I have just walked right on into the water. Easier that way.

a view, my wet socks and volcanic rock

So we power back to a new camp near a small waterfall - more like light rapids - right in the middle of the river with a current that disallows us to actually swim in it. We are safe only near the bank, more pocked rock. Andreas jumps right into the water for a swim, venturing futher than the bank while holding onto a life preserver, but MS and I decide to go find rainforest to walk through. I don't really know what is going on as our guide, Tito, isn't forthcoming with information, even in Spanish.

MS and I clambered over rock and crouched through fern thicket. We skirted alongside the forest but had trouble finding a way in. Either the trees seemed impenetrable or the earth was swampy. We finally gave up looking for a route through the forest. I am sporting the very sexy mosquito-chic look. My legs are generously dotted with little red welts. Everyone is very impressed.

7.09am, Wednesday May 24, the Amazon ....sleepless night

Yellow and white butterflies flirted with our bongo (the native name for our boat), keeping pace with us, and a bright orange narrow-winged butterfly almost came inside. It may not be orchid season but there were trees with bright purple flowers and occasionally I spotted a red bromeliad. The trees were reflected perfectly in the water and palms rose one or two metres above the canopy.

Dinner this evening was rice, a salad with mayonnaise, two slices of cheese, and papaya. Best, our guides brought a bottle of white wine for us. I talked for a long time with Andreas, who told me about his experiences working in a hospital in Merida and about socialism in Germany. He says 'West' Germany always feels it has to prove that capitalism takes care of people so it has a good social network. The unemployed are paid, new mothers get three years off on 70% pay and must be taken back (hence women have a hard time getting contracts) and no one works in Berlin. Berlin is therefore cheap, home to artists and bohemians and provides two of everything: opera houses, national theatres, etc. The government, however, monitors people - their phone and internet usage for instance - and even arrested an academic researching leftist terrorist gangs that destroy rich people's property. But there are no guns.

In Venezuela, there are guns. Andreas says he's never seen anyting like the Merida emergency room. He says the government orders new equipment for the public hospitals but the doctors steal it for their private clinics and make their patients pay. He also provided a different story of the two-year medical degrees than the cynical J did. Andreas said people with this qualification are being sent to Indian villages and are better than no doctor at all, especially when much of the medical needs are simple, such as inoculations and nutrition advice. They are not undertaking surgery, Andreas said.

On the other hand, he spoke of being sent to interview people when he first arrived in Venezuela and spoke no Spanish. He was part of a research team that he had not much regard for and the researchers wanted him to hurry up. He thinks this is a crazy country, and violent. He doesn't get it. He mentioned little things like he can't figure out when 'let's meet at two' actually means let's meet at two. Only once in a while does it seem to mean this.

Last night I saw maybe half of the stars of the night sky - as compared to the one percent of stars I usually see. It was beautiful and amazing. I couldn't find Orion but I did find the Southern Cross. I told MS that the stars rivalled him for my attention. He, laughing, told me I say things no one else does. In his arms I watched shooting stars.

I didn't sleep much at all last night, though I know I did a little because I dreamed of a long-haired, thick-spectacled hunk of a man crawling into my hammock. One of its ropes split and I was guilty about breaking the hammock. I was too cold to sleep. In the boat, when I want to be watching the forest, I am so relaxed I fall asleep sitting up, but in the hammock, in the early hours of the morning, I am too tense to sleep, even though I want to more than anything.

This camp is even more rustic than in Canaima. No blankets or pillows, no electricity, a toilet in a grass hut that I don't know how to make flush, several sand-bottomed palm-roofed huts.



our camp

6.30ishpm, Tuesday May 23, Amazon camp .... in the jungle

I am sitting on a broken cane-weave chair overlooking the Siapa River, an island of trees directly in front of me, a cloudy sky going a washed-out watery light blue and tinging a black cloud orangey-pink above me.


writing at sunset


Andreas, one of our two travelling mates, just brought me an enormous green wrinkly twisted seed pod filled with big yellow seeds embedded in a white moist fluff that looks like bread. The seeds taste like heaven, sweet and flowery.

My three fellow travellers and I and our two guides took a four- hour boat ride to get here, with another hour dedicated to playing in a waterfall.


off to play in the falls of the Orinoco

Andreas is a malaria researcher on exchange in Merida from Germany for his medical degree. Our other companion is an Italian photographer who does not speak much English. Both are handsome, Andreas with bright shiny dark brown eyes, the photographer with a gentle demeanor and full head of grey hair.

The four of us left this morning from Puerto Ayacucho in a Jeep, with the tour booker, a colleague of his and our native guide. We stopped to clamber up a rock mound and look over the forest and then continued to the port, a parking lot town in a military zone. On the way we passed little towns and missions, with houses of mud brick, painted concrete, or thatch, with tin or palm-thatched rooves. The concrete houses resemble Australia's public toilets, with their multi-square ventilation grates in place of windows. MS explained that missions are literally on a mission. It is not necessarily to produce something, but could be to house women or children or achieve 100% literacy. In return for the mission, residents get medical care.

On our river journey down the Orinoco and Sipapo rivers we passed many cleared spaces and a few native villages - hardly the heart of the Amazon.

It is almost perfect here, in this cleared jungle space with the light sounds of bugs and frogs and other chirping, whistling things, the gently rippling water reflecting the trees and the sky, the mud brick and leaf-weave round huts of the camp, a lagoon down a path from which emerge the trees of the forest, one masquerading as a telephone pole right in the centre of my view. I saw a tiny green snake rear up its body and a pineapple growing. I've never seen a pineapple growing before - so cute, emerging in the centre of a sprig of ground palm.


cute, cute, cute

The only things marring the scene are the occasional sounds of boat motors and the mosquitoes and bugs, but they aren't too bad yet. Now I can smell dinner cooking.

