Caracas airport was crowded. I waited in the wrong line for a long, long time because it was so crowded I couldn't tell where the line was going and there were no airline staff members directing people to the correct desks. I did ask a woman in the line which airline she thought the line was for, and she also believed it was for the American Airlines check-in. She must have figured out earlier that this line was indeed not the AA check-in line because she and her family shuffled off the line at some point considerably earlier than I did. Luckily when I finally did see my line curving around into a separate entrance for a South American airline and went off to seek the AA line, I found it next door and not crowded. Still, when I arrived at the check-in counter there was a problem with my ticket. The attendant consulted her fellow colleagues, got on the phone and consulted someone on the other end, waited, wandered, and finally resolved the issue, whatever it was, as I stood nervously waiting, divided from her by a big white counter.
American Airlines puts you through security at its own gate after you've been through the airport's security process. Then you and your personal items must be scanned again at the US transfer point, because in the transfer and immigration corridors and halls and during the chaperoned bus ride there is opportunity to mingle with unsecurity-checked people likely to pass on bomb-making plastics at every turn. At the transfer point, everyone had to take their shoes off and plonk them on the conveyor belt.
Getting somewhere is a long idle process of waiting, so it is good to travel for a long time.
It is strange to be surrounded by American accents. I felt like crying in the airport - I didn't want my South American holiday to end.
After our walk in the Amazon, MS and I once again lowered ourselves into the shallow water of the river, in a pool a little sheltered from the main river. After this brief cool-off we, our fellow-travellers, and our guides, climbed back in the boat for our four-hour journey return to Puerto Ayacucho. We were served heaping plates of spaghetti for lunch on the boat, hold the ground beef for mine. I was stuffed from the big breakfast. Nevertheless I asked if there was leftover chocolate cake.
The journey back was calm and uneventful, except for a bit of rain. We were picked up by our tour agent and in the jeep we told him that we were unable to do the tepui walk. After everyone else had cleared out of the office, MS talked to the agent about our disappointment in not going on the walk, which was the very point of the excursion. As MS went on and on the poor agent looked increasingly like he was ready to cry. Not that he offered us any money back, mind.
I couldn't even speak - when MS looked to me for agreement I simply said, 'En Espanol mi silencio', which is not a grammatically correct sentence. I felt bad for the guy, though, and wished him a good weekend as we left. MS and I had talked about asking for $500 bolivars each back, but in the end MS couldn't actually ask for this anymore than I would have been able to. Andreas had been more sanguine. When I asked him if he was going to ask for money back he said no - he got a walk in the Amazon and Tito found us things to do and this kind of thing happens in Venezuela a lot anyway and Venezuelans don't take criticism well. MS agreed that Germans don't ever complain but that Venezuelans certainly do.
I am thinking of my mother and the face-wide smile she will have when she sees me. It's lovely. And reminds me of all the people who love me so much and I feel so lucky. Lucky to be and have been so well loved, not just as a daughter, but as a friend, a lover, a person. Bless my life.
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