Location - Mérida, Venezuela
Miles from Home - 7,850 (bike miles, not including flight from Panama)
Hours of paperwork to get bike through customs - 5 (not too shabby)
Number of stamps and signatures combined needed to clear customs - 15, four times each
Legal Exchange Rate - Bs.1,600:US$1 (although Chavez has prohibited all banks from buying or selling dollars reportedly in an effort to strangle private business)
Black Market Exchange Rate - Bs.2,200:US$1 (2,500 if you're really good!)
Local Time - EST, plus 1 (I think it's called Atlantic Time)
I landed on Terra Firma in South America just over two weeks ago, and I can already feel the enormity of this grand continent. While in Central America, I was spiraling down and ever narrowing funnel for three months, running into the same travelers in the same hostels time and again, climbing peaks that on clear days provide views to both oceans, and generally running out of space. South America already feels completely different; it's a place you can really stretch out in.
Here are a few highlights and insights from the last few weeks. I'll admit that I've spent much of the last few weeks dealing with shipping and receiving the bike, so little on the "adventure" end of things has transpired. In fact, the following is more a collection of smart-ass observations than anything else. More travel tales to come, as soon as I get a few more miles under my belt.
Happy St. Panny's Day
Panama City, Panama -- It's St. Patrick's Day (or at least a few days before) and I'm happy to see I'm not the only sappy Irishman heading to Bennigan's for a pint of Guiness and a few verses of Danny Boy. Not that the local brew doesn't hit the spot, but there's something about the frothy head of a well-poured Guiness that mere piss-water cannot replace.
It's the Saturday before the official holiday, and the place is packed. I must say that all of the clovers, green hats, and green beer look a little funny mingling with this very NON-Irish crowd, but I give them points for spirit. Heck, everyone's Irish on St. Pat's.
I sidle up to the bar and order me a Guiness. Experience has taught me not to have expectations, but I admit that I've been dreaming of a tall, creamy stout all day. I especially like watching the buddles cascade down the inside of the glass just before taking that first sip, the mustache of froth lingering on my upper lip. I'm a visual guy, if you know what I mean.
So I guess I have good reason to be a little let down when the frothy pint of ecstacy I've been craving all day arrives as little more than coca-cola colored Budweiser disguised in a Guiness bottle. It tastes like it's been in and out of the fridge five time. On the back of the bottle it says, "Proudly Brewed in Panama." I guess it's Happy St. Panny's Day this year. Oh well...
Panama: The Last Great Bastion for Organized Crime
Panama City, Panama -- Perhaps I'm just naive, but I had never considered the fact that a large portion of the great wealth one sees in Panama City is derived from the very lucrative business of money laundering.
Looking out over the Panamanien skyline, I found it reminiscent of many major US cities. Tall buildings soar out over the Pacific, glowing in the night sky, ringing of success and affluence. I'm not at all surprised to see quite a few Beemers, Mercs and other expensive imported cars about town.
I was VERY surprised to find out, however, that most of the towering sky scrapers lining Panama's Panilla section remain empty. As in, without one inhabitant. Although the lawns are meticulously kept, the lights turned off and on, and the door men paid by the hour, most of the buildings are merely shells, tax cover for any number of "off-shore services" firms that launder money for the world's rich and corrupt.
It was quite logical then to learn that a number of former Central American presidents and dictators now reside in Panama, enjoying the benefits of a tax-free and financially invisible existence.
This is all according to a friend in Panama who works for one of the "off-shore" firms, enjoying the beneifits of his own six figure salary.
Coca Cola Culture
Everywhere, Central America -- Although I enjoy a nice, cold Coke every now and again, the reverence given to the King of Cola throughout Central and South America is unprecedented.
Although, after a while I stopped seeing the six by eight foot Coke logo murals on every roadside stand throughout Central America. I even forgot that every chair I sat in for two months was of the red, plastic "lawn" variety, conveniently imprinted with the coke emblem along the back.
But when I saw a mother giving her one year old Coke in a baby bottle, and when I learned that the "secret ingredient" in the sweet, boiled plantains of Panama is actually boiled down Coke, I had to throw up my hands. Somethings are just too bizarre to comprehend. Either that or some marketing campaigns are too good to fight.
"I'd like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony..."
