Schiphol

Tuesday 21st June 1988

I got up at 07:00 hrs. and showered before trying to cram all of my gear and my new purchases into my Karrimor rucksack. I discovered in my notebook that I had jotted down some information about Caracas from the Lonely Planet South America on a Shoestring guide book.

It said that Por Puestos minibuses to the airport left from Avenida 17 Sur between Avenida Mexico and Avenida Lecuna. Thus, I shouldered my pack and hopefully set off hiking across town. It was quite a long walk. It was 09:00 hrs. and the locals were preparing for another busy day. Men pushed sack barrows loaded with boxes along the sidewalks.

Traffic jostled for position in the roads and motorcycles ignored the traffic signals, seemingly a law unto theirselves. Youths, whose job it was to lure potential customers into fashion boutiques made cheeky suggestions to passing beautiful black girls.

I found the Por Puestos Minibus Terminal hidden in an underpass at the location given. Minibuses left as soon as they were full, and I got one almost immediately. We sped through the rambling slums which perched on the hillsides surrounding Caracas, with the radio blaring.

At the International Air Terminal I was delighted to find a Burger King. It only served breakfast until 10:30 hrs. so I would have to wait half an hour for a Double-Whopper. I paid my 105 Bs bolivianos departure tax and filled in the tax form before steaming in to a Double-Whopper with cheese, French fries and a Pepsi Cola.

I started to read “It” by Stephen King, having discarded “The Dharma Bums” as tedious hippy shit! “It” is a 1986 horror novel by American author Stephen King. The story follows the experiences of seven children as they are terrorized by an evil entity that exploits the fears of its victims to disguise itself while hunting its prey. "It" primarily appears in the form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown to attract its preferred prey of young children.

There was an open-air lounge overlooking the runway, so I took the opportunity to lay out in the sun for the last time on this trip to Latin America. Inquisitive schoolkids came around enquiring what countries the waiting passengers were coming from.

At 14:30 hrs. I went to the KLM Check-In hoping that they wouldn’t consider my “Pro-Bears” holdall bag too big for hand luggage. I got through OK and passed quickly through the security bag search and Immigration. I went upstairs to the restaurant for a couple of drinks before departure.

We finally took off at 16:00 hrs. The KLM flight team kept us stocked up with food and drinks and the in-flight video programme bombarded us with about a thousand cartoons. These finally gave way to the feature movie “Spaceballs”, a pretty wanky satire of Star Wars.

It was impossible to sleep. We got breakfast at midnight Venezuelan Time and arrived at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol at 07:00 hrs. Dutch time after a nine-hour flight. I then transferred to a flight to London Heathrow Airport and home on the London Underground Piccadilly Line to Hounslow East and then, finally on foot to Woodland Gardens in Isleworth.

Towers of Silence

Above: Stephen Hawkins at the Hotel Edwards in Caracas, Venezuela

Monday 20th June 1988

My first task was to get down to the KLM Airline Office and confirm my flight to London Heathrow Airport for tomorrow. I got to the huge KLM tower overlooking the Parque del Este Metro Station just after 08:00 hrs. but it wasn’t due to open until 09:00 hrs. but there was a nice little café on the mezzanine floor where I had breakfast with delicious coffee.

A friendly KLM lady quickly confirmed my flights and I set off to do some more shopping. I took the Metro to Plaza Venezuela to investigate the Aladdin’s Cave of the Pro-Venezuela Exposición y Venta de Arte Popular.

Unfortunately, most of the Venezuelan crafts were too bulky, too fragile or simply rubbish. I then spent hours trudging up and down Sabana Grande looking for presents. I bought several T-shirts and some music cassettes before taking a break in The Swagman tradition, with a Whopper in Burger King.

The Hounslow Swagmen was a backpacking club that I started with friends in 1978 to spend weekends walking in National Parks and Coastal Paths in the U.K. See https://steve33.tripod.com/swagmen/hounslowswagmen.htm for more details.

