Caracas

Hmmm...not really sure why Caracas is on our itinerary. I guess to be fair to all my Venezuelan friends I'll start with the good part of my tour to Caracas.

The name Venezuela actually means Little Venice and there is quite a large Venician population in Venezuela. The highlight of Caracas for me was the Murano glass blowing factory. It's amazing watching the artisans shape the glass into dogs and clowns. I watched one add an accordian to a clown and give it hands. It's a 2 man process as one is the sculptor and the other is the runner getting hot glass ready for the artist. Another guy was blowing the glass and making vases and drinking glass. Really interesting watching the process.

So the other parts of Caracas that I visited no so exciting. I visited the Pantheon which is where Simon Bolivar's remains are buried, but it wasn't very exciting as I couldn't understand a word our guide said. The other place we went was a Colonial Museum which was really boring. It was an old wealthy estate from the 18th Century. Maybe if I had gone to other parts of Caracas my impression would be different, but it is a very large city with tons of traffic. It's surrounded by mountains and has a lot of vegetation, but nothing really impressive. I did see Chavez signs this time and saw all the parts of society. There is a definite difference between poor, middle class, and rich housing. I actually found Isla Margarita to have more poverty than Caracas, but maybe it's because we were in the nicer parts.

We had lunch at a restaurant in a very nice hotel, but the meal wasn't traditional. I don't understand why all these places serve western food rather than their local cuisine. There was quite a stir at lunch when one of the waiters spilled coke on a passenger. The passenger was disgusting. She demanded for the staff to either buy her a new shirt and handbag or launder her clothes because she could not eat like that. They ended up washing and drying her clothes and delaying our group. The nerve of some people.

Today I'm going on a party catamaran with a steel drum band and Mourn Rouge beach in Grenada. Happy Friday!