Just before arriving at the camp we stopped at a native village to get supplies. Hot and dusty, five little children graced us with their picturesque presence. An older little girl in a sundress held two younger children with each hand and a little boy in underwear and a blue and yellow beanie ran ahead, smiling back at us flirtatiously.

Ah-Ah-ah-ah-Uh-uh-oh-Ah, as Tarzan so eloquently says. I am in the Amazon! I wonder how many people dream of travelling the Orinoco because of Enya?

The Orinoco and Sipapo rivers are considerably wider than the river in Canaima and the forest different, as promised, but also a bit flooded from rain. There are hills and the occasional tepui in the distance - one of which we are going to hike tomorrow - but it is not as green and mountainous as Canaima, no forested walls in front of us. Beautiful, with the expected occasional stand of palms and spurt of ferns in the tall long trees and clinging vines.

? Monday June 22, hotel room, ...organising stuff

Six more days left in Venezuela. Tomorrow MS and I are off for an excursion up the Orinoco River to hike up a tepui. Today I spent an hour and half in a bank.

I was craving avocado this morning so forewnt breafast at a nice Christian bakery, the first one in Venezuela that bore resemblance to any sort of cafe I am used to. It had round pasteboard tables and wooden chairs. I asked for coffee and as a shot of coffee was being poured for me I said to MS 'I miss a big fucking cup of coffee'. So the gentleman poured me a normal-sized plastic cup of pre-sweetened milkless coffee from his thermos.

We went to talk with a tour operator in the morning. We had a long chat and emerged with information about a 3-day excursion we could go on for $1400 bolivars each. This is a more expensive price because there are only two of us and the minimum is usally 4.

We went to the bank to take out Ms's money, realising that it wouldn't do to sign the cheques T made out to me over to MS because it would take 4 days to clear and Wednesday is a holiday. There was a long Monday lunchtime line at the bank and after the first few minutes only one teller working. It was painful, though at least air-conditioned. After retreiving MS's money we went to an internet cafe to look up more touring companies, as MS wanted to compare quotes. In the end no one answered their phones, but we had passed a place that said 'Tours - plane, carr, boat', so we went to talk to the gentleman in there, who was from Argentina and gave MS lots of information but quoted us a more expensive excursion. The Argentinian told us that Venezuela doesn't let people too far into the Amazon in order to protect the lifestyle of the natives who live there, though there is a special excursions for researchers.

After this, MS and I went back to the bank - MS had rung T and asked him to deposit the rest of my money in his account - to get my $1000ish bolivars and, again, for a little while there wsa only one teller. By this time I was feeling low blood sugary, having eaten only a few bites of bread. A very humid day with lots of walking and standing, I was feeling weak-brained and sore-backed.

I asserted myself and said I wanted to go to the areparia we had passed. I had a rather ordinary arepa, stuffed only with a thick slice of white cheese, which I put two kind of sauces on, green and brown. I felt heaps better.

So, back to the first tour place to pay, then home to eat avocados,tomatoes and bananas. We had trouble finding avocados, but our last option, a fruit and veg market stall that had been closed yesterday, was open and had big and ripe avocados. I bought two.

After the afternoon rainstorm, I coaxed MS out. By this time it was around 8.30pm. We weren't hungry after eating a huge avocado between us, so I suggeste cake - 'torta'. We walked in a few different directions but found nothing open except for hamburger and hot dog stalls and the Christian cafe. By the time we decided on the cafe it was closing, so we went back to the pizza place, where MS had a hamburger and I ate mediocre ice cream, enjoying the smell of MS's burger. Not the meat, but the toasted bread and warm lettuce.

?, Sunday June 21, posada room ....Puerto Ayacucho

MS beat me to the words as we settled into our posada room: it is raining and Sunday, what else is there to do? These were my very thoughts as we shared a meal of chicken, rice, a piece of yucca and a scoopful of coleslaw at a restaurant in Puerto Ayacucho.


Puerto Ayacucho restaurant

This is the first really good downpour I've seen in a long time. Utterably suitable for the town that is the gateway to the Venezuelan Amazon. We arrived here in Puerto Ayacucho around 9.00am, 13 hours after we left Puerto Ordaz in the small, cold bus that never stopped playing music at us. On our first stop I made a joke about the bus vendors who sold blankets and pillows - but not chocolate. So MS got me chocolate. We split a bar of Nestle Savoy chocolate con leche. Not exactly the 73% cocoa Frey's chocolate we'd been sharing.

A national guardsman boarded the bus to check IDs. The soldier was a young man with a very serious face. I said he looked 12. MS said he was 18 and, considering the size of his gun, much too young.

Upon arrival in Puerto Ayacucho, MS and I walked from the bus station until we found an internet cafe. We searched the internet for cheap hotels and MS went to call them while I blogged. It started to rain, so we caught a taxi into town, getting dropped off in front of food (the above restaurant).

After a couple of hours it stopped pouring, so MS and I got ourselves out of the hotel room to go explore Puerto Ayacucho. We passed an 'artisan's' market, half closed on this rainy Sunday afternoon and MS talked for a while to a Peruvian necklace seller while I stood around a bit bored. MS asked where he might find food and liveliness and the artisan directed us to the river as a place locals hang out on Sundays.

MS and I don't fit in here. People stare at us and MS says 'Buenos dias' and smiles at them. On our way looking for food, we found the Puerto Ayacucho national cinema and MS talked to the men who worked there about whether any movies were in English. But he was hungry so we kept moving towards the river. When we arrived there were some bodegons and kioskos open and few people about. We looked out to the pretty scene of the Orinoco River. We passed a tugboat tipped over into a woody verge, painted in washed-out shades of green, red and yellow, one colour for each layer of the old tug. Nestled in the long grasses it was a pretty site, something rare here.

