Day to myself and band...

We got back from our Choroni trip this morning around 8am from the overnight bus from Maracay. We watched a horrible movie (I think it was called Death Sentence) with Kevin Bacon where everyone died! Great images for me to fall asleep to....not. When I got back home I talked with Eira about my trip, took a shower and then thought I was going to take a nap, but I suddenly had energy to go shopping in el centro. Well today is the bicentennial celebration of Venezuelan Independence! Feliz 200 anos a Venezuela!!So there were a ton of people in el centro and a parade with bands! I shopped around, got some Vivaldi ice cream and then headed to Mercado Principal. Then later tonight I went with Marissa to her sister's band concert. It was a concert celebrating the bicentennial and all the musicians were wearing these really awesome Venezuelan windbreakers! They played 1812 overture! haha I love that music is a universal language. Viva la musica! not Chavez. hahaha

Last day in Choroni

The beach was crowded beyond belief! So many people it was not worth being there. So Marissa and I went shopping instead and then headed back to pack for our trip home. The same taxi drivers were nice enough to come pick us up again from Maracay. It's almost a 2 hour drive! But a beautiful drive up a very large mountain, into the selva nublada and then down the otherside of the mountain. Scary, winding roads that don't look wide enough to fit two cars, but somehow does.

Oh and I forgot to mention on our ride there we saw leaf cutter ants marching along the side of the road when we slowed down to make a really sharp hairpin turn. SO AWESOME! Those ants are amazing and I always hear about them on national geographic and other shows. Viva la selva nublada!

We had the taxi's drop us off at a T.G.I.Friday's! We were so ognoxious when we entered into the restaurante. "Oh my gosh, SALT! and ketchup! I just want to eat that ketchup straight out of the bottle! Hamburgers! Chocolate brownies!" haha you would have thought that we hadn't eaten in days. embarassing!

Una Lancha a Chuao

We were told that Saturday would be when everybody came to the beach for the independence weekend and so, having spent the last two days at Playa Grande, we took a lancha out to other beaches. The area to get into the lanchas was total chaos. So many tourists trying to get into the boats that were crowded around a very small piece of shore. Insanity! The boat ride was really great though. I just love being out on the water. We played in the waves at Playa Chuao for a while before we took a bus into the pueblo of Chuao, which is unique in it's cultivation of cacao. Yes that's right they specialize in chocolate! A pueblo built for me?....I think so! The town was so small, people just sitting around doing nothing but making chocolate in their homes. I bought a dark chocolate bar that was so rich and natural! and then we ate some chocolate ice cream that tasted like a fudgecicle! yum yum yum.

After that beach we got back on the lancha to head to another one, but on our way there it started down pouring! Here we are riding along the coast in a lancha getting soaked. what fun! Later we headed back to Choroni, made pasta with veggies and then played some more Ultimate Charades.

Surfs up dude!

We weren't lying about taking surf lessons from Tarzan. It worked out perfect because 6 of us in our group wanted to do it and so he took us out in pairs! It was so much fun!! We first practiced standing up in the sand first to figure out how we were going to place our feet on the board. Then we hit the water with our boards! It was harder than it looked, but I ended up getting the hang of it. I stood up 3 times and once I rode the wave for a really long time and got an applause from some people!! Tarzan was a great teacher and got us all to stand up. Amazing!
We walked back home to our cabaña (there was no danger in walking at all) and then made tacos with beans tonight for dinner. Then Jackie taught us how to play ultimate charades, which is now my new favorite game!

Everybody writes down words on little slips of paper and puts them all together in a hat. Split up into teams and start the game!
1st round: just like catch phrase, use the words in the hat to get your team to guess as many words in 45 seconds. Do this until there are no words left. Keep score by how many words your team guessed!

2nd round: Put the same words back in the hat, but now you have to silently act them out. This time you have 1 min to get your team to guess as many correct words. Again keep score

3rd round: put all the words back and now you can only saw one word and that's it for your team to guess the word. 1min time for each person until the words run out.

