Road Warriors revisited
16 Septembre 2000
I'm sure everyone has been wondering about my sudden silence. Frankly, just going along and getting along has been enough for me. At one point Ron asked me if I was planning to post dispatches myself. I said "When have you ever know me to shut up?" However, I'm doing most of the talking for the group here in Venezuela since my Spanish is the best and I'm pretty talked out. (Can anybody believe that?)I really feel, though, that since last night was a really big adventure, I need to say that the experience really brought me closer to the Venezuelan people. I haven't read Ron's dispatch yet but it's a long one! I'll leave the story to him. I just need to add, since I was doing the talking, that the people on the bus were fantastic. We have been staying in a budget hotel in a not-so-good part of Caracas. Accordingly, we've felt somewhat under siege - clutching our bags close when we walk down the street -somewhat suspicious of everyone's motives. From there we went to the biggest bus terminal I've ever seen, very crowded and, once again, unfamiliar to us. This is, of course, normal and as it should be for where we are and for our newness to our surroundings.
The incredible thing last night for me was that, surrounded as we were by what seemed like all of humanity sweating in a bus, these wonderful people were so supportive and sweet to us. Some of them really believed that we'd been robbed. They were much more upset and angry than we were. One lovely lady from Ciudad Bolivar, our destination, handed me a slip of paper with her name and phone number so that she could help us when we get there. Others thought, as I did, that it was a bizarre mistake. They argued with the bus driver (and the police!) that they'd SEEN the guide stand in line to purchase the tickets and walk to the bus with us with the tickets in his hand so the tickets MUST be on the bus, which, of course, turned out to be true. But to get back to how I felt about it, the truth is that I started laughing. They were so wonderful. Our bags were underneath a huge pile so everything had to be sorted out to get to ours. They were so patient, sitting there sweating up a storm. The policemen were so sweet and so concerned about us. They charmed me totally and I fell in love with them. We had a passle of little bags so when we thought we had them all, I asked them to indulge me while I went outside and counted bags. Sure enough, one was still missing. I said So sorry. My shoes are still missing and I reeeaaally need my shoes. Everybody laughed and we tore the pile of bags up again and there was the bag.This morning when I walked out on the street, I felt much less insecure and much more content to be where I am. Ah, well, just another day in the life of the lunatic travellers.
Jeanne
