Getting There

Sitting on the plane on the way to Dallas, after a bit of a mix up at the airport this morning. It seems that my itinerary had a request in it for an upgrade to first class in Dallas for the trip to Caracas. The checkin girl said that she wanted to make sure I wasn't stuck paying the fee in Dallas.

Anyway, I think it has been cleared up, so we'll just wait and see.

The "continental breakfast" was actually pretty good. There was a banana, cereal (with cold real milk), good coffee and a warm muffin. Not bad I reckon.

So, I have an hour in Dallas. Reckon I might work on eplay. :)

Well, doesn't look like I'll have time to do much. I have converted about $150 US into Bolivares, which means I have about 141,000b, 80can, 65us on me. I feel like a bank.

Dallas airport is quite amazing. Adelaide was the biggest airport I'd seen, then Sydney, then Narita, then Vancouver and now Dallas. We sat on the runway watching something like 10 planes takeoff and land in about 5 minutes while we waited to cross the main runway. The terminal is full of restaurants, but I had little time to sample anything. I shortish walk to my departure gate, and here I am waiting for my seat row to be called.

The amount of Spanish everywhere was like the amount of French in Canada, and Canada is bilingual! The Texan twang accents had me smiling all the time.

Well.

It seems that upgrade thing went through. I'm sitting in business/first class, I've just finished a champagne, and have selected the wine, and decided on my 3 course meal. The movie will be "Center Stage" (never heard of it). I'm also going to look forward to using the goodies in my "first class comfort kit". But if you will excuse me, I think the cocktails are being served, "Ah yes, A Glenlivet on ice please"

The scotch is very nice, and the warmed nuts are great. The table cloth has arrived, and dinner is about to be served. I chose the garlic shrimp with annatto rice, over the beef, chicken and lasagna. The wine will be a Casablanca Valley 97 Cab Sav.

After dinner, the cheese plate and personal Sony movie player arrived, which is a DAT tape unit. I chose to watch "LA confidential", instead of the main feature, very cool.

Arriving in Caracas(map) was interesting; the humidity here is visible. Seriously, out in the car, the lights all have a haze around them, and you can actually see, well something. My driver tried to give me a crash course on Spanish all the way to the hotel. A trip which took us up into the mountains, on a winding freeway. Very interesting city. Not like any coastal city I've seen, it very mountainous. The drive on the way up involved a traffic jam, caused by an accident - something I expected to see allot of, judging by the driving. We were passing buss on the cloverleaf exit, getting passed by cars on the shoulder, and at one time I thought I was going to be 3 feet away from a collision - but it didn't happen.

I saw houses with only 3 walls, people sitting inside houses that are only really dry places for furniture. The postal system here must be interesting.

So far, I've been lucky with the language - most of the people I've dealt with have spoken at least a little English. Although I don't know if the customs guy even spoke Spanish. He just casually looked at the passport, stamped it, all the while he was more interested in something happening behind me.

On my way to Maracaibo(map) today, and even though my Spanish driver amigo got me to the airport at 9:30, I reckon I only just made it to the boarding. Checking in took ages, and cost me 600b, which is about $1.50 Canadian, and I have no idea why. Oh well. I wonder if I can expense that?

The airport actually seemed nicer, well newer anyway. Not very big - about how I remember Adelaide about 15 years ago. Only two baggage carousels, one of which broke down. Mine was the last bag to come out, oh well.

James Bykowy was there to meet me at the airport, which was good, since I was betting on having to negotiate with a Taxi driver to try to get to Cabimas(map).

James had arrived in what was to become my personal driver. He drove us to and from the airport, and to and from work everyday. He met me at the airport with his family. I think leaving Cabimas and going into the city of Maracaibo is a big deal. When I saw Cabimas I understood why.

I collection of suburbs really, with a healthy number of broken down taxis (still operating) and an equivalent number of mechanic shop to support them. It seems that once a car is too battered to drive yourself, you turn it into a Taxi. There were all sorts of loosely compiled pieces of metal with Taxi signs on them. If any of them collided, there wouldn't much left - they'd just brush all the bits to side and leave them there with the other rubbish.

The hotel is a comfortable 1970's feel hotel, clean and comfortable.