Caracas, Venezuela

I left Lima at 4:30 AM, stopped in Guayaquil, Ecuador, and arrived in Caracas just short of noon. At immigration I was missing the arrival form so I had to go to Aeropost to get it. Then when I went to exit, I found I didn't have the customs form either.

I had read all morning and only closed my eyes an hour or so out of Guayaquil. They must have handed out the forms then. But why wouldn't they just leave the forms in my lap? How could they have figured that I am a pain in the ass even without an interaction?

Anyway, as I exit the customs door a guy outside attaches to me. It was simpler to just go along with him. He took me to an office where I got the name of the tourist office, INATUS, in the city. I also got the name and address or a hotel, Le Conde, where I am at the moment.

Although I was offered a 20,000 Bolivar ($1 = 2,000) taxi ride, I opted for the 4,000 Boliver bus ride. I am certain the driver had said he would let me off at Parque Bolívar, but that offer was taken off the table. As he let a passenger off near the metro station Gato Negro (Black Cat), he suggested that I take a cab for 6,000 Bolivares) and I did.

The Hotel Conde sits in the middle of the business district, which is not the greatest place to be during the night because there is no ebb and flow of a bunch or residents. I decided to at least say for two days while I check out the place.

I got accustomed to the musty smell pretty fast. I have a view from room 218 that's not worth viewing. It contains a terrible, worn print of Van Gogh's reapers, two beds, two wafers of soap.

FIRST TRIP

I walked about three or so blocks to the Capitolio metro and asked the guy in the booth for six tickets. He asked me where to. I told him I didn't know. He looked at his fellow worker and shrugged his shoulders.

I then told him Bellas Artes because that's where I was going, to visit INATUR. It is the Central Avenue station. It took me a while to find the office on the 35th floor of one of two towers. I got material from a very pleasant woman, whose body offered an aroma rather than a smell. Slender, lipsticked, a warm look, pleasant look in her eyes.

Then I spent half an hour in an internet cafe deleting enough stuff to still leave me 89 percent full.

I took the metro to ALTAMIRAS. Altamiras is where she had suggested I may find some good hotels and more segurity at night. Altamiras is the square where about 14 people were gunned down by a desperate opposion who tried to pin it on the President.

I would have a defintely better view and pay 2,000 Bolivares less if I moved there. I may still go there tomorrow. This morning a maid rang my bell and when I answered, immediately apologized and left. Had me thinking about my stay at Hotel Seville on 28th Street (if memory serves me), near Madison Avenue, late 1968, when our telephone would ring every now and then and when we picked it up, there was nobody on the line. Strange, we thought, my girlfriend and I. Then one night I went to meet her coming home from work. By the time we got to the hotel, the ring that she had borrowed from her friend, to prove to the world that we weren't living in sin, was gone. My laptop is being stored in the office.

I had dinner nearby, returned home to finish a bit of watermelon and one of two mengoes that I had bought earlier.

Earlier, I stopped at a kiosc to buy a newspaper. I asked the man for the pro-Chavez papers, since I didn't want to spend a dime on an opposition paper. He then came outside to show me the pro-Chávez art on the wall above his kiosc. (I don't know if I spelled that right.)

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