A lot of shops didn’t open until 15:00 hrs. on Mondays so I went back to the Hotel Edwards to dump my purchases and change up some more money before returning to the fray. I trudged up and down for several more hours and finally got everything that I wanted. My father was always a problem to buy suitable presents for.

I came back to the hotel and flopped on the bed, exhausted. On the way in I bought a litre of peach nectar from the atmospheric little General Store opposite. I went out again a bit later and tried in vain to find where the buses left for the airport.

I walked across the huge Centro Simón Bolívar sandwiched between Government Agencies and the characteristic twin tower block at one end. The Centro Simón Bolívar Towers TCSB also known as the Towers of Silence is a building with a pair of 32-story towers, each measuring 103 meters in height, in El Silencio district, Caracas, Venezuela. Built during the time of the presidency of Marcos Pérez Jiménez, the TCSB was opened to the public on 6th December 1954.

Nobody at the Terminal de Nuevo Circo Bus Terminal seemed to know what was going on and all of the minibuses seemed to have the same destination. I gave up after a walk through a dodgy-looking area to Central Park.

I went to the Chinese Restaurant next to the Hotel Edwards and was served by the two sad-looking elderly Chinese who seemed to work there 24 hours a day. I tried Maltín Polar a Venezuelan carbonated malt beverage that does not contain alcohol and has earned a place in the heart of that country and tasted like Weetabix. I also tried an Uva drink which tasted of bubble-gum.

When I returned to bed at 22:00 hrs. I fell gratefully to sleep almost immediately.

Crocodile

Sunday 19th June 1988

I had a hearty breakfast in a Fuente de Soda (Soda Fountain) near the hotel. At last, I was back in a country that served eggs for breakfast. I wrote a bunch of postcards and lingered over an apres-breakfast Pepsi Cola. Surprisingly the Post Office was open (on a Sunday) so I dispatched the cards straight away.

I then took the subway to Sabana Grande, the main pedestrian precinct shopping centre. In the eighties, the construction of Sabana Grande station of Caracas Metro brought more people to the financial district of Sabana Grande and it became a place of mass recreation.

The financial district of Sabana Grande has three metro stations: Plaza Venezuela, Sabana Grande and Chacaíto. This district is the best covered by the Caracas Metro. The boulevard of Sabana Grande was built from the surroundings of "La Previsora Tower" to the Plaza Brión de Chacaíto.

I emerged from the subway in an area dominated by fast food restaurants. McDonalds, Burger King and Kentucky Fried Chicken were all represented. The shops were all closed but there were a lot of smartly dressed browsers and window-shoppers.

I walked west towards the Plaza Venezuela which is a public square located in Los Caobos neighbourhood of Caracas. It was inaugurated in 1940 and is situated in the geographic centre of Caracas. It is a place for many landmarks of Caracas, including a fountain with lights and the Christopher Columbus monument of Manuel de la Cova.

There was a lively band and a fair on for a rally in support of COPEI presidential candidate Eduardo Fernandez, "El Tigre".

COPEI, also referred to as the Social Christian Party (Spanish: Partido Socialcristiano) or Green Party (Spanish: Partido Verde), is a Christian democratic political party in Venezuela. The acronym stands for Comité de Organización Política Electoral Independiente ("Independent Political Electoral Organization Committee"). The party was influential during the twentieth century as a signatory of the Puntofijo Pact and influenced many politicians throughout Latin America at its peak.

I had a cold can of Cardenal lager plucked from a bunker full of ice at one of the stands. I continued through the huge trees of the Parque los Caobos, or Caobos Park, which is one of the oldest parks being inaugurated in the year 1920 with the name of Sucre Park in honour of the national hero Mariscal Antonio José de Sucre in the grounds of the old hacienda "Industrial" owned by Don José Mosquera. Later in 1937 the City Council renames Los Caobos given the large number of big-leaf mahogany trees that existed on the site since the colonial era.