Puerto Ayacucho is a low-lying city with a distinct absence of the skyscrapers that define Venezuela's other cities. It is the youngest city in the country and I have trouble describing it. There are coloured concrete shopfronts and houses with pull-down gates and walls, bars on the windows, garbage on the sidewalks, kisosks with DVDs and families sitting in front of courtyards or at little stalls. Signage is either homemade or Pepsi-made, basic or bright. The sidewalks are uneven, bits of road full of beer bottle caps. It is not an inspiring place.

MS ate a mini empanada and we walked back towards the movie theatre, stopping to share a banana split, something I haven't eaten in a long time. It was made with cheap, sugary ice-cream but a treat nontheless. When we got back to the cinema, MS tried to convince the 'projectionist' (the cinemas show DVDs) to put the movie on with English dubbing or subtitles but then two women and their children walked in so it had to be in Spanish. A documentary about Congolese refugees taken to Norway began, but about 10 minutes through the film the projectionist came up to us and said the women wanted a movie, not a documentary, for the children and since I wanted a movie in English he'd put on a different film. I waited in anticipation to see what film he would choose ad it turned out to be The Triplets of Belleville! An excellent choice: almost no dialogue -for me - and a cartoon - for the children. Though I don't think the children liked it, as the women left with the kiddies halfway through the film. Nice, however, for me to see it again and a treat for MS, who hadn't seen it before. He thought it a strange moive, but I heard him laughing so I think he liked it.

After the movie MS and I went to a pizza place for dinner. We sat on the verandah. I had a pizza with corn, peas, onions and red capsicum. The pizza was oily, melty and thin-crusted, nicely a bit sweet, from the corn, I think, or maybe the cheese. MS had maraschino cherries on his pizza and I relished them as I plucked a few off.

6.30pm, Saturday June 20, MS's parents' apartment in Puerto Ordaz ....the property

It is 32 degrees Celcius with 50% humidity.

Today MS and I visited the warehouse where MS's dad keeps his machines and trucks, his office and the lot of land he will build his own warehouse and house on. Then we visited the people he bought the land from. They live on truly colourful property where they have built three small houses and raise plenteous chickens, roosters, dogs, ducks and turtles, plus peacocks, geese and parrots. The turtles were all shell-up together in a shady ditch pretending to be rocks, but one was sharing a mango with a chicken, its little paw grabbing the mango and its little mouth champing.

All the animals appeared to eat mangoes. There were many mango trees on the property. The sandy entrance area was lined with multicoloured bougainvillea (trinidas), the roofed patio between two houses was covered by blue and white viney flowers, baskets of bromeliads, cactus with big round leaves and pink flowers at their tops, chives, basil. The proprety was mostly scraggly grass with random plots of plants, the occasional rubbish left over from projects, animal cages to one edge.

The shady barbeque area sat between two cement and tin-roofed verandahed houses with a third towards the back of the land. The houses were all different but mostly made of recycled materials. One had beautiful old French-swirly grillwork over the windows, another a concrete porch set every so often with big stones. There were hammocks on the porches and one of the houses had artwork, a picture of the Virgin, hanging on the front wall. It was very Venezuelan - beautiful and cosy but not ordered or impeccable.

Several ladies sat outside under the vines, chatting and smoking, while MS and I wandered around the grounds. Then we went to a park to see a line of around twelve or so small waterfalls, all falling from a scrubby lake. The falls are affected by a hydroelectric dam. Llovizna park itself is lovely, grassy, with a variety of tall old trees - huge mangoes and an impressive stand of tall palms, some growing multiple trunks. The trees were spread throughout the park in a most picturesque randomness, the sun raying the grass between them in gold. One of the lusher bits of Venezuela I've been to lately.

While waiting for MS's parents to pick us up, I tried someting called tizana - juice with mixed furit chunks. It was welcome after two stints of eating only bread.

I cannot remember who told me this, but Venezuelans do not go out at night so much because of fear, whereas Buenos Aireans insisted on police.

Dotted around, I see huge blue water bins perched on the tops of houses. I see these, but aside from the political graffitti I haven't noticed any tagging or 'murals'. I would have thought there would be a lot of graffitti here.

6.15pm,Friday June 19, bus ....everything a drama

We are stopped in the town of El Tigre. There has been much 'Globovision enferma' graffitti. The town threw up a nice brown hotel with black-rimmed windows, modern but gracefully curved, with a light bulb inside and outside but no other sing of habitation, such as furniture or curtains.

This town has a beautifully tended road median with car repair and other industrial style shops on my side of the bus. Though brightly-coloured the scenery is crass, with too much metal garage gate. Before reaching this town we passed miles and miles of plains, either densely or sparsely planted with trees and the occasional small and dilapidated house facing the road.

S was able to get my e-ticket for my new flight to NY but it was a drama. She called me, I didn't hear the first call, didn't get the second in time and had no credit to call her back, though I tried to obtain a refill card at a rest stop. The shop was closed. S was running out of credit on her phone. I texted her from MS's phone and S called back wanting a reservation number, but I didn't have the paper that I had written down all the details on with me. I could hear the frustration in S's voice. I said to just cancel the ticket change and I'd do it again later, but she said, 'I'm here now, I'll see what I can do.' S called back later to say she had the ticket. I had given her the appropriate numers but the clerk she dealt with couldn't find my details. The second person S dealt with had no problem bring my details up. I owe S.

