From dead dogs on the sides of the roads, to Iguanas and monkeys in trees, to long conversations with crazy people in the streets, I can say that my time in Venezuela has been quite interesting.
I spent about four days in Puerto Ordaz- Cuidad Guayana (which took me 8 or 9 hours to get there and 32 Bolivares with Sitssa- a bus company offering much cheaper ticket prices) with Blas, a guy whose passion is to create awareness about the power of the media that big corporations use. He is also a photographer, but there is no work in Ciudad Guayana for this… he tells me that most people just work in factories their whole lives because it is such an industrial area. He is leaving for Spain soon to see what opportunities arise. I stayed in his apartment with his sister, sisters boyfriend, and his cousin, and the best part of my stay was when they took me to a wonderful park that was full of animals and had a pretty big waterfall at the end of it.
As I was leaving to take another 8 or 9 hour, 36 Bolivar Sitssa bus to Santa Elena, I met a man at the terminal who told me of what was going on in his life at the moment. I am going to re-tell his story now as he seemed quite sincere, but keeping in mind, without knowing facts, it is only a story… nothing more. He said that he used to live in Valencia, Venezuela with his family, after buying a house. But three months later, ten or more drug users (who he did not know) entered the house with knives and guns and robbed him; and not of just his things, but his entire house! Him, his wife, and their 4 year old son were left out on the street. He went to the police, but because he did this, the druggos came after him, and now want to murder him, so he had to leave Valencia. He has no idea how they found out, but think they must have bribed the police.
The next day in Santa Elena, I was told yet another story from a woman about her family being murdered… but I realized soon enough that the woman was crazy when she began telling me that nuclear coded clouds from the Argentinean government rained down and hit her teeth, eyes, and head, and killed her family over the past few decades by forcing them to swallow nuclear clouds, which bloat stomaches. She said she watched as her family was murdered by the coded clouds, and that she is now on the run away from them around the continent.