It is the place for one of the most important collections of ancient trees of Caracas. At the entrance of the park is the statue of Teresa de la Parra, by the sculptor Carmen Cecilia Knight Blanch. One of the most outstanding works of the park is the Fountain Venezuela by the Catalan architect Ernesto Maragall. The fountain is composed of various human figures representing the different regions of the country. This fountain was originally located in Plaza Venezuela until 1967.

I reached the museums in the Plaza Morelos passing and photographing a man carrying a stuffed crocodile. Presumably he had just bought the thing. I looked around the Museum of Fine Arts (Spanish: Museo de Bellas Artes or MBA), an art museum which was founded in 1917, and was originally housed in the building now known as the Palacio de las Academias.

Its current buildings were both designed by architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva, a 1930s Neoclassical structure and a 1970s Brutalist structure. There was some interesting modern art as well as the usual Catholic religious stuff. There were some fine models of huge black women lounging in hammocks, by a Brazilian artist.

I walked across the Plaza Morelos in blinding sunlight to the disappointing Museo de Ciencias Naturales (Natural Science Museum) which had very little on display. Early farming techniques of indigenous peoples, pre-Columbian exhibits and an array of stuffed mammals are the supposed highlights of this natural science museum.

I walked through a small hippy market and took the metro back to Capitolio Metro Station. I went to Plaza Bolívar and took a couple of photographs before the heavens opened. I took refuge from the storm in a juice bar come restaurant where I sat drinking Polar lager and chatting to a retired Venezuelan sailor until the rain stopped.

Half cut, I went back to the Hotel Edwards for a siesta. At 19:00 hrs. I went next door for Chicken Chop Suey amongst some low-life clientele. I then walked around the city centre keeping in tight to the walls to avoid the worst of the rain.

I finished up in the Plaza Bolívar where the cinema was just admitting people for the next showing. I joined the queue and saw “The Principal”, an entertaining film about the new headmaster of a dodgy American school.

“The Principal” is a 1987 crime thriller action film where the new principal (James Belushi) of a drug-infested high school joins with a security guard (Louis Gossett Jr.) to clean it up. I went back for a restless night tossing and turning in my double bed.

Caracas

Saturday 18th June 1988

The alarm sounded like a fire alarm at 05:20 hrs. when I awoke from a semi-doze. Yesterday after changing money, I had bought a ticket for 439 Bs bolivianos for the flight to Caracas at 07:10 hrs. today.

I got a taxi straight away and got to the Ciudad Bolívar airport at 06:00 hrs. for 30 Bs bolivianos. The flight left late with a stopover en route so we landed at Simón Bolívar International Airport at about 10:00 hrs.

Simón Bolívar International Airport or Maiquetía "Simón Bolívar" International Airport (IATA: CCS, ICAO: SVMI, Spanish: Aeropuerto Internacional de Maiquetía "Simón Bolívar") is an international airport located in Maiquetía, Vargas, Venezuela, about 21 kilometres (13 miles) west of downtown Caracas, the capital of the country. Simply called Maiquetía by the local population, it is the main international air passenger gateway to Venezuela.

I got the address of the KLM Airline Office from the Airport Information Desk and returned to the Por Puesto minibus stand outside the National Flight Building. It cost 20 Bs bolivianos for the long bus trip through the mountains, through several tunnels, to “El Silencio” (joke!), the centre of Caracas.

The Redevelopment El Silencio or simply El Silencio is an urbanization of Caracas, Venezuela that is located within the Central Center of that city in the Cathedral Parish of the Libertador Municipality.

I investigated a number of hotels in the busy area around Calles Sur 2 and Oeste 10 but they were all either full or would only rent rooms by the hour to prostitutes and their customers.