2.25pm, Friday June 19, bus ....corruption

I am sitting on an idling bus with purple curtains, listening to a salesman sell magnets and magnetic neclackes. He does go on. MS and I are on our way to Puerto Ordaz. We've just been to Boulevard De Los Empanadas. I was avoiding these deep fried things but, hey, when in Venezuela... My first empanada was stuffed with cheese, bean and platanos (fried plantains), my second was stuffed just with platanos. Both were freshly made. This is a benefit of being vegetarian: there are no already-made non-meat empanadas, cooling down and drying out, to be given to me. Most of the many, many empanada stalls in this long strip of empanada stalls have a range of free dips available. At the stall we chose there were Turkish-like dips - beetroot and cucumber dips, but chunkier than a traditional Turkish dip; a great garlic dip, spicy dip, a pesto-like dip, potato dip, crab dip and several more. We stood by the stall, scooping different dips onto our empanadas with each bite. I'm now very full.

While waiting for the ferry, MS and I talked about Chavez again. I asked MS where he got his information about the government not spending enough money from. He said it was from his own experience in hospitals and from his nephews going to public schools. He talked of a skills shortage. There are not enough doctors or teachers, especially when 50% of the population are young people. The government sets up a 'parallel' system, such as specialty clinics, which are good, but they often don't last long. MS is unsure who is to blame, really - the government or the people. He talked again of corruption and how people would rather pay for things than go through official or bureaucratic channels. But then these often don't work, with incompetent staff and long waits.

He gave me an example, licensing restaurants. Someone gets credit and spends a lot of money setting up a business. The license can take 3 to 6 months but the restaurant owner has to begin working right away to recoup her financial output. So she pays someone off. MS said the mafia here is also very powerful and can keep people from complaining about corruption. From MS's s talk, I gather this is all tied up with people's willingness, or not, to work. He says money isn't that hard to come by in Venezuela. So how come no one can afford to move out of home?, I asked. He said rent was out of all financial proportion and that regular salaries are harder to come by then chunks of money for selling something. But people on salaries don't get paid well compared to people who sell stuff, so there's no incentive to work full-time - there is incentive towards the easy money of corruption.

Thursday continued

I asked T to tell me why he likes Chavez. T said he had a lot of years on the young cynics like MS and knows what the previous governments were like. He's lived in Venezuela since 1973, with a break when he opposed the government and went back to The Netherlands. He returned in the early '90s, for Chavez. He is a socialist and wants to see a more equal society. He believes that a single leader is necessary to create this social change, that it wouldn't happen without the force of such a personality. He believes some of Venezuela's current problems lay with the fact that many of those in power are still the same old people, so things won't change quickly. It may take generations to see the results of the education of the people, so that they understand their rights and duties as citizens. They've been purposely kept uneducated and easily governable.

MS says the government sets staple food prices and the constitution put minimum wage in line with those prices, so if the prices rise, so must minimum wage. As the major employer in Venezuela, the government wants the prices to stay cheap, but the producers won't always agree - hence the shortage of fresh milk and widespread use of powdered milk. Powdered milk is price-stabilised but easily available, whereas fresh milk is neither. The government is trying to buy out food staples production to avoid conflict with private producers.

MS says there is a lot of chaos in the law because Chavez lets people take over unfinished builidngs or unused land that belongs to other people - to finish and live in the buildings and farm the land. Ovbiously this would cause problems for the owners of said land and buildings, and their property value goes down once poor people move in.

Venezuelans are calm and relaxed. They sit out on the street in front of their houses, drink lots of beer on the beach (this I am told). There is a distinct Italian influence - they say 'ciao' and eat pizza and pasta - and I have not noticed any of the free-floating rage that haunts Australia. People don't shout at bus drivers or make scenes with strangers.

I notice I am more comfortable with chatty people like S, F and M, than with quieter ones like MS and T. I worry that they think what I say is dumb or that they are bored by me. J, for instance, I can tell isn't bored by me. He is engaged and responsive.

The big dog at MS's always lugs around a big block of wood in his mouth. Why do dogs like me so much? Perhaps they smell other dogs on me, now T's dogs.

Today I heard Chavez singing to the people on television and radio.

Today T's house had no water. Neither did the restaurant. Fancy a country where the local government cannot be relied upon to get water to the people.

11.30ish pm, Thursday June 19, MS's ..the generousity of others

Tomorrow MS and I go to Puerto Ordaz and then on to Puerto Ayacucho to see the Amazon. I am so glad he is coming with me. I didn't feel I could stay on Margarita any longer in order to stay with him when there is so much more of Venezuela to see, so he comes too. Though of course this is a new adventure for him as well.

At night MS plays the The Wall Live in Berlin for me. But it isn't the same as, is quite inferior to, The Wall original. Itold him this, and that I would burn him other Wall albums when I got home, and last night when he put on Pink Floyd it was the real Wall. He had burned it while we were at the internet cafe. The lovely boy also downloaded Wish You Were Here and Shine On You Crazy Diamond. He keeps surprising me.

Today we slept in, aiming to spend the afternoon making travel arrangements. We breakfasted at a local panaderia. I had a guayaba (guava) 'empanada' and we shared a large round dark molassesy-flavoured cookie-like thing. The guava empanada (doughy, not fried) was delicious, the cookie okay.

MS and I went to the internet cafe, where I found no useful information about how to change my flight out of Caracas except for American Airline phone numbers, and we bought shaved ice drinks - mine with tamarind syrup. At a travel agency we found that flights to Puerto Ayacucho weren't available until Tuesday, much too late, and we still didn't know if MS would find someone - N or S - to cover him at work. Our travel ideas were looking complicated and unlikely but MS suggested I go to Merida for a few days and meet him in Puerto Ordaz on Sunday. Then his boss found someone to work and I called American Airlines and changed my flight to New York to the 28th and so we go tomorrow, winging it a bit.

