Sunday, May 24, 9.37am ....still tired

As S, A and I left the national gallery I was feeling tired and dodgy and all I wanted in the world was to go home, but I didn't say so. It is amazing how much tiredness can feel like illness.

Still in Caracas's arts precinct, we stopped in one of the government-subsidised bookshops, Fundacion Librarias del Sur, where books are sold at cheap prices and the independent writings of Venezuelans published and sold. Nationalised books: how wonderful! After buying a children's book for A, S and I stopped in a bar for beer. A was radiant over her Coke and her mother's new lighter with blue and red blinking lights and a flashlight. I began to feel better at the pub, and then we made our way back to S's to prepare for our night out, beginning at M's house for rum and Cokes and then to a long-popular salsa bar.

It took S and I much too long to get to M's apartment. We arrived as per normal at Capitolo station and hopped on a train going only one stop. Why wait now when we can sit in airconditioning for a spell and wait later? However, when we got off the train we smelt the terrible smell of burning rubber. Then we saw smoke emanating from the back of the train and conductors running towards it. Those of us waiting for the next train, hoping they'd move the burning train along, were ushered out of the platform by security, who told us the smell was dangerous and train line would be closed for a while. S wasn't sure how to get to M's now and asked a fireman outside how to get where we needed to go. His instructions involved two buses and then back on the train farther down the line. By the time we got back to the train, the line was running again. I think it took us an hour and a half to get to M's.

M, also a couchsurfer, is a pretty, fiery Mexican gal with a big personality and a foul mouth. She is great. She lives on her own in an apartment very different to S's: darker, with smaller rooms. The living room is a homey space with bookshelves on the far end below the windows, artworks, a liquor cabinet, flat green carpeting, big couch along the wall. I only drank one rum and Coke while talking sex with the gals and had a few tokes from a joint once I arrived in his off-white camping trousers, cream polyester shirt, red tie with 'stop Bush' pin, round blue-glassed Lennon sunglasses and gentleman's hat. A good-looking, young 30-year-old with a great capacity for chatter, smiles and the swivelling knees of a great salsa dancer.

We left for the club in I's car around 1.30am, arriving at a steamy, brightly-coloured bar full up of dancing couples, with deep sky-blue and red walls, old and famous, with a live salsa band in the back room. Three men asked me to dance. The one who held me way too close was the easiest to salsa with because I had no room to move wrongly. I was less adept with the men who held me at an appropriate distance, but I got the basic idea as I have salsaed before - years and years ago in Bristol. All three men spoke some English so I was able to talk while dancing. One man hung around our table after we danced and he danced with S as well. I never asked me to dance.

I admit that as the night wore on and young Mr. I got drunker and drunker, coming on to M in a most annoying manner, and with everyone talking in Spanish and S often off dancing, I got a little bored. I only drank one Guarana-flavoured vodka drink. Also, I'm watching I, our ride, get drunker and drunker, to the point at which I did not relish the idea of getting into a car with him. I didn't want to get in a car with him when we left M's place, but I admit that when he backed down a curvy narrow street parked with cars on both sides quickly and perfectly despite the rums on ice and the joint, I was impressed. Apparently, I is a pilot.

S said that driving drunk in Venezuela is normal and the only accidents result from rain and driving on curbs to get out of traffic, but not alcohol. I would never accept a refusal to get in his car, it's just not done. So I got in the car. This, for me, was the scariest thing I have encountered in South America so far. It is possibly an interesting question to explore whether drunk driving is only a cultural difference rather than a policy difference with measurable consequences.

In any case, we arrived at a restaurant safe and sound around 5.00 in the morning (I closed my eyes while I negotiated the narrow roads decorated with parked cars) and I ate a cachapa con queso, a sweet corn pancake stuffed with white cheese. It was delicious. However, the waiters were rude to us because M and Mr. I asked for more menus. S explained that customer service is terrible in Venezuela. But we WERE loud. Well, M and Mr. I, still drunk, were loud. S and I were ready for bed. A gentlemen at a nearby table attempted to pick a fight with a most willing I but the gals, annoyed, cajoled I out of rising to the bait. I would have left and let him fight. Why is it women's job to keep drunken idiots from fighting in restaurants?