Venezuela Burning
Barquistemo, Venezuela -- Sources close to the Chavez Administration recently confirmed reports that indeed all of Venezuela is on fire. Whereas, Central America has its share of small roadside enflagrations and trash burning pits, ALL of Venezuela is engulfed in roaring flames.
At least that's what it seems like recently as I ride around the country side. I've never seen so many huge fires as in Venezuela. Twenty five foot flames tower over the highway. Whiteout smoke conditions continue for 100 meters. And every open patch of hillslope and valley bottom is charred black.
I think I'm going to start a pyro-tour company. We'll start at Carnaval in Panama where they have 10,000,000 fireworks exploding in the middle of the street for hours on end, and finish up in central Venezuela in the dry season a few weeks later where every blade of grass seems to spontaneously combust in the near-equatorial sun.
When Animals Attack
La Puerta, Venezuela -- The knocking on the door at 7 am certainly can't be for me. At least I hope not. This is the first good night's sleep I've had in days, and I roll over putting the pillow on my head. The mosquito den in Caracas I stayed in for a week didn't exactly lend itself to sound sleep, and I'm enjoying the fresh mountain air for a change.
"Señor!" comes a voice at the door. Since I'm the only guest in the entire place that I could see, I guess he means me. I pour myself out of bed and go to the door. The owner has the look on his face of a child who just got caught drawing on the walls. He motions me down the hall to the end so we can look out into the parking lot where El Cabroncito was nestled down for the night.
He's speaking quickly and apologeticly, and I'm not really getting the drift. It's not until I look out into the parking lot and see the bike draped in shreds of that used to be my nylon motorcycle cover that I understand what all the commotion is about. Seems the "guard dog" took a liking to ol' Cabroncito in the night and decided to get a little closer.
Now, my Mom will tell you I'm not one for bad news in the morning. Thirteen years of bad news every morning that I had to go to school again gave her a good taste of my morning moodiness. So it being 7 AM and me being tired and this being bad news, I'm expecting to throw a fit. But not this time.
Instead, I let out one of those sick and deranged laughs. The kind that don't stop for a while. The kind that awkwardly infect the other people around you because they don't know if this is the laugh of a well-humored person or a lunatic that's about to kill everyone with a butcher knife. The kind you see in Austin Powers movies.
So we just laughed and laughed. Sometimes all you can do is laugh.
Coming Home
Los Llanos, Venezuela -- There's something very familiar about the landscape of Central Venezuela. As I ride through it's parched, winding hills, crowned in desert shrubs, lined here and there with short ribbons of green along the sparse waterways, I'm reminded of home. New Mexico.
This is unlike northern New Mexico where I currently reside, but more reminiscent of southern New Mexico. The upper reaches of the Chihuahuan Desert around Truth or Consequences or Hatch where the wide expanses of desert and big sky make one feel small, insignificant. Although it is a dusty and unwelcoming landscape, it makes me feel comfortable in a strange way.
This place reminds me of the long, barren stretches of gently sloping highway you'll find throughout the Land of Enchantment. It makes me realize that when I finally find my way home, I'll feel welcomed by every cholla, prickly pear and mesquite bush I come in contact with.
Although I still have a long way to go, it's nice to know there's still a place called Home.
The Question of the Day
Mérida, Venezuela -- As I meander south on this strange odyssey I've made for myself, I'm faced with the same question over and over. In cafés, in bars, on the street, and in the cold kitchens of farmers that open their doors as guest houses for travelers passing by, it's always the same.
Although the main question I get is "Where are you from?" and "How much does your motorcycle cost?" is a close second, the question people are really trying to get to once they break the ice is "What do you think about the war?"
When I am faced with this question, as I am five to ten times a day, I tell people that sometimes the actions of a government are not necessarily in keeping with the sentiments of its people. They understand this. They're governments are often not in keeping with them either. But then again the US is a nation divided. I'm sure we are as divided on the war as on many other hotly contested issues. That's just the way it goes, I guess.
Don't worry, I'll spare the reader another diatribe on the war. I'll only say that I pray to God, Allah, the Great Spirit, Buddha, or whoever is up there that our troops come home soon, alive and well, that the lives of innocent Iraqi civilians are spared, and that this will all be over very, very soon.
"War is over, if you want it."
And now back to our regularly scheduled program of cynical travel writing...