Life works out because of the generousity of my couchsurfing hosts. S will pick up my e-ticket (yes, that is a paradox) for me in Caracas, a rather big ask. But nothing here is ever straightforward or easy. There is always an extra hurdle, a problem that requires solving.

MS and I went to see T to collect the rest of my money and we ended up going for Chinese food. In Venezuela, Chinese restaurants serve sweet bread rolls. There are egg rolls (absent from Australian cuisine) but aside from that the food is more Australian-style, sauces less glutinously heavy. I ordered Szechuan-style bean curd, which was like an Australian-style dish: white soft tofu swimming in a sauce of mushrooms, green capsicum, onion and... beef. Oh well, I ate around the beef. The Szechuan style was definitively not spicy, as it should be, though both the boys (J came too) thought it was too hot. Venezuelans apparently do not do chilli.

It was delightful to eat tofu again, and drinking Chinese tea felt like home. I talked most of the night to J about food and movies. J downloads a lot of movies and has seen many independents, including Pleasantville, which he also loves. J showed me the preview for Spike Jones's Where the Wild Things Are and it looks like it will be great. I am excited about it.

T paid for dinner. He has been so generous, I am glad I bought him a bottle of wine.

MS's nephew just popped in to say goodbye. Such sweet boys!

?, Wednesday June 17, MS's ....from notes

Yesterday I went with MS on his Cubagua tour. He takes people snorkelling around a shipwreck and to a mudbath on Cubagua island. The tour boat is docked a long way from the tourist pick-up point, so I enjoyed a whole day on a boat, though there were some problems with the boat on the way back and we didn't get back to land until quite late. This allowed us to dance to Spanish music while the sun set but by the last couple of hours I was feeling a bit ill and over it.

In the morning, when MS and I arrived at the docks, they were being ripped up, so I had to slowly shuffle precariously across planks balanced over the water in order to get to the boat. This was somewhat scary.

Also somewhat scary for me was the snorkelling. I have snorkelled before, off of Hook Island in Queensland, but that was in shallow water near the beach. Snorkelling around an old shipwreck in the deep ocean was different. I had the same feeling of not being able to breathe that I felt when I scuba dived and I kept getting water in my snorkel. I felt vaguely panicky and finally MS gave me a new snorkel mask that fit better and I was able to snorkel a little more sucessfully, though still quite anxiously. I did get around the shipwreck and see some striking huge round brainy coral and electric blue fish, but I didn't snorkel for very long, afraid of getting too far away from the boat.


shipwreck

Cubagua Island is flat and strewn with prickly low vegetation. It boasts a mud lagoon filled with dark grey ooze that MS encourages tourists to slather all over their body, promising their skin will be silky smooth afterwards. So the tourists and I wade into the mud, feet slurping, and proceed to cover ourselves and each other with a thick layer of mud. Then we waded out and waited for the sun to dry us to a cracked perfection.


natural skincare

Once dry, a mud-covered body is propelled into the sea for a soak-off and emerges with oohs and ahhs as to the softness of baby-new skin.

After my mudbath I lunched on the boat with the friendly and generous captain, who brought a lunch for me.

I spent a lot of time standing in the front of this boat, too, on the way home, but it did not have the same degree of bump and fall as the catamaran. Still, fun. And beautiful as I watched the sunset, a moon-colured ball of sun lower in the sky.

Today I woke up in MS's arms. Today we made it to La Restinga. This is a beautiful and extraordinary place. The park is home to mangrove lagoons and two large lakes. The entrance to the park is desert, flat packed sand with cactus trees. There is a visitor's centre and stalls selling jewellery and empanadas. The lagoons have a very homogonous ecosystem and very homogonous naming system: the Love Canal, the Tunnel of Romance, Lover's Way, that sort of thing. Two types of trees make up most of the life in the lagoon mangroves. The 'black' trees have mazes of little spiky roots sticking up from the water and bigger, shinier leaves. The 'red' ones drop roots into the water and have slightly smaller duller leaves that are salt-coated. I also noticed a couple patches of light green furry/prickly growth on the mangrove roots, oysters and crabs.


La Restinga lagoon, photo from www.islamargarita.com/lagunalarestinga.htm

The lagoons lead to the ocean. We were let off the boat at an old Indian town, with little colourful rectangle houses right up against each other. The ocean was calm, the beach shelly and not very populated. There are 22 miles of beach.

On the way back from the beach the water had turned tree-green, as if all the trees had their doubles under the water as well. Tree-green below and green trees on either side made it feel as if I was gliding through a growing tunnel. We took a narrow canal, with knee-high and gnarly roots and leaves canopying the boat. The feel of an ancient place. It should be in a movie.

Arriving back to the entrance of the park quite hungry, MS and I ate empanadas. I had two, one stuffed with cheese, one stuffed with black beans and cheese. Delicious.

I was so tired that I dozed off on the bus ride home.

My little toe still hurts. I slipped down the ladder on the catamaran while going down to the bathroom. I think I've broken it. My toe is very red and very large. I have mango rash spreading on my arms, light but there.

6.15pm, Monday May 15, MS's ....Frankenfurter grasshopper

The dogs sniff me because I was playing with a stray black puppy while waiting for the bus across the street from the beach. It had floppy ears and kept biting my hand.

Today was a great day. MS and I were supposed to get up at 6am to go to La Restinga National Park, but we didn't get up to the alarm. We emerged at 9am, had a breakfast of bread, humus (without tahini), tomato, crackers and dulce de leche and went to the other national park instead. It's closer.

We climbed El Copey, Margarita's tallest hill, in an hour and a half. MS showed me the huge 'walking tree', which shoots down roots that grow up again as trunks of new trees so that a whole series of trees are attached to each other.