I walked to the Bolívar Square (Spanish: Plaza Bolívar) in Caracas is one of the most important and recognized Venezuelan public spaces. It is located in the centre of the first 25 blocks of Caracas when it was founded as "Santiago de León de Caracas" in 1567. It is in the historic centre of the city in the Cathedral Parish of the Libertador Municipality.

Bolívar Square is surrounded by important buildings such as Caracas Cathedral, Sacred Museum, Archbishop's Palace, City Hall, Chapel of Santa Rosa de Lima, the Yellow House, the Main Theatre and the building of the Government of the Capital District. The Federal Legislative Palace stands to the Southwest.

After a few more hotels with no vacancies, I got a room in the Hotel Edwards which was a couple of blocks along from the Plaza Bolívar. It was a 2-star hotel and cost 253 Bs bolivianos for a luxury room with a bathroom and air-conditioning.

I got something to eat and drink in the Chicken Grill down the road, had a shave and then set out to look around the capital city. I walked down to the Plaza Bolívar where fountains played amongst the greenery around the inevitable statue of Simón Bolívar on horseback.

Children chased the pigeons and beautiful girls strolled around amongst the photographers waiting to sell you your photograph taken in the shady plaza. I walked along streets where street traders sold their wares from blankets laid out on the ground.

The Caracas Metro (Spanish: Metro de Caracas) is a mass rapid transit system serving Caracas. It was constructed and is operated by Compañía Anónima Metro de Caracas, a government-owned company that was founded in 1977 by José González-Lander who headed the project for more than thirty years since the early planning stages in the 1960s. Its motto is "Somos parte de tu vida" (translated as "We are part of your life").

In 1978 MTA - New York City Transit's R46 #816 (now 5866) was shipped from the Pullman Standard's plant as a sample of rolling stock to be used for this new Metro system that was under construction at the time. The company is run by Cesar Vega.

I took the metro to Parque del Este where the KLM Airline Office was situated in a tower overlooking the station. The metro was excellent. For a few bolívares you got a ticket from a machine which you used to get though a turnstile on entry and was collected by an automatic turnstile on leaving the system.

The trains were modern flat-fronted spaceships. A voice called out the name of the station at each stop. The KLM Airline Office was closed so I wandered around the park. Parque del Este ("East Park"), subsequently renamed as officially Generalissimo Francisco de Miranda Park by President Hugo Chávez, in honour of the Venezuelan national hero. It is a public recreation park located in the Sucre Municipality of Metropolitan Caracas in Venezuela. Opened in 1961, it is one of the most important of the city, with an area of 82 hectares (200 acres).

The park combines three differently designed areas: the first is an open grass field with a gentle undulating topography, the second is a densely forested landscape with meandering pathways, while the third is a series of paved gardens with tiled murals and water works. Hare Krishnas performed under some huge palm trees, Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts trooped about and couples wandered hand-in-hand by the aquatic plant gardens.

I returned to the Hotel Edwards for a shower and to catch up on some sleep. At 21:00 hrs. I went to a Chinese restaurant a couple of doors away and ate Chop Suey amongst the drunkards and aging prostitutes who kept yelling “Hey Chino” to the two elderly Chinese staff and shouting their orders.

I had a brief look around the central streets but nearly everything was closed. Music blared from shady-looking bars. I went back to bed at 22:30 hrs.

Cuidad Bolívar

Friday 17th June 1988

Once again torrential rain heralded the dawn, drumming on the corrugated metal rooves. The Aeropostal Airline Office next door to the hotel opened at 08:00 hrs. I changed up my last $5 US dollars cash and the Dutch girls chipped in with enough Bolívares to buy me a ticket to Cuidad Bolívar for 480 Bs.

Aeropostal (full name: Aeropostal Alas de Venezuela) is a state-owned airline that primarily operates scheduled flights within Venezuela. The carrier operates out of its hub at Simón Bolívar International Airport (CCS). The airline was founded in 1929.

