Off The Beach

Of course as soon as I had decided to get away from the beachtown the clouds dispersed and left me with two very warm busrides totalling 5 hours and taking me to the Unesco World Heritage Site and Venezuelas first capital city; Coro. Once again every accomodation in town was full and by the time I had walked around and found a posada I had basically seen everything this small colonial town had to offer. However I walked around, saw the contemporary local art museum and managed to catch a very short part of the sunday morning mass in Venezuela's oldest cathederal (built between 1583 and 1634) Also I saw the unrealisic amount of shoe-shops in such a small town, I'm not sure of the exact number but roughly... a shitload! So after less than 24 hours in this very pretty, cobblestoned and tranquil town I felt I had seen most of it plus I didn't need new shoes, so I moved on to my next point, Maracaibo. Maracaibo is a city almost by the Columbian border in the part of the country which gave Venezuela it's name. When Italian explorer Amerigo Vespuci came here in 1502 and saw the Arawak houses built on wooden stilts in the water it reminded him of a little Venice or.. Venezuela. At first glimpse Venezuelas second largest city situated between the banks of the Venezuelan gulf and Lago De Maracaibo (where the majority of the countries oil is found) looks like quite a grey, dismal, concrete nightmare but looking closer I found it was in fact a grey, dismal, concrete nightmare with some very charming and beautiful hidden colonial gems. I say hidden when in fact they are quite the opposite as grand European style tree-lined avenues with magnificent marble and gold fountains at the center aren't exacctly good camoufalge in a concrete jungle. Here I managed to catch the end of the sunday evening mass (two sunday masses in one day, that should get me through the pearly gates) at the Basilica and got caught up in a cult-like wave of touching eachother and giving cheek kisses. So I snuck out and went back to the hotel where I met Trenton, a Buyer/Seller from Guyana. Today I have spent all day following him around learning the art of trading goods it doesn't seem like a half bad proffesion and who knows this may be my call in life, but that will have to wait a while. My current life plan is to catch an overnight bus which should get me up into the Andes and the town of Merida by tomorrow morning some time.