On the walk I saw an enormous grasshopper the size of a sparrow, green and spindly with a red back. We walked up a road with forest on either side - narrow-trunked trees with small leaves, sometimes a bank of ferns or large, long-leafed climbers. There were beautiful views of the island, with the high-rises of Porlamar looking clean and light from so far away, the red-roofed houses in the valley embedded amongst trees, the large white square of Sambil mall and the ocean and its lagoons. After walking back down the hill we walked to a couple of restaraunts located down hilltop dirt roads, but they were closed on Mondays and I was feeling very muscle-tired and ready to sit down.

We ended up in La Asunscion and stopped for papaya juice at that cute little shopping arcade I had noticed on my wander around the town. Refreshed, we head for Playa Guacuco. This is a nice beach of sand-coloured sand, light waves and a few neat beachside restaurants with many, many palms and a view of 'the mountains'. Water was so welcome after the hot climb. MS and I played together in the waves and I had a laughing fit.

In the evening we went to Pampatar to see 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' at the national cinema. We were running late and made it into the theatre as the wedding was finishing, 'Dammit, Janet, I love you!' There were several other people in the theatre ('It IS Rocky Horror' I said in response to MS's surprise upon seeing cars parket outside the cinema) but it was a quiet crowd and there was no dancing to the Time Warp. MS liked the movie despite the fact that it is a musical, and now I can say I've seen Rocky Horror in Venezuela courtesty of Hugo Chavez. (I had actually decided to stay longer in Margarita just so that I could take MS, a Rocky Horror 'virgin' to see the film).

6.10pm, Sunday June 14, MS's ...the famous Spanish all-nighter

I just woke up an hour ago, me of the mango-swollen eyes. MS, C, S and I went dancing last night. We left MS's at 1.o0am, and the club above the beach closed at 3am. We danced outside. MS is a much better dancer than me and I shall reiterate that it is hot, hot, hot. I much prefer South American club music to the stuff I try to dance to in Melbourne. This music is more Caribbean and there is a popular genre of music called Reggaeton, which is a mix of West African, Latin American and rap. I loved dancing to this fast, upbeat music, but was repeatedly told that if I ccould understand the lyrics I would hate it. The lyrics come from the rap part of the mix: sex and violence.

After we left the club, MS drove us to Playa el Agua, where we drank light beers, sitting on a step overlooking the beach. We dropped C and S home and, while I dozed in the car, MS drove us to a spot high above the beach to watch the sunrise. We watched the black sky become blue, the pink ball of yellow sun rising from a whirl of cloud, like something from outerspace, to highlight the dancing woman and coiled cloud forms until it was a distinct ball and too bright to look at.


sunrise on Margarita

In the new brightness of the morning we drove around looking for breakfast. A hard ask at 6.30am on a Sunday morning. We finally found an early-morning outdoor empanada stand. I ate an empanada and an arepa and drank a cup of passionfruit juice. When we got home I was so tired, I just wanted to sleep. But then MS took his shirt off and I caught sight of his necklace with a spiral-patterned ivory-coloured disk hanging from a leather thong. He put on The Wall Live in Berlin CD.

Dinner at T's is all the activity we managed to fit into Saturday evening. J, T's young boarder, cooked us a nice pasta sauce with champignons. I talked to him about Chavez. He is not a fan and believes the country has gone downhill because of Chavez. He admits to being from a wealthy family and believes socialism is utopian. He thinks Venezuelans like to show off their wealth and spend money on things such as digital television and Tommy Hilfiger clothes - rather than on a proper house - and everone is always out to con someone. Venezuelans buy and sell but don't produce.

J dislikes Chavez's educational programs because the missions teach all of high school in two months or train up doctors in two years. Doctors in public hospitals aren't properly trained and those with the brains and education (and money) leave the country. It is difficult for Venezuelans to leave the country. It takes a lot of paperwork - or a lot of money. This too is a plan of Chavez's. Venezuelans don't pay taxes; there's no history of it or of government services, and there is no IRS, only an agency that goes after businesses, has little power and is bribable.

MS doesn't like Chavez because of his militarism. He is undertandably afraid of what could happen if Chavez controls a trained military and has 'the people' behind him as well.

A question, then. How do countries change? Can Chavez make people change? Is giving the people the tools to change enough? Do people use them? Is it possible for a govenrment to give the people more than just tools? Is that government's job?

2.30pm, Saturday June 13, Canaima airport ....monkeying around

I am sitting in the dining area of Kavak Tours, trying not to itch my eyes. I have said goodbye to the young couple, the boys, the mothers. They are off to the lagoons and Salto Sapo, the waterfall that Anthony did not take me to walk behind.

We climbed in the rainforest to see Salto Angel. Often tourists can walk behind the fall but the water level was too high for us because of the night's rain. I was impressed by the three older women who trekked slowly up and down the mountain, gently clambering over rocks. The younger boy was very patient with the women, staying with them, while the young couple and I sped ahead. It was a humid walk, lush. And then there was Salto Angel, spraying us with its uncontained mist. Nicol told me to call to her when I reached Salto Angel and I did, hallooing her name to the waterfall.


me, swollen-eyed, in front of Salto Angel

Today's boatride back to Canaima was not as nice as on the way there. Not because the grand tepuis were behind us but because I wore sunglasses belonging to the Venezuelan student, at the insistence of one of the women, who is a doctor. She advised me to protect my mango-eyes from the sun. The world is dull behind sunglesses, dull and indistinct.

