[Paisleychick-lj] Conferences, eagles and caves - oh my!

Mon Oct 23 19:14:04 EDT 2006

[![Homeless Oil][1]][2] Showing up on time and thus leaving on time seems to be a foreign concept here in Venezuela, especially when it pertains to early morning departures. Tuesday morning of last week, [![[info]][3]][4][**kragen**][5] and I got up at 5:00 to shower and leave our hotel by 6:00. We arrived at Universidad Bolivariana de Venezuela (UBV) (the Caracas campus) at 6:30 to make sure we caught the bus leaving at 7:00. The minivan (downgraded from the greyhound type bus that originally showed up) left just before 11:00 carrying two drivers and seven passengers instead of the expected 37 people. I have **no** idea what happened to the thirty other students. We arrived in Maturín eight long hours later at the UBV Maturín campus. Our [couchsurfing][6] buddy, [Ricardo][7], picked us up and took us to his nephew's first birthday party. Tired as we were, it was a welcome change from our semi-solitude in Caracas. He filled up his car with gas and it cost a total of $1.50. My jaw dropped and I had to take [a photo for proof][8].  

[![Registration and information][9]][10]The FORO 2006 was very interesting, for the times that I went. Wednesday, I listened to two lectures and understood very little, but it was okay. The first was by a government representative (maybe a culture minister?) about intellectual property and the second one was about [ubuntu][11] by [Ricardo - a Metal Computer Geek][12]. I spent quite a bit of time hanging out with the geeks, talking and downloading what I could on the flaky network. The percentage of geeks to 'normals' was not at all what I expected. There were a surprising amount of what-looked-to-me to be non coders/computer geeks. Free Software is so important that people need to learn about it. The Venezuelan congress had an installation day with the Caracas LUG and the largest company in Venezuela (Oil) PDVSA plans to migrate with in five years to all Free Software. That's quite something. I have a hard time imagining the US congress doing something similar. I only went to the conference on Wednesday because I came down with a bit of a stomach bug Thursday morning. I rested up and went back to UBV on Friday afternoon. I learned that [![[info]][3]][4][**kragen**][5] had been invited to give a talk next Saturday at the Caracas UBV campus and that we had been invited to a tourist outing this Saturday. I jumped and [![[info]][3]][4][**kragen**][5] declined, claiming the need for sleep.  

[![Monkey Plaza][13]][14] Saturday morning I woke up at 6:00, took a shower and walked out the long driveway and down the road a bit to find a taxi to take me to the hotel. My unlicensed taxista was an off duty cop. I guess it's better than taking some off the top. :-) I got there a little before 7:00 and none of my group was visible. I took photos of the interesting bits I found at the hotel while waiting for everyone to gather. We finally left Maturín around 8:30 after getting another short bus accommodate everyone. There seems to be a theme with leaving on time here - it doesn't happen.  

[![Gaudis - thumbs up!][15]][16]We rode a very rowdy bus northwest to Cueva de Guácharo. Special eagles (Guácharo) live in this huge cave. At first, I was intimidated by the rapid fire conversation, raucous laughter and the loud music. I tuned out and turned on my iPod to listen to an old podcast of NPRs "Wait wait, don't tell me". After one episode (~45 mins) the music changed and people made sure that I was paying attention as it was beautiful Venezuelan folk music - a harp, a guitar, a maracas-type percussion and a luxurious male vocal. Goudis - the 18 year old den-mother engaged me and others in her rapid Spanish making sure I was okay and asking my opinion on Venezuela. Everyone wants to know what we think about their country and everyone loves hearing that we are happy. Venezuela is growing on me - mainly because the people are so wonderfully gracious, hospitable and helpful. I'm not sure I want to live in Caracas, but maybe a slightly smaller and more laid back place. I really want to check out Merída - it's up in the Andes twelve hours west of Caracas. The bus ride to the cave took about three hours and I passed the time by taking lots of photos, making some wonderful friends and having fun practicing my Spanish. I'm getting more and more used to the accent here.  

