Into South America by Motorcycle Caracas to Puerto Ordaz

Our Journal

6 August 2004 Caracas to Puerto Ordaz

Manana, manana, manana… but when the day finally came, I had forgotten that we were really going. Sunday morning we didn’t get everything ready until after lunch leaving a few hours of daylight to drive to Altagracia de Oriotuco. We filled up at Texaco where all the rich Caraquenos show off their touring bikes that will never see the city limits, and 15 minutes later we were on the outskirts riding ridge to ridge before descending into Guatopo Park. We shot through the same tunnels of overgrowth we had seen before.

Leaving the park we stopped to photograph a bridge. Two police boys pulled up on a bike asking us all about the bikes. They decided to give us a police escort into Altagracia right to our hotel, then asked us for some “soda money”. Altagracia on a Sunday night is see and be seen as people parade around the main plaza. We stopped in to see the same store owner that had sent us to the rodeo before. A big bellied fellow cornered Matt, a true body of knowledge and beer that went on to tell us how our trip was going to go since he had done and seen all there was in Venezuela, Brazil, and anywhere else we were planning on going. (see picture)

Next morning after a criollo breakfast of black beans, arepas, carne machada, and white cheese followed by motor oil coffee, we set out on a more rural route that quickly turned into a dirt road. Given all the corn we could have been somewhere in the Midwest only instead of country estates there were mud walled huts. We came across a few mud holes in the road. Matt revved into one disappearing for a moment in a spray of mud. Intimidated, I edged around a hard grassy patch we found on the side, but a few minutes later had to coat myself in mud as well at the next hole. Nothing was marked at crossroads so we made use of anybody we could find to verify directions. When we hit asphalt, I took a right turn and after 30 minutes saw by the compass that we were headed east, not south. After backtracking we found the right route. Stopped for lunch in Las Mercedes, not the one in Caracas but a farmer junction where people stared but no one said much to us.

We reviewed the map and decided our original plan of reaching Cabruta by nightfall was becoming less realistic so we settled on Santa Rita hoping they had a place to sleep. The drive went from corn fields to flatland with a raised highway. We had heard that during the heavy rainy season this area turns into a lake with the raised highway cutting straight through. We got a taste of this with landscape mirrored in the reflections on both sides. I relaxed into the drive and then hit a monster bump that jolted the bike and broke off one of the sideboxes. In the rearview mirror I say it roll and then spit its contents all over the road. The brain went into automatic pilot. I steadied the bike afraid the imbalance would cause me to fall, ran back and collected everything. The box was still boxlike but had been scraped and bent and the top no longer fit. Matt pulled up and there was just silence for a while. Every now and then a car would pass screeching their brakes when they saw the bump. No one stopped to help. Slowly we realized it wasn’t as serious as it looked. The clips had broken off, a weld was cracked but the box would still mount. We secured it with rope and continued, cursing Ramiro for putting such worthless clips on the boxes but praising him for a box that could take a 50 mph roll.

The next place on the map can sometimes take on “the promised land” appeal. Santa Rita turned out to be a pueblo of zombies. The gas station attendant wobbled out and responded to us more in grunts than speech. He pointed to a hotel right down the street. We drove over to find an abandoned lot with an empty restaurant bar, a row of rooms and a sole woman standing there. Dark was coming but we decided it best to push on the last hour to Cabruta. Strangely this became the most beautiful part of the drive and it faded into darkness. To make things worse, the road deteriorated. We passed an old clunker on the road and right when I took the pass I hit a couple of large potholes, impossible to see in time. The bike jolted again but after a quick assessment, everything seemed to be in place. We finally made it to Cabruta, right on the Orinoco River. The highway left us at a plaza area. Matt stopped alongside and looked at me gravely and told me my box had lost its top. I felt despair coming on, but then the same old clunker pulled up, a woman smiled and handed the top of the box to me. I had lost a small bag of some dirty clothes which we decided to sacrifice to the highway in the night instead of driving back the 30 minutes where it probably flew out. We found a hotel run by a religious couple that had bible quotes all over the walls. For the equivalent of four dollars we got an air conditioned cubicle with cold shower, perfect. The sign on the wall of the room said guests were not allowed to drink alcohol, a rule we immediately broke as we went out for chicken and a couple of cold ones. We decided it best to get across the river the next morning and look for a metal worker.

At the river the next day we missed the first two ferries and waited for the 11:00 crossing. The ferry was a metal barge with a tugboat alongside. We parked at the front and waited a couple of hours until they finally left at 12:30. In the meantime we were swarmed with children asking all kinds of questions about us and the bikes. Schools are all on vacation until September and for these guys it means hanging out by the river, jumping off the barge, swimming and fishing in the river. Long dug out boats were all over the place with fishermen. One guy got everybody laughing by paddling as fast as he could around the barge while one of the kids screamed, “He’s going light speed”.

