On Saturday afternoon I slept until 2.30pm. S awoke a couple of hours later and for lunch I made what was supposed to be an omelette but turned out to be a mess of too many vegetables and not enough egg. Despite its inability to remain in patty form, the mess tasted nice. By the time we had eaten, showered, used the internet, played with A, it was evening. S was too tired to go to a couchsurfer's birthday party across town so we decided to go to the movies with A. I was to see Star Trek and S and A were to see Coraline. However, the movies were on too late so we ate gelato (nice, but not as nice as my favourite Elgin St gelato) and bought A a DVD, which Venezuelans buy pirated rather than renting because renting is more expensive. The gelato was more expensive ($15 bolivars) than the movie ($10 bolivars), which made me laugh. Monday is cheap night at the movies but still... S keeps telling me that food is expensive in Venezuela.
At home, S made A and I popcorn and guacamole and we talked while A watched 101 Dalmations in black and white. I played with A - tickling - until she went to bed and S and I watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, cranking the sound above the party below.
Yesterday, S and I went to El Hatillo, a cute little town on the outskirts of greater Caracas. S worked in the morning and by the time we had a lunch of sauteed eggplant and tomato, which I made (eggplant a little undercooked but the dish was still tasty), and cauliflower lasagna with three-cheese sauce that S made, and finished discussing politics with F, it was already 2.30pm.
When S talked of Venezuela's Catholicism - and F considers the Church to be very much aligned with Chavez's rich enemies - I asked her about teenage pregnancy and STD rates. She said AIDS mostly occured among prostitutes but young mothers are more common. She explained that in the barrios girls are so economically and physically vulnerable that they get together with men at ages as young as 9 - and sex is how they keep the men. Condoms are expensive even if desired so girls have many babies. S said the government is working on getting birth control messages and opportunities to the people.
F says that 25 families own all of the non-oil business in Venezuela and the government is having trouble regulating prices because these families scream 'dictator' every time he tries. Chavez cannot say anything against them. As for the censorship issues in terms of television, F wasn't having any of it. He says Radio Caracas Television's contract wasn't renewed when the contract came up for renegotiation because it is owned by one of Venezuela's richest families, who used the station to spread their own propaganda (and helped in the coup attempt). When people were having trouble finding meat in the supermarkets, F says, it was because the owners of the meat industry refused to sell it in an attempt to bring down the government. But now Chavez wants to communise unused farms by expropriating them from their very wealthy owners. These farms no longer produce much but are held for holiday usage or just to be able to sell off later. Chavez wants to turn them back into working farms owned by collectives.
As S and I were finally leaving for El Hatillo a gust of wind took the front door from my hand and slammed it shut. It could not be reopened. It took us an hour and help and tools from the neighbours to reopen the door. F cut his finger and S finally opened the door with a sledgehammer. Luckily the neighbours had an old doorknob and lock set that F could use until he bought a new one.
The busride to Caracas's outskirts took S and I to El Hatillo's main square. A group of young people in colourful costumes - flowered long dresses and clashing headscarves - indicated to me that I had missed a traditional dance performance. Despite this, I was in time to see my first red-shirted Chavistas, over which I was insanely excited. The people who love and work for their government! The red of Chavez. Previously seen only on television, they were now before me in reality.
El Hatillo's houses are brightly-coloured rendered stone with round-tiled roofs, mostly now restaurants and shops selling jewellery, bags, tourist statues and knicknacks. S and I went into one huge shop selling native objects and everything else a tourist could want (except for postcards of El Hatillo). Popular in Venezuela are statues of big-breasted women in colourful dresses. The multi-roomed shop also contained a cafe where I availed myself of the men's restroom, which is not done in Venezuela. Unfortunately, I ran out of photos on my disposable camera, so no images of my own, but here is one from someone else's blog:
(www.venezuelatuya.com/902/img/7319307305.jpg&imgrefurl=)
In El Hatillo I sampled a delicious drink called chicha, which is like liquid rice pudding - it is a fermented rice drink with sweetened condensed milk, though S says it is found in corn and barley varieties as well.
Tonight F was excited over a news report that 24 laundered Toyotas were found at a residence of Guillermo Zuloaga, president of television station Globovision and one of Chavez's main enemies. F said that the anti-Chavez forces will make it appear as if Chavez is trying to shut the television station down, ignoring the fact that the director is engaged in illegal activity.
The national dish of Venezuela is rice, black beans, fried plantain, avocado and ground meat. My kind of country! Also, Caracas smells nice, especially compared to the auto-fumed Buenos Aires and Lima. Caracas has a lot of trees that smell sweet or spicy in the humidity of the valleys. It is lovely.
S and I were so tired yesterday that we went to bed around 8.30pm. We were to get up early to hike in the mountainous El Avila national park. I woke at 7.00am this morning, well, earlier, but didn't get out of bed until 7. I threw on my shorts and t-shirt, grabbed a hunk of bread and S, A and I were out the door. We took a bus to a poor neighbourhood of old houses in the hills, some colourful, some not, and waited a long time for the driver of the por puesto that would take us up the mountain to decide to leave. He said he was waiting for more passengers, but he lost some to other trucks going up the mountain until there were only seven of us. The ride cost $12 bolivars a person. It was a bumpy, view-riddled ride up the mountain. The forest itself is rather ordinary compared to Australia and New Zealand but the views of Caracas in the valley below are awesome. Caracas has spots of tall buildings centrally and then spreads out in drips of low-lying city along the valley floor. The ride up the mountain was like in a travel show - precarious turns, windy cobblestoned (!!) road - but it wasn't so close to the edge as all that.
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