Merida II

I still like it here. Here are possibly a lot of my experiences...

Yesterday I went to several museums, in fact all of the ones I could find out about in Merida. Part of what is neat about being in Venezuela is that they do not have a lot of infrastructure I take for granted. Like signs telling where museums are. They were almost all hard to find. And generally small. While I am not sure if there are anymore Indiana Jones type discoveries left, just visiting all these museums would be an adventure in itself and could yield some interesting things to someone who knew a lot about the indiginous cultures. They do not seem to understand much about the things they have. Most items do not have a date attached because they do not know. Either we put more resources into these pursuits in the US, or they do not mind making it up. It may be a combination of the two, but when have you seen something in a museum with question marks in the "age: " space? Here it is most things. There are a couple bells made in Ireland in the 900s. They were almost melted for scrap a hundred years ago when someone salvaged them.

The art museums were interesting. All modern...more of a showcase of regional artists than anything. Three really struck me. One was titled Maternity. It showed a very typical, sad, unhealthy looking woman holding a typical, sad, unhealthy looking kid. Very simple and to the point. Another was of an indiginous girl praying "god, thank you for letting me live. I pray that someday my family will have a house." Again, direct. The third was sort of funny, a triptic showing three restroom doors. One had a typical figure of a man, another a woman, and the third had a anasazi-style person aiming a bow/arrow. I am not sure what I would think if I saw these in the US, but here they seem to address soem very real, very nearby problems.

I have really enjoyed the people at the posada. I was up late last night talking with two couples from the UK and a guy from Arizona. Carolyn, one of the britts, told a very interesting story of her parents travel history. It really seems that they should not travel. Here is the one with the most (by far) impact. She has a sister in Hong Kong, and the family typically meets in Thailand at the beach for Christmas, but she did not go this year. Her family though, while looking off the balcony, saw a big wall of water coming towards them. They ran up to the roof, with water boiling up the stairs behind them. Apparently there were two waves in the tsunami. When the second came, they just kept watching the water rise, and, with nowhere else to go, basically started saying goodbye to each other. The water did not come over the building though. Luckily, the ground floor of the building was very open, allowing water to go through instead of pushing it over.

They were there for hours and soon realized that raiding the mini-bars was not going to last them long. They were with about 40 people, and theirs was the only family that had not lost someone. And, they did not realize that they had just caught the edge of it. They thought they would get help soon. A helicopter did come and tell them to go to the main road, which was a 2km wade through waist-deep mud. They then got to higher ground and lived at some guys house for a week or so before going home. Thankfully, Caroline heard from them (cell towers are great) before she realized that Thailand had been hit hard. I think the part that hit me most was that she did not recognize her parents at the airport-- her mom had lost a lot of weight and her dads beard was grey when it had not been before. I am not sure why, but just hearing that story was enough to make this trip to Merida worthwhile. Caroline has travelled a lot, including central america in the mid 90s, by herself. It sounds like she went to all the places you are not supposed to, but did not have any trouble. Amoungst the several of us, there was a lot of travel experience, including places you "should not go," and we all agreed that we have seldom found anything but hospitality.

I have been hanging out with Bruce, from AZ. He is around 60 and was getting very burned out from his job in social work/mental illness. His solution was to quit and get on a bus to see his friend in Columbia. That was 4 months ago I think. We are trying to figure out how to save our poor nation, and making some progress. He said that he keeps in touch with his wife through an instant messenger, and that it has really improved their communication, because you can not yell or both talk at the same time. It sounds, interestingly enough, like this trip has been great for his marriage. He has been a lot of fun to run around with. Today we went to Culata, some small town near a national park. When we got there, there really was not anything there, so we just started walking, and probably climbed a thousand feet or so. We did not really get anywhere, but it was nice to just go out and roam around, and crawl through the bushes, although I definitely noticed the altitude (maybe 12000 feet)...and the lack of sleep.

On the van back from Culata, I was telling Bruce about Maracaibo and a woman behind me announced that she was a Maracucha (in Spanish), and we talked about Maracaibo for a minute. When I told her I had been on San Carlos for 3 weeks, she thought I was crazy, when I said that I had stayed in Barrio Bolivar, she was appalled. It was neat to meet someone from outside the church who is familiar with these places.

My experience has been very different from that of my fellow travelers at the posada. I seem to always have an agenda, and there it is to get them to think of a different sort of tourism, where you do not just travel around, but where you spend time in one place for a while and really get to know the culture, not as a tourist, but as a pseudo member of the community. I think they see it as a good thing, and maybe I can provoke some jealousy. I do feel a little differnt though, because I hang out with the employees about as much as with them, and I like it that way.

Well, that is probably more than enough, and all I can think to say.