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.