The safest city in Venezuela...

Apparently doesn´t make a place that safe.

I´ve been really lazy about updating this for awhile even when I´ve had internet. I think for now I´m going to skip the Amazon and come back to it later. I know I won´t forget the stuff I saw there, and I want to write about getting mugged since everyones going to be curious when they hear about it.

Anyway, last Thursday night I left Manaus for Venezuela. The first bus ride was to Boa Vista in northern Brazil and was supposed to take 8 hours but ended up being around 13. I got there just around when the next bus was leaving for Puerto Ordaz. About 2 hours into that we got to the Venezuelan border which we actually got through pretty quick. The bus went really slow the rest of the day because it was going up and down mountains, although its a beautiful area because its kind of a mix of the rainforest and mountains. We saw a lot of cool things on the ride including a couple indian villages that were right by the road.

Looking back I don`t know how I didn`t get mugged in Puerto Ordaz. I got a taxi late at night when I got in and asked for the closest hotel. I got taken to one that the taxi driver said was in a very dangerous area, where I couldn`t go out at night. The hotel ended up being full so I was stuck looking around the neighboorhood for another one, competely broke so I couldn`t get another taxi. I finally found one and had to beg them to take me without money until the next day. I could tell you to imagine the shittiest hotel possible and you probably wouldn´t imagine one as bad as that Although I was very impressed with their cockroaches, they were the biggest I`ve ever seen.

The next day in Puerto Ordaz it took me about 10 atms before I found one that worked, so I was kind of freaking out since I needed to get money for the hotel...they were keeping my passport until I paid. By the time I finally got money I was already charged for another night so I just stayed at that hotel. Taking money out of an ATM in Venezuela is terrible because you have to use the governent exchange rate of 1.9 Bolivarese when the real exchange rate you can get everywhere else is around 3.5 (and its really better than that since the exchangers take some off the top)...at a rate of 1.9 the country is really expensive.

I was feeling pretty alone in Puerto Ordaz and went to a McDonalds. Its funny because I never eat there at home but when you`re alone in a foreign country going to a McDonalds is the most comforting experience you can have. After this I found a baseball field where games were going on all day and hung out there...Mcdonalds and baseball got me pretty comfortable. Nowhere else was really safe to go besides the baseball field, the area I was in was so dangerous that stores all kept their doors locked. You had to ring the doorbell if you wanted to buy anything and they would look to see if you looked safe.

Anyway, I survived Puerto Ordaz and went to the airport the next day. My flight to Caracas was late and I missed my connection to Merida which is not like missing a connection in the states. Basically I would go up to the counter and explain in broken spanish that I needed a new flight because I had missed mine. They would look at my ticket and say ¨this flight already left¨ and then ignore me.

I managed to get on a late flight to a town an hour away from Merida, only because I was at the counter when people cancelled and immediately jumped in to grab their tickets. I met a nice guy on the plane who was also going to Merida and we split a cab there from the airport. I got to Merida at about 11 and got a room at one of the Posadas close to the school I was going to.

I think Merida is a very pretty city and very clean by South American standards (on the surface it seems like it would be very safe by South American standards too). Its surrounded by mountains in every direction. Its frustrating though because it costs a lot of money to do all the activities in the mountains and its hard to really see any of the nature just from walking from the town, although I figured out that I can rent a bike for about 20 dollars a day and I´m going to tomorrow to just explore on my own.

Anyway I`ll write more later about Merida and the Spanish class later but I´ll just wrap up now with how I got mugged. I was walking with one other kid in our class last night close to the posada at around 9. There was a big group of kids we passed asking if we wanted cocaine or marijuana and we said no and walked past, I could tell they looked more dangerous then most of the kids you see selling drugs though.

The power was out in the section of the city we were going through and 5 of the guys we had walked past came up behind us and yelled ¨gringos¨. I looked at the kid I was with and said ¨we`re about to get robbed¨ and he said yea I know...it was that obvious. We should have ran towards any store that was open right when they yelled but didn't. They came up and got us up against the wall. They had broken bottles and were waving them in our faces. They took my shitty watch that cost around 10 bucks and I handed them 10 BFs which was all I had. They left me alone at that point and all gathered around Felix. I didn`t know whether to run or not because I couldn`t help him anyway and thought they`d come back to me after they were done with him. I stayed even though I couldn`t help beccause I figured you can`t abandon someone like that whether or not you can help. I tried to flag down a couple cars but they didn`t stop. After they took his jacket, money and key (the posada is changing all the locks, thats the only real expense involved in all of it) they just ran away. It was a pretty shitty robbery since they didn`t even get my cell phone.

We think it was only because the power was out that they did it. That area is usually well lit and there are people around pretty much all night. They also didn`t seem like they were used to robbing people, I wasn`t impressed at all with their skills...I think they just decided to because the power being out made it an easy situation and decided to try a robbery. Regardless, I`m going to be more careful since apparently walking with one other guy isn`t enough.