[![Cave entrance][17]][18]When we finally got to the cave, I was overwhelmed by how large it was. The entrance looms over people and the cave walls fade into the darkness. We hired a couple of guides and broke our group into two groups of about 15 people each. Photographs were not allowed as the flash would disturb/freak out the eagles, who were disturbed/freaked out enough just by our presence and the one gas lamp the guide held. The screeching sounded like something straight out of a horror film. I was right as it turns out that Hitchcock recorded these birds for "The Birds". I wish I had had recording equipment with me. Help, I'm turning into my parents! The tour took a little over two hours. The path was paved with fairly large slippery stones covered in a sometimes-thick layer of shitty mud. The odor of guano shifted as we passed the nests. The guide humorously pointed out various stalactites/stalagmites/columns that looked like various saints, animals, etc. He had much fun making the shadows dance on the walls. Glad he doesn't tire of his own jokes.   

[![Dirty shoes][19]][20]Most of the time the cave was a large open cavern. We followed the path of a little creek further back into the mountain. We carefully ascended and descended muddy steps as we tried to see the light coming from the gas lantern. We squeezed through a couple of tunnels near the end. At this point we could take photographs because the eagles didn't live in that part of the cave. I had taken some earlier without the flash and they were kind of blurry, but not too bad. We saw crickets, rats scurrying on the ground, eagles in their nests and flying above and some plants. I'm not sure how they lived there without light - no photosynthesis. There was definitely plenty of water and nutrients from all the guano, but no light. When we returned to the light I noticed just how dirty my shoes were, which I washed in the creek. My jeans still need laundering, but that will happen later on today. My camera battery died and my card filled up at the end of the tour, which was a bummer because the fog had lifted and the sky was incredibly blue. It was like we were in a different place. The sunset was breathtaking. There was a immense pink thunderhead on the horizon and lightening forks flashed in the middle of the cloud - just amazing.  

That night, we rode yet another bus back to Caracas with most of the people I'd spent the day with. We left late again, but got into Caracas on time - around 6:00 on Sunday morning. The bus ride was pretty uncomfortable as the bus driver played **really loud** music to keep him awake. If I'd wanted to go to a rave, I would have gone to one. I wasn't expecting electronica blaring on the bus trip. The earplugs were pretty damn useless. So, when we showed up at Caracas on Sunday morning at 6:00 and our hotel wouldn't allow us in before 12 noon, we were graciously scooped up by José, the den-father PhD candidate semi in-charge of the group, who took us to his apartment and gave us a single bed to crash on. [![[info]][3]][4][**kragen**][5] and I spooned and fell immediately asleep. José woke us up around 12:30 and fed us an incredible lunch of rice, bread and chicken he had made. _Muy delicioso!!_ He also had swift internet access, so I was able to upload my plethora of [photos to flickr][21] for people to click through.

   [1]: http://static.flickr.com/104/274810892_d763c7ee2b_m.jpg
   [2]: http://www.flickr.com/photos/blmurch/274810892/ (Photo Sharing)
   [3]: http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif
   [4]: http://kragen.livejournal.com/profile
   [5]: http://kragen.livejournal.com/
   [6]: http://www.couchsurfing.com
   [7]: http://www.couchsurfing.com/profile.html?id=JCGVJK
   [8]: http://www.flickr.com/photos/blmurch/274816429/
   [9]: http://static.flickr.com/107/274832788_3558f1cbfd_m.jpg
   [10]: http://www.flickr.com/photos/blmurch/274832788/ (Photo Sharing)
   [11]: http://www.ubuntu.org
   [12]: http://www.metalcomputergeek.net
   [13]: http://static.flickr.com/85/276373749_a8e278220c_m.jpg
   [14]: http://www.flickr.com/photos/blmurch/276373749/ (Photo Sharing)
   [15]: http://static.flickr.com/82/276389800_e40b04f8bf_m.jpg
   [16]: http://www.flickr.com/photos/blmurch/276389800/ (Photo Sharing)
   [17]: http://static.flickr.com/115/276405566_c7581d3b44_m.jpg
   [18]: http://www.flickr.com/photos/blmurch/276405566/ (Photo Sharing)
   [19]: http://static.flickr.com/117/276427076_4972c9edb7_m.jpg
   [20]: http://www.flickr.com/photos/blmurch/276427076/ (Photo Sharing)
   [21]: http://www.flickr.com/photos/blmurch/sets/72157594340007611/

URL: http://paisleychick.livejournal.com/262752.html