I have a half an hour until my plane takes off and from a stand selling homemade food I've bought a moist slice of light chocolate cake with other unidentifiable flavours and a sort of mousse in the middle. Earlier I wandered down a forest track, emerging in front of a cage of small monkeys. I stood entranced by their cream-coloured genitals while they desultorily clambered around their cage and hammock. Another cage had a different type of monkey. One, with a damaged red eye, took my arm and made a feeding sign - his hand in front of his mouth. These monkeys had completely different genitals, dark, long thin penises with a dish-like protuberance at the end. I agitated the red-eyed monkey by being there. He started to run around and climb the cage, swinging his ass as he walked along the floor, hooting. I thought it best to leave him alone.

Last night I didn't sleep very well in my hammock, disturbed by my itchy, itchy eyes and early bedtime. I got up in the wee hours of the morning to pee and bathe my eyes in salt water. On the way to the rainy bush for a pee I knocked apart two narrow tubes, one attached to the gas cylinder. I didn't burn down the shelter, thank god. I was easily able to put the tubes back together again.

I sat at a table putting wet napkins on my eyes and Churum, our guide, got up to see if I was okay in the candlelight. The sky was starting to lighten. Eveyrone was very concerned about my eyes. Last night the smiley wife of the tall Trinidadian put her contact solution into my eyes and one of older woman who said she was a doctor told me only to eat big mangoes as the 'poison' in them is less concentrated.

On the way back to Canaima we stopped at a small waterfall on the river and had a swim in the Pool of Happiness. Here we could stand in the falls and sit on rocks where the falls jacuzzi the water. A nice break from the long, wet boat trip. Roiling clouds enfolded the tepui tops, and occasionally, when the river curved it looked as if we were heading into a mottled wall of green. The water was lower today and I saw grassy banks and islands, the women behind screaming as we hit some light rapids and got a soaking.

I don't have the blissful feeling today that I had yesterday but I am glad I have excursioned with a group of Venezuelans who shared whiskey and homemade birthday cake with me.

I saw Anthony only briefly today. He said hi when we arrived back and I gave him a kiss on the cheek goobye when I left. Churum took me to the island's white hospital building, where I was injected in the ass-cheek with cortisone by a fair, skinny, moustachioed Spanish-speaking young doctorwho looked like a sweet-natured American hick even though he was not, and given a cycle of antihistamines. Yay for socialised medicine! So far the cortisone does not seem to be working.

When I was finished at the hospital it was almost time for lunch - a huge pile of spaghetti, mine with just oil and grated parmesan. It was nice! My fellow excursionistas teased Churum over our meal until it was time for them to go tour the lagoons. Everyone shook my hand or kissed me goodbe and seemed genuinely sorry I wasn't coming with them again. Hopefully the boys will email me the photos taken of all of us together.

A group of tourists are taking off in the Aerotuy plane and I am the only tourist left at the station. I was told I am on another flight. My own private one?

Churum told me the Amazon isn't rainforest, but jungle, and it is totally different from Canaima. I thought rainforest and jungle were the same thing.

6.30pm, Friday June 12, forest camp ....freshly showered

We arrived at camp about a half an hour ago. I went immediately to shower in hopes of relieving my mango-swollen eyes. So far it is just my eyes that are affected. The camp is a tin-roofed, concrete platform with plastic tablecloth-covered tables and 19 hammocks with mosquito nets accompanied by wooden bench-tables set perpendicularly. The toilet and shower facilities are in a separate building.

I have come from a beautiful day on the Carrao and Churum rivers, boating to see Angel Falls. It was a long boat ride, 80 kms - fourish hours - with rainforest on both banks.

It rained last night so the river was very high. As we boated through the landscape of forest and tepui, (there are 700kms of tepui) I counted 14 waterfalls streaming down the faces of one tepui in the distance. Along the river there is pink sand. I noticed small-needled orange cone-like flowers on trees in the forest, as well as pink and white acacias in flower, and a bush with tiny red two-petalled flowers. May is orchid season.

Today I have travelled with a lovely group of people: a 44-year-oldTrinidadian financial services manager and his smiley Venezuelan wife; two male students from Barcelona, one Venezuelan and studying economics, the other studying journalism; the Venezuelan student's mother; and two other older women, one with her son, who carries big bags of cashews. I think the students are a couple. One of the boys, the darker, broader, shorter one, is very cute and giggly. English is the national language of Trinidad, so throughout the day I talked to the tall Trinidadian husband. At first it seemed as if the group wasn't going to talk much to me, but after my initial conversations with the Trinidadian who prefers speaking English, and as my eye began to look worse and worse, and as we were sharing a meal together, the others began opening up. The sparkly young wife and the two boys shared stories and the older women, who didn't speak much English, talked about me.

We were served lunch on the boat: two cheese and tomato sandwiches, cookies, two hard candies. It was difficult to keep my garbage from blowing into the river. Dinner at camp was yellow rice, omelette, coleslaw and pineapple. The coleslaw made by these cooks is very mayonaissey, rich and delicious.

The happy Venezuelan group was celebrating the birthday of one the older women, so they brought cake and whiskey to the camp, which they generously shared with me. I could only drink the whiskey when poured into coffee.

9.30am, hammock at Kava Camp ....a weird night

Anthony and I went for beers at the local restaurant, a big room with a bar, pool table and television, a kitchen bar and plastic tables and chairs. There were several boys playing pool and a soccer game on the television. I struggled to make conversation with Anthony, asking about small town life. When I asked where all the girls were (ther were only boys in the bar besides me) he said they were playing football.

After our drinks, we went down to the beach, where Anthony produced a blanket out of his little duffle bag. He proceeded to kiss and touch me. He kept trying to get me to go farther than I wanted. I had to keep saying no and pull his hands away. The experience was very juvenile. I felt silly and a little bored. He kept asking me why I wouldn't have sex with him, so finally I said a few things.

1. Just because you want to have sex witha girl doesn't mean she wants to have sex with you. These are often mutually exclusive desires.