Once across the river in Caicara there was an immediate police check point where we were the only ones delayed. This cop, a big boy, found some technicality with Matt’s license and threatened a fine. We started asking questions about the chance of finding a metal worker in town and he got so distracted he forgot about the fine, put a boy on the back of my bike and told him to take us to a buddy of his who works with metal. After weaving through the village streets we got to what Matt called a tree shade mechanic where a group of guys were gathered around assembling a truck engine. They called over a kid with a Cypress Hill t-shirt and we explained what we needed. He pounded the box straight again and then there was mass confusion over how to secure the mount. It seemed pretty simple to us, cut a piece of metal, drill holes and weld. But how culturally insensitive of us, that would be imposing our linear, anti-social, premeditated thinking upon them. Discussion, argument, near screaming, multiple voices simultaneously, and no real conclusion. We rode with Cypress Hill over to a metal shop (why didn’t we just go there first?) to get holes drilled and then drove across town to look for bolts, no luck. I think he just wanted a ride on the bike. Back under the tree he got to work, and began piecing it together exactly how we asked him not to, then welded the screws on instead of the bolts. We were frustrated, hot, thirsty, unfed, and patience was stretched, but in the end got exactly what we needed.

We found a hotel owned by Nicola, an Italian who was running for mayor of the city. He had a vision to build an airport and beautify the city so tourists would come. Detailed murals were all over the place projecting his plan. We didn’t see how this would be possible in this military station river hub. At 8:00 at night I went for a run around the whole town in 20 minutes and returned soaked in sweat. Nobody moves that quickly in Caicara and for very good reason. We had no appetite from the heat so we just sat on a street corner and watched Caicara go by, slowly. A homeless looking guy came up and started playing a bucket and tried to sing which got laughter out of everyone.

The next morning we woke early and set out. While packing the bikes another homeless guy walked up tried to fan me so I demon stared him down until he wandered over to Matt and started fanning Matt. A bread truck was leaving at the same moment and decided to wait and escort us to the highway, three blocks away. The road was empty, the potholes more predictable, and the landscape incredible. One moment we’re looking at reflections of trees growing out of the water, the next we’re in a broad valley with palm tree forests in the middle. Some of the pueblos looked dirt poor and inhumane where next door others were beautiful, clean, with healthy corn fields. Housing is diverse from mud huts to collections of tin to cement walls and tiled roofs. No one seems to want to be far from the road, usually under a treed area with all vegetation cleared, just well swept dirt.

In Guarataro we stopped for lunch (more chicken). We met by force a very annoying doctor who was working in a nearby pueblo. She kept telling us how ugly the region was, how terrible the Indians were and how we should really travel through Merida where the people and land are beautiful. A thin black man walked in and immediately sat at our table and stared straight at Matt for a while then asked if we wanted to eat Lapa. Not wanting to offend and not really wanting to know what Lapa was we said no. He lingered about and went and stood right next to Matt as he was paying. We gave him some coin as he looked pretty destitute.

Back on the road we passed Chavez painted rocks in the middle of nowhere, a reminder to get to the border before the August 15 referendum. Our goal for the day was Ciudad Bolivar. Just an hour outside of town we hit a serious thunderstorm. Water flowed over the highway, visibility decreased and wind blew the bike around. After about 20 minutes it stopped as soon as it started and we cruised into Ciudad Bolivar. There is an historic section along the riverfront and some kind of fishing festival going on. We found a dilapidated resort left over from 50 years ago but there was no secure place to leave the bikes and we were told the area gets really dangerous at night. 15 minutes away we found another place with guarded parking.

Next morning we found another metal shop not far from the hotel but power had been cut off in this sector of the city so we decided to come back after lunch. We cabbed to the riverfront and walked around. We found one semi-restored part of town but mostly a run down historic center. Oil boom in Venezuela seems to have turned the country towards modernism without a sense of urban preservation. Back at the metal works garage power was back on. The owner saw our need and put four guys to work on securing the left box. We left them alone and trusted them in their non linear thinking. The owner ran a tight ship and a couple of hours later they had reinforced the left box and had us on our way.

The highway to Puerto Ordaz felt like any interstate in Texas, two lanes going each direction. We passed through a cloudburst for about 10 minutes but were soon dry again. Puerto Ordaz is modern, eerily modern. Matt had been fighting off a cold for days but it had caught up with him, driving through rain being no help. We are currently camped out at a hotel on the river with a view of a waterfall. This morning I jogged through an enormous park with trails leading to views of waterfalls along the river. One clearing had monkeys crawling all over the ground, completely unafraid of humans. They had a small public zoo of endangered species with depressingly small cages but very well kept. A jaguar’s growl could be heard from a distance and I walked up to find it trying to attack the keeper through the fence.

We’ll stay here for a day or two to recharge before leaving for the border. We changed our route a bit because it turns out there is no guarantee of a river crossing the Paragua and Caroni Rivers at Las Nieves so we will most likely seek out more interesting routes that parallel the main highway to the border.

Police so far have not been too much of an obstacle. There have been threats... "Your license isn't the right kind.., can we have a look in all your bags.., you're not wearing the right motorcycle clothes for the transit laws in our state bla bla bla," but after some conversation they seem to forget all threats and wish us nothing but goodwill. The teenagers holding machine guns pointed at my knee caps is never comforting but so far they have all let us go unbothered.

It has been great hearing from a lot of you. We’ll do our best to keep the updates coming since internet cafes seem to be in most sizable towns.

Un abrazo, Chris