I’m back — ugh, what weather — and will be posting more about my trip over the next few days. Here are some tidbits:
- Everyone was very, very nice and friendly. Despite the tensions between our two governments, no signs of anti-Americanism at all. C was not shy about telling people we were from Nuevo York — generally their eyes got wide and sometimes we talked about baseball. (Johan Santana!) Also I went running in Caracas in my Stars & Stripes shorts I had bought in a burst of patriotism after 9/11.
- Venezuela is a v. modern, affluent country with lots of plasma TVs, late-model cars and sleek fancy malls and airports. As a New Yorker my impressions of Latin Americans are informed in no small part by the dirt-poor Mexican immigrants who come here so I was somewhat surprised at this.
- We started off our trip on Isla de Margarita, staying at the Hotel Costa Linda. (Really nice, $60 a night). Margarita, an island, is pretty neat and touristy with over 50 beaches. From there we took a plane to explore the Orinoco River Delta on the mainland (more on that later) and then went to Caracas for a few days.
- Caracas (pop. 5 million) probably has the worst traffic I’ve ever seen. And is not very pedestrian-friendly: out running, I was stuck at one intersection for about five minutes…
- Our hotel in Caracas had a bidet! The first time I’d ever used one. I am now pro-bidet.
- I like fried food but was sick of it after a week in Venezuela. Arepas are good though.
- For the second half of our time in Venezuela C and I couldn’t buy alcohol after 5 p.m. because it was Easter Week. Except for one sushi place, we couldn’t even get a glass of wine to go with dinner or BYOB. (The fines are enormous). Neither C nor I is Catholic and we decided these dry laws amount to religious oppression.
- So we decided to drink in our room … but our high-end hotel wouldn’t bring us a corkscrew, despite two calls to the front desk. There were a few other incidents like this — nothing more than minor annoyances, really — that made me appreciate American standards of customer service.
- Overall we really liked Venezuela and its people.
The no drinking was a new thing this year. Supposedly not very popular with the people. I wondered if you were going to get stuck in the middle of that.