My new Dutch Guardian Angels also supplied me with a cheese roll and mandarin oranges for breakfast. At 08:30 hrs. a jeep took the passengers from the airline office to the airfield. This was literally a field with no amenities but a tarmac airstrip.

The jeep hitched up to a small tanker to refuel the small 20-seater de Havilland aeroplane. The de Havilland Aircraft Company Limited was a British aviation manufacturer established in late 1920 by Geoffrey de Havilland at Stag Lane Aerodrome Edgware on the outskirts of north London. Operations were later moved to Hatfield in Hertfordshire.

Known for its innovation, de Havilland was responsible for a number of important aircraft, including the Moth biplane which revolutionised aviation in the 1920s; the 1930s Fox Moth, a commercial light passenger aircraft; the wooden World War II Mosquito multirole aircraft; and the pioneering passenger jet airliner Comet.

The de Havilland company became a member of the Hawker Siddeley group in 1960, but lost its separate identity in 1963. Later, Hawker Siddeley merged into what is eventually known today as BAE Systems plc, the British aerospace and defence business.

We paid 20 Bs for the “taxi” and 5 Bs per item of baggage. This left me absolutely penniless although I had $450 US dollars’ worth of impotent travellers cheques in my pocket.

The twin propeller plane took off into a cloudy, but clearing sky at 09:30 hrs. We flew at 10,500 feet over green plains, patches of thick forest and winding rivers. Several rugged bluffs reared out of the plains, capped in cloud.

We flew over the Angel Falls, Bolívar State, Venezuela. Angel Falls (Spanish: Salto Ángel; Pemon language: Kerepakupai Meru meaning "waterfall of the deepest place", or Parakupá Vená, meaning "the fall from the highest point") is a waterfall in Venezuela which is one of Venezuela's top tourist attractions, though a trip to the falls is a complicated affair. The falls are located in an isolated jungle.

It is the world's tallest uninterrupted waterfall, with a height of 979 metres (3,212 feet) and a plunge of 807 m (2,648 feet). The waterfall drops over the edge of the Auyán-tepui mountain in the Canaima National Park (Spanish: Parque Nacional Canaima), a UNESCO World Heritage site in the Gran Sabana region of Bolívar State.

The height figure, 979 m (3,212 feet), mostly consists of the main plunge but also includes about 400 metres (1,300 feet) of sloped cascade and rapids below the drop and a 30-metre-high (100 feet) plunge downstream of the talus rapids.

The falls are along a fork of the Río Kerepacupai Merú which flows into the Churún River, a tributary of the Carrao River, itself a tributary of the Orinoco River. The pilot pointed out the narrow stream of water which tumbled in apparent slow motion over a rugged high brown cliff. The whole area was a grand canyon, heavily forested on the wide valley floor.

At 11:20 hrs. we landed at Tomás de Heres Airport (Spanish: Aeropuerto Nacional Tomas de Heres, (IATA: CBL, ICAO: SVCB)) which is an airport serving Ciudad Bolívar, the capital of the Bolívar state of Venezuela. The airport is named in honour of Tomás de Heres, a hero of Latin American independence and governor of Venezuela's former Guayana Province.

We walked across the sun baked tarmac and retrieved our bags. I nipped over the road to the Banco Consolidado which was just closing for the 11:30 hrs. to 14:00 hrs. lunch break so I missed the chance to catch the 13:00 hrs. flight to Caracas.

The Dutch girls treated me to some excellent coffee and I sat with them until the late departure of their plane at 13:45 hrs. I returned to the bank to be told that the cambio (exchange) department didn’t open until 15:00 hrs. I sat down to wait in the air-conditioned modern bank.

At 14:30 hrs. the bank staff relented and changed a $100 US dollar American Express travellers cheque at 32.40 Bs bolivianos per $US dollar. I then stood outside the airport under a savage sun until the Ruta 2 minibus came along.

