A Tale of Two Playas

Camping at Medina

It was the best of beaches, it was the worst of beaches.  Venezuela has the longest coastline of any Caribbean nation...and much of that is spanned by some of the most beautiful beaches in the world in places like Morrocoy, Mochima, Margarita, Los Roques, and Paria.  The most outstanding beach that we visited, though, was our very first beach of Venezuela.

It's called Playa Medina, on the peninsula of Paria; it's postcard picture perfect...it is actually the beach most seen in postcard photos in the country.  The sand's like white corn flour, the water like the sky above the endless Llanos.  It's hemmed in by impassable mountains and fringed by coconut palms, of course.  And during the week, the place is empty...all to yourself.  Well you can imagine.  Paradise.

Medina from above

Then there's the island of Zapara.  We were invited there for our last weekend in Venezuela, and after all the wonderful beaches we had seen, we couldn't refuse.  Upon first glance, my breath was taken away.  Aghast, I was.  I should have realized that the island lie where Lake Maracaibo's filthy cloaca deposits into the sea.  The water of Lake Maracaibo would be considered far too polluted for swimming for even a Ganges-bathing Indian.  Aghast, I say !

The beach was only half sandy.  The other half included non-sand items such as glass and plastic bottles, dead and rotting fish, dried cow and donkey shit, broken Barbies and other miscellaneous trash, and sea shells (not even the pretty ones, either).  The water, well, looked like it came out of a cloaca...I'll spare you the richer description.  You can imagine.  Not paradise.

And that was just my first impression.  Things got far worse.  First things first, we tried to put up the tent, but with 50km/h winds and soft sand mixture, the tent pegs absolutely refused to stay put.  One hour later, we were still at it, when one of the others in the group mentioned that they had an extra tent.  Yes, please !

Five minutes later, our new tent was up.  But comicly enough, the zippers were jammed, and so we were stuck with a gaping opening on one side like a giant frog's mouth .  There wasn't much we could do...so we had dinner : pita and veggies.  Remember the wind ?  Well carrots are whole lot crunchier when eaten in a sandstorm.  Pita bread, too.  Four days later, I'm still finding grains of sand in my teeth.

So we went back to the tent.  Remember the wind, again ?  Well, all evening the wind force fed our sad open-mouthed frog tent with sand like a sadistic Frenchman hoping to eat its liver.  And just then Pauline had the best idea ever, even better than either of us realized at the time.  She suggested that we take our old tarp-tent and drape it over the new gaping one.  Less than a minute and half later, the skies opened up and released one of the hardest and windiest and wettest and longest downpours that we've experienced since arriving in South America.  All night long, the tent jumped, shifted, leaned, and moaned.  Rainwater slowly filled its corners.  From the screams we heard in the night, we could only assume the other campers were a lot wetter than us.  From time to time, a tent-peg would come undone and the tent would flap and flail harder than usual, and we (usually Pauline) would have to go out and replant it.  And several times, our thoughts transcended from the mental to the verbal : I hate this fucking beach !

But of course, everything was better in the morning.  I woke up with the sunrise, my eyes bleary and encrusted with wet sand, but somehow I felt refreshed.  The wind had calmed down, and most of the group was also up.  We spent the morning swimming, eating sandless food, and chatting in the shade of a flotsam and concrete refuge.

I think in the end, like with all miserable moments, our memories of Zapara will stay vivid with us, provoking laughter whenever we tell the tale.  Whereas Playa Medina, with its perfect sand and azure water will fade and blend in among other countless beaches with the same description.  So if you ever go to Venezuela´s Caribbean coast, forget Los Roques, Mochima, Morrocoy, or even Medina.  Head over to Zapara, where sand is the main ingredient in every meal, and the only fish you'll see are the bloated remains next to your tent.

La Plaga !

Beware !

Beware !

Beware la plaga !

La plaga strikes at night. La plaga spares no one. The indigenous say they can't be touched by la plaga...but they flail their arms like madmen.

La plaga spreads through the air. The 11th plague of Egypt missed its connection and got stuck in Venezuela. You cannot avoid la plaga.

Once struck by la plaga, you will bleed from holes all over your body, your ears will hum and buzz, you will be driven to madness...and scratching.

The elderly ramble about a land without la plaga. Sanctuary ! Somewhere in the high Andes, they say. But no one believes them.

La plaga has an alias. It calls itself "Zancudo." But on its well-stamped and -traveled passport, one can clearly read the name "Mosquito."

Yes, in Venezuela, they use a word that for us Anglophones connotates the agonizing death of ¼ of some European populations caused by infestations of flea-infested rats.

