By Jane Etter
Senior Editor, The Shoestring Traveler
(c) Copyright 1996: International Features, Inc.

The Road to Caripe
I stood alone on a little coastal road that leads eastward from Cuman , Venezuela, to the Guyana border, my bag in my hand. The sun would be down in an hour. I saw no buses, no taxis, no people, no towns, no hotel . . .

Getting Nowhere Fast

In Cuman  my plan was to follow the coast by bus. In a cab on the way to the bus terminal I asked the driver if there would be a nice beach along my route and he started to tell me about a place called Pos Azul. Just then he saw an old yellow bus going the other way and yelled, "Oh no, there goes your bus!" "Catch it," I said. We screeched a U-turn and laughed as we zoomed around bends, sighted it, lost it, and finally pulled it over. "Pos Azul," I told the bus driver, and we were on our way. I pored hopefully through my guidebooks, none of which mentioned Pos Azul or anything else on the road ahead.

Oasis

She went to an office with a barred window and asked me to sign the registry. This was starting to feel like the tropical version of getting stranded in Transylvania. "I don't travel with much money, do you have a modest single?" I paid B5,000 (US$14) and followed her to my "room." We walked past the huge blue pool, along open flagstone walkways and through a main courtyard complete with chained monkeys and caged parrots. She unlocked a door at the far end of a hacienda-like building. I was stunned.

The living room had a peaked, wooden ceiling. The stucco walls were cool and clean. The tiles on the floor were natural terracotta and the sliding glass doors opened out onto a patio. There was a small refrigerator in the kitchen area -- everything was sparkling clean. Each of the two comfortable bedrooms had a private bath with blue tiled floors, modern facilities, and one had a bidet. She switched on the huge air conditioner and said "I'll be right back with your purified water. Dinner is served at seven."

Dinner For One -- Or Two?

The owner, an Italian gentleman, came in and introduced himself and a friend who was freshly imported from Cuman  to keep me company. It was straight out of an old Bogey movie. The friend, Guillermo, was an Italian expat, an adventurer from the shores of north and south Africa, the Orient and South America, but his heart belonged to the United States. He stood and talked with me for a while, asked if he might join me, ordered us drinks and poured his heart out. "Whenever I hear the U.S. national anthem I get tears in my eyes," he said.

He was anxious to please and overly solicitous, but he was a gentleman. He offered to take me dancing. He offered to show me around in the morning. He offered his undivided attention; he was very kind, but I declined. I read a good book in my room, rose for an early walk, lay in the hot Venezuelan sun, packed and headed back to the road at 1 p.m. to catch the bus to Caripe.

It is my impression that Cayo Azul was built by a perfectionist who never quite finished the resort according to his vision. When I asked the owner why he didn't advertise, he said that he was planning to some day. It is altogether lovely; I recommend it to anyone who wants a comfortable and inexpensive retreat from the world. The cost of a single is the same as a double. At US$14 a night it offers everything the big resorts do, and with a rental car -- or Guillermo as your hired guide -- a honeymoon couple should find it ideal. (Cayo Azul, Carretera Cuman , Carupano Mariguitar, Sector Tarabacoa, Venezuela. Tel: 093-91751 -- Edo. Sucre.)

Caripe

I took a nice double room with private bath at the Hotel Venezia, 118 Chaumer Avenue (Tel. 091-51035), for Bs3500 (US$10) and had dinner in their restaurant. Chicken sauteed in olive sauce with whole olives, steamed potatoes, a salad and two beers was US$3.50. Everything was delicious, but I wanted something chocolate for dessert. The waiter told me chocolat‚ was served at a coffee house near the centro, so I joined a young Finnish couple and we strolled past the lively town center. My dessert was delectable -- a large cup of steaming hot, thick, pudding-like milk chocolate with whole cloves, accompanied by a thin, crisply toasted slice of poundcake for dipping. I was sated and looked forward to seeing the cave in the morning.

Cueva de Gu charo

The entrance is an enormous jagged mouth hung with moss, vines and orchids. As we got deeper I began to hear the eerie sounds of the gu charo, which sounded like a cross between witches clearing their throats and UFOs looking for landing sites. Our little family of explorers grew closer together as we felt our way into the depths, taking care not to slip off the high stoney path into the darkness below. We knelt down to crawl through narrow passages, held hands, and assisted one another over the cold, cavernous pools that lay within the mountain. Two hours of life in a world of terrible beauty as foreign and imposing as the cave would have made the trip worthwhile, but more adventures lay ahead.

Leaving Caripe

It seems to me that one thing missing from our U.S. culture is a sense of community. With a work force on the move -- and enough wealth, resources and creature comforts to actually isolate us -- a sense of community is increasingly foreign to our natures. In poor rural areas, community is necessary and binding. On the plane I had been struck by the blank stare of a sophisticated-looking woman when I smiled at her. There was no such detachment on this four-hour bus ride where I sat elbow-to-elbow with happy, excited locals, crying babies and clucking chickens -- carried live to solve the refrigeration problem. For a short time I was part of their extended family.

I was reminded of the story about the news reporter who, when assigned to meet Dr. Albert Schweitzer at the train station, was surprised to find the famous humanitarian emerge from the third-class railroad cars. "Why do you travel in third class?" the reporter asked. "Because there is no fourth class," replied Dr. Schweitzer. He was a man who appreciated community.

A Humble Gift

"Thank you, but I couldn't accept these," I said.
"They are for you, I made these for you," she answered.

A family behind me was crowded into one seat. Two adults and three little ones, with two chickens. One of the children climbed up to sit with me for a while. I looked out the window at the homes where these clean, polite and friendly people lived. They were built of woven sticks, packed with mud bricks and had dirt floors. Some residents sat at fires outside to do their cooking. Life is very hard for many people with little hope of change. It would be easy for them to resent a woman who had enough money to travel, but I never sensed anything but the warm humanity that knows no political or economic boundaries.

A Traveling Companion

He offered me all kinds of advice about traveling alone. "Yes, be careful," I thought to myself ,"or you may have to sit with a fat drunk for three hours!" Before we pulled into the terminal he told me he was going on to the next port city. I had decided to treat myself to a day on the beaches of Isla de Margarita (Margarita Island). The "policeman" told me the best beach was Playa del Agua and gave me directions on where to get the ferry.

Ferry to the Island

The Hotel Robledal, 48 Calle Igualdad in Porlamar, Isle de Marguarita (Tel.: 095-611478), charged about US$8 for a very basic room with bath, and was located next to a neat little eatery. A sweet, tiny gentleman, elegantly dressed, stood in front of Dino's Grill to invite passers-by into the restaurant; his job included playing music for the guests. I ordered a couple of beers and he serenaded us with Spanish and Hawaiian tunes on a lap guitar and a xylophone. The host -- he wasn't the owner -- told us he was half Hawaiian and half Cuban. I danced a Cuban samba with two young locals until my dinner arrived.

Juan Griego