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.