Yeah, they can be pretty annoying here.

[This article should be read aloud with a Hungarian accent.]

You're a lousy cook !

In France, I considered myself a decent cook. No. Better than better than average. As a vegetarian, I had learned dozens and dozens of recipes from here and there around the globe. They were good enough to make even the most ardent carnivores salivate. And Pauline cooks much better than I do.

Upon our arrival in South America, I was brimming with kitchen confidence. For our first host we planned on making risotto. So we visited the nearest supermercado in search of the ingredients….hmmm, mushrooms cost twice as much as back home, cooking white wine doesn‘t exist, and veggie broth has yet to be invented on this continent. Plan B : uh, how about a Greek salad ? Black olives cost two arms and a leg, feta is non-existent, and olive oil…we’re a long way from Italy. Plan C : Goddammit, pasta and vegetables, that we can do !

And it's not just the main ingredients. For quite a few Colombians and Venezuelans, when you say “spice,” they think “salt” or perhaps "pepper." And the spice rack here is limited to those two, and if you’re lucky, maybe cinnamon.

This scene was repeated over and over again in countless homes and supermarkets in countless cities...suddenly all my confidence collapsed like a deflated cholocate mousse. My list of recipes was decimated. And those that I could do, I couldn't do !

For a while it seemed like nothing would work. The pans would stick, the oven cooked too hot. One time, I woke up early to prepare some pancakes for our host…simple pancakes...but the damn things kept sticking to the pan. More butter, more oil, changing the pan…in the end I succeeded in making 3 or 4 things that resembled pancakes with multiple malignant tumors. And I went back to bed, in frustration. Our host, Clara, later asked Pauline if American pancakes are supposed to be that way, amoeboid-shaped, almost burnt on the outside, and uncooked inside.

So now I stick to the one recipe that always works and always makes the South Americans (read : carnivores) smile : my veggie burgers.

Closed for Business !

Soon after arriving in Venezuela, up in the Andes, we met Eduardo, who bakes pies and sells them on the street to earn a bit of extra cash.  Inspired by Eduardo, the high prices in the supermarket, and Venezuela’s terrible exchange rates, we decided to take a slice of the pie industry ourselves.  With Eduardo’s secret recipe and borrowed ovens and pie forms, we started our little venture in a small village in the mountains to resounding success.  We sold whole pies in as little as 25 minutes…and in the worst case, perhaps an hour and 25 minutes.  Over a four-day period we sold about 5 or 6 pies, plus my Swedish negerbollar.  We envisioned ourselves traipsing across country selling pies to the overweight middle-aged Venezuelan ladies.

But over the next three weeks, we never had the opportunity to bake for various reasons - staying with people who didn’t have an oven, camping in our tent, volunteering at a camp - and so our Bolivares quickly disappeared.

A quick note about Venezuelan currency :
If you exchange $100 in a Venezuelan bank, they’ll give you 450 BsF (Bolivares Fuertes).  If you exchange on the Mercado Negro, you’ll get a whopping 800 BsF !  Because of this difference, we decided at the beginning of our trip to slyly transfer a large sum through someone who has accounts in Venezuela and the US.  But this kind of transaction is not always possible when you’re traveling and don’t have contacts. 

So we arrived in Maracay with only 400 BsF left - that’s about 50 bucks, or enough money to leave Venezuela immediately.  But we were feeling lucky, Vegas-style, so we took half of our cash and went to the supermarket.  We filled our cart with flour, sugar, eggs, lemons, pumpkin, bananas, and a whole bunch of sweet sweet condensed milk.

And we made pies.  Big pies.  Two or three per day.   And we walked up and down the streets of Maracay, “Tortas, tortas !!!  …Tortas de limon, tortas de auyama, tortas de cambur !!!   …10 Bolivares !!!,” for hours on end in the brutal heat.  But by golly, we sold them all.  At the end of the first day, we were still in the red.  By day two, we broke even.  Days three, four, and five were profit days.  We made enough to survive for another few days, and more importantly, we bought ourselves the needed time to find someone with an account is the States.  So for now, we’ve decided to quit making pies and get money the easy way - from our bank accounts !

Overall, it was a great experience; we met heaps of other locals venders selling socks and batteries and Tupperware and flashing keychains, you name it.  Before we started selling, I was always wondering how they earned enough to get by.  After selling for a few days, I am now dumbfounded.  Because, honestly, cakes sell a whole lot faster than flashing key chains.

So, we’ve hung up our wooden spoons for now, but the next time we’re in a fiscal bind or just have the urge, we’ll be ready.