8/23/09 Weekend at Puerto La Cruz

What a weekend. Where to begin? Thursday night Arqui called me up to tell me about some elephants. I didn't they existed in such a town. He cooked up some arepas, and we headed out to the casino. Big Ballin'. Bingo is popular here.

Friday ended the first week of school. What a relief it was! Until I was walking home, and ran into the leader of the red liners!!! Made it barely alive. Immediately after contract time ran up, Marshall and I and a few drinks with the local maintenance staff. By about 9:00, and a nice sum of beers later, we called a cab and headed out for the night. The music was blaring everywhere we went, there isn't a single mellow bar out here where you can just have a drink and talk. The highlight of the night was probably my pepito.

I've been having extremely weird dreams lately, that generally involve the daily happenings of my life. For instance, Friday night I had a dream that involved an elephant on a rampage, and 3 big iguanas who I befriended. Friends with them? HA! I think I must be going crazy to ever think of such a thing. Not after what they did...

Woke up early Saturday to catch a ride up to Puerto La Cruz with Marshall. Katy drove since she needed to pick up books for the school. It really is a beautiful city, just about 95% of it isn't safe to walk through.

Marshall and I walked all up and down Paseo Colon to find a hotel for the night. Typically you can find hotels in a safe area right on the street for about 90b's. EVERYTHING was packed full, luckily we found a hotel that wasn't booked. It cost 220. I guess this was my weekend to splurge(It still only amounted to about 36 bucks). Not too shabby for the place.



For lunch we picked up some delicious schwarma, they reminded me of the kebabs in Europe. Delicious.

Honestly, my favorite part of the trip was finding the ridiculous names of restaurants.


Actually that's a downright lie, it was this guy.

...That was a lie too, when the evening came upon us, we stopped on the walkway by the beach. There were vendors, and street performers, and a section where they have somewhere between 8-10 kid sized electric cars they rent out to use. Marshall and I just posted up on a spot and watched mayhem ensue. And I do mean mayhem. There was a couple sitting on the ledge next to us, making out obnoxiously, all of the sudden out of nowhere...BLAM! This kid(who I'll call #8) crashes straight into them. Then another kid crashed into them. Then one more immediately after. Kid #8 was by far my favorite, he ended up in the sandpit twice, as soon as someone helped him out, he crashed into a tree, then when his mom came to get him out of that situation, he crashed into another couple 5 feet away! Kid #8, you will always have a place in my heart.

When the night got later, we took a taxi out to a club. The music here is probably my least favorite thing. It is so damn awful. It feels like Moby had a lovechild with the Macarena, and the only way to drown out its horrible sound, is to turn it up so loud that you can't think about how god awful it truly is. That's my theory anyways. The only thing I have against that theory is that every single person in the clubs, at every club, sings along to the same horrible songs. I don't know what I'm going to do about it. We met a couple of girls, who I think all had children, Marshall met a sweetie, and we called it a night. Overall, this weekend was bomb.

This morning there was a bike race, which explains the crowded hotels. Just as I thought I could live in safety from the iguanas, I caught one hot on my trail downtown Puerto La Cruz!!! I need some help people, please give me suggestions on how to stop iguana bullies.

We went to the bus station and did what is called a por cuesta(?) where you wait for someone to call the city you are going to, and they fill up the car with 5 random passengers, saves some money. There were no seatbelts either.

Now I'm just sitting at school, thinking about Chavista propaganda, and probably should be preparing for class tomorrow.