I would be staying in Ciudad Bolívar (Spanish for "Bolivar City"), formerly known as Angostura and St. Thomas de Guyana, is the capital of Venezuela's southeastern Bolívar State. It lies at the spot where the Orinoco River narrows to about 1 mile (1.6 km) in width, is the site of the first bridge across the river, and is a major riverport for the eastern regions of Venezuela.

Historic Angostura gave its name to the Congress of Angostura, to the Angostura tree, to the House of Angostura, and to Angostura bitters. Modern Ciudad Bolívar has a well-preserved historic centre; a cathedral and other original colonial buildings surround the Plaza Bolívar.

I got off at the Paseo Orinoco, the riverside promenade along the Orinoco River and asked some drunks for directions to the Hotel Italia. I found it a couple of blocks along and got a huge room on the balcony with a view over the sluggish brown river for 110 Bs bolivianos.

Consumed by thirst my first priority was to find a vendor of cold drinks. I changed into shorts and a vest and flip-flopped along the Paseo Orinoco. Shops along this road were doing good evening trade in casual clothing and shoes. I bought a can of Pepsi Cola and a roll of photographic slide film (36 exposure. 100 ASA, Kodak Ektachrome 124 for 50 Bs bolivianos).

I walked through Plaza Bolívar with it’s essential statue of the great man and some nice plants. On the west side is the huge three-nave church Nuestra Señora del Rosario de Curucay, dating from 1740, and occupying the foundational religious place of the priest’s house and the cemetery. It was declared a National Historic Monument in 1960.

I returned to my room in the Hotel Italia to get my trusty Ricoh KR10 Super camera to take some snaps as dusk fell. I attracted a lot of stares without knowing whether it was due to the fact that I was a gringo or because I was too casually dressed. None of the locals wore shorts or vests.

The South American Handbook 1988 said that a cool breeze in the evening moderated the constant heat, an average temperature of 27 ºC day and night, but today it was more like a hurricane. Trees with red flowers and long seed pods were shaken furiously and dust swirled into peoples faces and danced across the road.

At 18:00 hrs. I had some splendid cream of tomato soup (just like Heinz!) followed by steak and chips in the hotel restaurant. I had a Pepsi Cola in a small café for only 2 Bs bolivianos and went to the cinema to see a rough quality showing of “The Running Man” for 10 Bs bolivianos.

I had a bottle of mineral water back in the hotel bar and a manual shower using a plastic bucket in the sink as there was no water in the actual shower. I laid out on the super soft bed under the ceiling fan but it was a long time until I was able to go to sleep. My mind was overactive with plans for the days ahead.

Santa Elena de Uairén

Thursday 16th June 1988

It was pissing down from a dreary grey sky when I got up at 06:30 hrs. and packed up my gear. Richard changed $5 US dollars into Cruzados for my bus fare and I set off with the Danes to walk to the Rodoviária de Boa Vista.

They were unsure of the way despite having made the trip a couple of times before and we trudged through the puddles for much further than we needed to. Boa Vista is like a mini-Brasília with a lot of open space between buildings.

We got to the bus terminal at 07:40 hrs. which was twenty minutes before the bus to Santa Elena was due to leave. Santa Elena de Uairén is a small Venezuelan city in the state of Bolívar near the border with Brazil and Guyana. It was Founded by Lucas Fernandez Peña in 1923. The city's name originates from the first daughter of Lucas Fernandez Pena Elena, and Uairén by the river that crosses the city.

There were only standing tickets for the bus remaining, but we had no choice but to pay 1,550 Cruzados. I had to beg 50 Cruzados from the Danes. The bus had very high ground clearance to cope with the jungle roads and looked strangely perched on six wheels near the centre.

It was clearly custom made for the rutted muddy road ahead and an Australian had described the bus trip from Manaus to Boa Vista as “24 hours in a cement mixer”! This was a short taste of the same as it was only eight hours. Mud and spray leapt from the wheels as the bus jumped and bucked but made fast progress on the water-logged red earth road.

