Wow …. I feel like Frogger the frog, in a computergame with no joystick or a person to control him. This is a mad place, and I think I have to count myself lucky, to actually have come this far.

[Current location]

The flight to Venezuela, was quite OK. We arrived 20 minutes earlier than scheduled, after a 10 hour flight across the Atlantic. 2 inflight movies, 1 horrible documentary about some sort of strange Romeo & Juliet version where monkeys in Thailand played the characters, some BBC news and some music videos created the visual entertainment and numerous meals, snacks and drinks created the gastronomical entertainment. It was a regular flight - everything was normal. Approximately 1.5 hours before departure in Caracas, I noticed that the guy in front of me, were reading a danish book. I thought I could have a chat with him, to see if he knew anything about Caracas, and maybe he had some idea of what I could do, or where to go, to get a room for the night. He was on his way to meet his girlfriend and he offered to ask his Venezuelian girlfriend for advice. She was very friendly, and started calling hotels for me, even before we got out of the airport. They were both working for Maersk shipping, and luckily the danish guy were to be picked up by a driver in the airport. He was kind enough to offer me a ride, and off course - I accepted.

The airport of Caracas, is located som 16 km outside of the town center, and I must say, that the traffic was … hmm … massive. Somewhere along the road, a bridge had collapsed a year ago, and all cars had to make a small detour. Unfortunately, the detour road was not scaled to manage all those cars, and we drove in a permanent queue for at least an hour. Along the way I realised, that I had no money whatsoever. No Dollars, no Euros, no Venzuelian Bolivars … no nothing. So I couldn’t even buy a bottle of water from some crazy guys standing in the middle of the road selling snacks and beverages. I was thirsty, but it had to wait. I also realised, that it could be a problem to find a room. My new friends girlfriend had tried to call even more hotels to look for a room, and she did not succeed, apart from getting the names for a number of hotels. We drove to the Maersk building in Caracas, and suddenly I found myself in the parking area below the Maersk office in Caracas, in a car with a “personal” driver, with a danish guy, his Venezuelian girlfriend and one of her collegues who helped out trying to locate hotels. They were most helpful, and I almost felt ashamed when I realised how stupid this trip must have looked like for a native. I had no place to go, no money, cannot speak one complete sentence of spanish and have absolutely no knowledge about the country and specially the very turbulent political situation here right now - I can understand why I got the comment “you are crazy”. Somehow, it hurts a bit more, when it comes from a Venezuelian person that I met 5 minutes ago.

My first mission, was to locate some dineros. I had my credit card, and thought it would be easy to just locate an ATM and cash out some money. I should have known better. Retrieving local money from an ATM with a foreign VISA card was not in the interrest of every bank. The first bank did not accept my card, and we had to go a bit further to find the next bank. The danish guys girlfriend was again very helpful, and asked for help from a bank employee. He told us to try a certain bank which we found and luckilly it worked. But you need to be very fast to get the money. If you don’t type in the PIN code, enter how much you would like to cash out, the two first or last (depending on the mood of the ATM) numbers of your passportnumber or react fast enough to any of the 1000 screens I had to go through to get my money, they ended the transaction. It didn’t make the situation better, when everything was written in spanish, even if I asked for instructions in english. After 8 tries, I managed to get the equivallent of $200 and I was set. I turned around and started walking with the money in my hand, when the girl burst out “are you mad?? Do not walk around with cash in you hands. This is a very dangerous city”. I was stunned and hurried the money in one of my pockets, and started strolling, happy whistling some random tune (as they do in the movies to pretend innocence) and act like I was a very dangerous guy at the same time, so any mugger would think twice, if they wanted to have a go at me. She also said “they have allready heard that we speak english, so they are probably allready alert”. Who are “they” and why do “they” just lurk around in the concrete jungle? How come “they” have ears and eyes that I cannot see? It is like trying to hide from The Predator … the invisible enemy.

The very friendly girl wanted to drive me to a hotel, but I had to refuse, as I felt I had been “trespassing” their privacy enough for one day. She drew me a nice map, and told me how to get there on the metro and there I was … the only gringo for miles with a massive backpack, trying to navigate through the metro system in Caracas. I was amazed … it was easy, fast and in spanish. I found the hotel she mentioned to me, but I think I might have been ripped off. I think this is a hotel where hookers rent rooms on hourly basis. I have rented it for one night and need to search for a new, and cheaper room, tomorrow morning. I have one bed, and I will try it soon … the day has been long.

After I got the room, I knew I had to try to locate a backpackers hostel in the city, and I knew where to look for it. After walking about for 20 minutes to find an internet café, I found one in a very secluded place. I wanted the staff of this café to help me out, by calling the hostel I knew of, to ask if they had any vacancies. They did, off course, not speak a word of english in this place, so I had to start to use a very helpful tool: Google Translate. We actually had a conversation, not saying one word to eachother, by using this - and I learned some spanish on the way. That was a surreal experience, but I do not know how I would have done without it. The hostel had no vacancies, and I have to try again tomorrow.

The conclusion of today is:

• Do not enter Venezuela unprepared
• Bring money
• Driving is mad, and pedestrians are like live froggers - they don’t care, if the red lights are red, green or any other color. As long as they can see a small opening in the traffic, they make a run for it.
• English is useless and I feel like an infant, an alien, an idiot and very tired on the same time.
• Caracas is dirty, noisy, packed with artificially modified women and very full of concrete.

I think I have to get out of here as fast as possible or at least find some other backpackers. This is a lonely place, where nobody knows your name and nobody enderstands what you say. It is a vast nowhere and everyone is everywhere, omnipresent but yet so far, far away.