2. That I don't, probably most women don't, want to fuck strangers.

3. Then I told him he was lucky it was me he was trying this shit on with. A different sort of woman would have him fired. I told him that in countries like Australia and the USA sexual harrassment is a big deal and women are urged to complain. I also asked him if he understood that in a situation such as ours, where he is the tour guide of a sole woman, she may not feel comfortable or able to say no.

He seemed to understand all this and murmered about this being his job. I think I made him cry. After I gave him a kiss and thanked him for the nice day (I felt bad, how spineless) I finally got up to leave. He wanted us to sleep on the beach. I said no. Then he asked if he could sleep in my room, on one of the other beds. I asked him if this worked on other women but he insisted this is the first ime he tried. He was sniffling on the way home.

I said he could come to my room. I wondered if there was a reason he didn't want to go home. He seemed so desperate when he asked. He still tried to get me to have sex with him. I told him I was going to throw him out and he finally gave up. I think we both had trouble sleeping. I was really hot and getting bitten by mosquitos. Anthony left early in the morning.

This morning he didn't eat with me.

I do realise how crazy I sound. But Anthony was essentially harmless. There was something quite sweet and honest about him. There was nothing violent or aggressive ever suggested. Just wheedling persistence. I never for a moment thought I was in any danger with him. He was just...a boy. [I'd be curious to hear other women's responses to this type of experience. What did you do? Feel free to leave a comment.]

Now, I am waiting for today's group of tourists to arrive. I woke up with a swollen eye, though it is already better. I try not to touch any itches on my face. Breakfast this morning was a thin fried egg, three more slices of oily orange cheese and three small pancakes. I buttered them and added a bit of guava marmalade. Best of all was the jug of watermelon juice set beside me, which I didn't notice until I finished my meal. I'm looking forward to a lovely day viewing the world's tallest waterfall without a touchy guide trying to kiss me (another young man is taking us to the waterfall)!

8.12pm, Thursday June 11, Canaima

Anthony told me at dinner there will be more trekkers arriving tomorrow. Relief! Dinner was oily, creamy and lovely: a fried omelette with no vegetables, delicious coleslaw, and potato rounds fried with garlic and parsley. Red jello for dessert. Anthony let me try a piece of his cassava with chipotle chile bread. This is the Caribes' native bread and it was very nice.

MS has an interesting bookshelf - 'Les Mis' in two volumes, which he hasn't read, ditto Ulysses; Spanish poetry; Brecht, whom he didn't like; and a book of structuralist criticism which he dips into to help him write better.

Here there is the constant chirping of crickets and a drop-whistle sound of some other sort of animal, the occasional dog bark.

6.30pm, Thursday June 11, Canaima ....swimming through rainbows

I am the only person at this camp. I was looking forward to a personal tour of the Canaima Lagoon, but while a private tour has its advantages, such as discarding the rules (wearing life jackets and shoes) and taking as long to explore as you want, when your guide is a young man and you are a single, young female, this makes a private tour awkward.

Anthony and I took a boat from the first lagoon, which has six waterfalls, to the second lagoon. We walked to the third lagoon. Anthony and I swam to the biggest falls, Hacha, a feat I was a little scared of because it is a long way across the lagoon. I ran into the water first. Anthony followed shortly, and when he swam up to me he grabbed me around the waist. Oh, I thought.

After the swim to the waterfall I flattened myself against the watery rocks and then paddled to a smaller fall where I also felt the cool water flow down my back. On this other side of the lagoon, in mosquito territory, Anthony started kissing me and touching me. I let him. We walked back along the rock wall to go back to the other end of the lagoon and then climbed back in the water. It hasn't rained so the waterfalls aren't at their most impressive, but I think today they are perfect. The lagoons are filled with brown water. When you swim you see rays of golden sunshine radiating in the brown and that is all.


Hacha Falls

After our swim we walked behind Hacha Falls. This is slippery and vegetative, the rock ledge fringed with green ground cover and pink flowers. I picked my way carefully along the gleaming ledge and felt the spray of the water from a pouring sheet through which I could see the white sun throwing a ray across the rippling water of the lagoon. It was beautiful and nearly perfect. The walk to Hacha Falls crossed savannah and grass and into rainforest with big sprays of palm, big black ants that Anthony says are poisonous (24-hour fever and headache) and the occasional butterfly. The forest is lovely - a normal rainforest, not spectacular.


behind Hacha Falls

I am a bad feminist. I didn't want to be fondled and kissed by a little brown stranger, even if he is cute. But I couldn't imagine what would happen if I said no. I've spent so much of the last two weeks kissing, why get cringey about it now? What's the harm, really? I am otherwise having a wonderful time and Anthony seems nice enough. Good-hearted, quiet, gentlemanly, if prone to coming on to tourists. The enjoyment of my incredible day is in this boy's hands, so I half-heartedly kiss him back, full of justifications.

I have to negotiate this evening. I told Anthony I'd buy him a beer and go dancing with him, but he has to understand I go no farther than kissing and nothing in public. I do not want to be the poster girl for easy American/Australian tourist.

As much as I love travelling alone, I think I'd prefer ot take a friend next time to avoid these situations. Not a man, because I think people would be less likely to talk to us, but another female. At least there'd be some safety in numbers.

It is hard to decide if Canaima is mystical given the distraction provided by my guide, but I certainly feel a kind of joy being here, in the water, under waterfalls, with their soft roar surrounding me. Despite my previous week's mango allergy, I ate one from off a tree. This has been one of my dreams, to eat a mango off a tree. I threw a stick at it to try to get it down, but it was Anthony who finally knocked the golden fruit off the branch. The little mango wasn't actually better than a market mango as I thought surely it must be. It was just as good but not quite ripe enough. Still delicious. Hopefully my allergy stays away.