Your eyes jiggled too much to be able to read! The terrain was grassy plain with isolated hills, often cultivated and fenced into neat fields. It rained for a while and in places the road was barely above the submerged fields, so it was like a red dirt path across a lake. The top of fence posts protruded a couple of inches above the water.

We stopped twice and both times I had to visit the “hole in the ground” squatting toilets. Passengers ate at round wooden roofed restaurants. We arrived at the border with Venezuela at about 14:30 hrs. The Venezuelan Customs searched all of our bags but were true to their “Strict but Fair” logo on the wall above the desk.

Next stop was Immigration in Santa Elena for our entry stamps and we checked into the Hotel Auyantepuy (Canaima National Park) where a triple room was 280 Bolívares. The Venezuelan bolívar is the official currency of Venezuela. Named after the hero of Latin American independence Simón Bolívar, it was introduced following the monetary reform in 1879.

I shared the room with two Dutch girls which I met on the bus. They had had a miserable 40-hour bus trip from Manaus to Boa Vista and one had contracted malaria along the way. She had to spend four days in hospital and a further couple of days trying to get a visa from the inflexible Consul at Boa Vista.

The other girl said it was really boring in Boa Vista but her friend was lucky as she had malaria and was oblivious to their time spent there! “Our Guardian Angel has given up”, they complained. At the border the Customs Officers were most interested in the girls’ knickers in their rucksacks and had given me a conspiratorial wink as they rifled through their underwear.

I changed $10 US dollars at the bank at 29 Bs Bolívares per dollar, but heard that you could get 32 Bs for a $US dollar in big towns. I ate with the Dutch girls and an English couple. It made a change to get eggs again. I had my first Venezuelan beer, Polar, which is Venezuela’s most popular brand made by Empresas Polar, the largest brewery in the country, founded in Caracas by Lorenzo Alejandro Mendoza Fleury, Rafael Lujan and Karl Eggers in 1941. Since then, they have diversified into all kinds of industries, mainly in the food and drinks industry.

After a quick walk around the small, pleasant town and returned to the Hotel Auyantepuy to write my diary. The other guests gathered in the lobby drinking beer and chatting excitedly. Before I knew it was 20:00 hrs. I had a quick walk around the town. There was the inevitable statue of Simón Bolívar in the small town plaza.

Located in the middle of La Gran Sabana, Santa Elena is home to many travel agencies offering tours in Canaima National Park, flights over Angel Falls, and hiking tours to the famous Monte Roraima.

The town is notable for its influential presence of indigenous peoples; there is even a community called Manakrü (pronounced mah-nah-CREE) populated entirely by indigenous people. The schools in this neighbourhood use both Spanish and Pemon, an indigenous language. In Santa Elena de Uairén, it is also common to find that the vast majority of residents speak Portuguese, due to its proximity to Brazil.

Due to its proximity to the Brazilian state of Roraima, Santa Elena sees a busy exchange between the two countries of Brazilian consumer products from Brazil and Venezuelan oil and petrol. Other Brazilian cities that trade with Santa Elena de Uairen are Manaus, Santarém, Macapá, Belém.

Most of the locals were in various bars. I bought a can of lemonade and went back to the room where I had a long and amusing chat with the Dutch girls about our experiences in Latin America.

The tall Dutch girl (I still don’t know their names!) said that after a ridiculously huge breakfast in Columbia “I was like and exploding food bomb”! We eventually settled down to sleep at about 22:00 hrs.

Boa Vista

Wednesday 15th January 1988

We laid in late while it pissed down with rain outside. We had the sweet coffee and cream cracker breakfast supplied by the Rio Branco Hotel, while watching cartoons on television. The kids from the hotel sat mesmerised in front of the TV screen.

Mike moved into a single room and lit up a jasmine joss stick, courtesy of the Hare Krishnas, to get rid of the damp smell. I dumped my bags in his new room and finally managed to retrieve my sheet sleeping bag and T-shirt from the over-zealous laundry who had scooped them up with our dirty sheets.

Mike told me that his venture into South America was to help recover from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) after a horrible accident at his college in America. Apparently too many students packed into the elevator for a photograph and the excess weight caused the elevator car to drop. A student tried to jump out as it unexpectedly went down and was scissored in half, blood spraying and legs dropping into the car and all over the other students.

We then walked down to the city centre where we browsed around some of the foreign import shops which stocked American sweets, foodstuffs and toiletries. We took lunch in the vegetarian restaurant on Avenida 7 de Setembro, which was excellent as usual.

I dropped a note in at the British Consulate telling them that I had got my visa for Venezuela and thanking them for their help in this. Back at the hotel I met Richard, a Welshman who was also taking the same flight to Boa Vista, and we walked down to the bus stop together. Mike came along to see us off.

I cost 35Cz Cruzados for a trip on a battered green bus which took a while to get to the airport. Manaus International Airport – Eduardo Gomes (IATA: MAO, ICAO: SBEG) is the airport serving Manaus, Brazil. It is named after Brazilian politician and military figure Air Marshal Eduardo Gomes (1896–1981). Opened in 1976, the International Airport of Manaus is the most important in the state of Amazonas and is one of the busiest in Brazil. It has the strategic function of integrating the huge Amazon region with the rest of the country and the cities within it.

As Manaus is a Duty-Free Zone we had to pass through Customs. We had to push a button on a randomised machine. If a red light came on you were searched but a green light allowed you to proceed unmolested.

In the air-conditioned Departure Lounge I chatted to Richard and drank Guaraná which contains high levels of caffeine, as much as four times that of coffee beans, as well as other psychoactive stimulants (including saponins and tannins) associated with improved cognitive performance. And numerous research papers explore its potential in the prevention of cardiovascular disease, as an anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antidepressant, intestinal regulator and even an aphrodisiac.

We boarded the plane at 16:30 hrs. and had a snack and a beer whilst flying through pregnant rain clouds over an endless vista of trees spreading in all directions. The jungle was dissected occasionally by a winding river or dirt road.

Trees gave way to green plains and swampy lakes as we began our descent into Boa Vista. It was 30ºC and humid and the flat landscape made the sky with it’s cloud sculptures look huge. We left the airport and decided to walk towards the centre of town and were soon picked up by a pickup truck which ran us into the centre.

We initially walked the wrong way along Rua Benjamin Constant because of a mistake on the South America on a Shoestring guidebook map of the town. We didn’t realise that the road was numbered starting from number 1 on each side of the huge central roundabout.

This meant that we went to 591W (west) and found nothing before trudging across town to 591E (east) where we found the Lua Nova Hotel by the Venezuelan Consulate. It was full up but we were now sweating profusely so we stayed for a beer and talked to some Danish people, the first of several groups of people we met who described the Venezuelan Consul as an arsehole!

Many people were having problems getting a visa and were having to stay longer than expected in Boa Vista. The Danes, three boys and a girl, told us that they were sleeping on the floor out back so we asked if we could too.

We were told “yes”, so we ordered a meal and a succession of beers. We were joined by a gold-mining diver who operated the huge “vacuum cleaners” that sucked up alluvial gravel which was gold bearing.

We conversed simply with sign-language and simple Portuguese as the empty beer bottles lined up. He was a friendly fellow but only contributed 100 Cz Cruzados to our bill, mumbling something about being a bit short at the moment.

We brushed the cobwebs and bugs off of some damp polystyrene sheets to make insulating mats to sleep on on the restaurant floor. The front gates were closed but several card schools (playing cards) that were in session continued all night long.

I awoke to dash to the bog (toilet) a couple of times with the shits (diarrhoea) and a tiny black kitten snuggled up on my pillow against my neck.