We started writing down words for our third game of ultimate Charades when a mysterious truck pulls up near our cabaña and we all freak! Our cabaña was literally tucked away in the middle of nowhere. Who could this be?! The truck pulls in front of us and backs in. Someone was standing up in the back of the truck and soon enough we realized it was TARZAN!!!!! NO WAY!! He came to pick us up and take us into el centro. We heard there may have been tambores, but didn't have a ride into the town and so were fine with just staying home. Then tarzan shows up. Apparently he is friends with Margarita and the town is so small that he knew where we were staying!
No tambores that night, but there were a ton of people on the dock area dancing to music.

Cabaña Añil...yeah not so much

Thanks to Jackie and Johan we were able to secure a posada for the busy independence day weekend in Choroni, however when we arrived it wasn't exactly what we had expected. First off, the taxi drivers couldn't even find the place and there is only one main road leading in and out of the city. It turns out it was tucked away very far from the beach even though online it said 5 minutes a la playa. One of the taxi drivers was really worried about us walking to the beach and our security in general, which freaked out some of the girls. The owner, Margarita, was really nice and I felt bad that some people in our group were expressing their disappointment in front of her. So I started a friendly converstation with her, scoping the place out. It had two matrimonial beds and then one twin bed. We had 7 people and the other two had to sleep on cots on the floor. Not an ideal situation, but it worked. I asked about being 5 minutes away from the beach and she answered yes in a car. Ay que chimbo! (that's what Eira said!) So she stretched the truth a little on that one, but it got worse. Our fully-equipped kitchen was actually outdoors and we had to start a fire as our 'stove'. Again not ideal. Well since we had already paid, there was really nothing we could do. Somehow the group cheered up and changed our negative attitude.
Margarita told us about some busetas that take us to the beach for only 2b's. We changed into our suits and then headed to the beach. Playa Grande! y fue muy bonita. No habia nadie en la playa y parece como nuestra playa privada!! But we did meet surfer dude that looked like Tarzan (that was our nickname for him). He offered to give us lessons and we said that we would tomorrow. It was only 50b's a person for 30min and he said that he wouldn't really be keeping track of time.
That night we made some pasta and played games! Jackie brought travel scattegories and then we played that game Auntie Julie taught me that's kind of like scattegories but you want the same answers as other people. They really liked the game! We also started a game of 'who would be most likey to..." and I got voted

Most likely to win Survivor
Most likely to be famous
Most likely to date somebody way older than me. hahah Thanks guys!!

Great news was that we had AC in our rooms and so slept really well. However, my twin bed had a tendency to fall apart! We tried watching a movie on someone's computer and there were 3 people sitting on my bed. Well one of us moved and then BOOM! all of us were on the floor!!! We thought we broke the bed, but the cardboard piece underneath just fell off its bracket. Fixable!

Choroni Beach Weekend

We left tonight on an overnight bus (13hrs!) to head to Choroni which is a city with very beautiful beaches! The buses here are so insane, because they keep them freezing cold. Everybody that i've talked to about the buses always complain about how cold they keep the bus, so why not just turn the AC down a tad? Oh yeah that's right... I've given up on trying to figure out why venezolanos do things the way they do.

TANGENT: remember how everybody uses straws here? Well, one of the venezolanos told me they do that because someone could have licked the can!! Seriously?! So you can pee in the streets, leave trash all over the sidewalks, never have toilet paper OR soap in public restrooms, but will use a straw because someone MAY have licked the can! what?!

Anyway, the overnight bus trip was okay. I couldn't ever get comfortable and was in a silly mood the whole time. Slept a little though!

Mariposa en mi cuarto

Tuesday mornings=yoga class! I love going to yoga with Eira because I always feel better afterwards. However, this morning when I woke up there was a monstrous butterfly in my room just chillin' on the window curtains. I didn't see it until I got up out of bed to turn off my alarm and it started fluttering around my head!! I screamed and ran into the kitchen where Eira was making breakfast and asked her to get rid of it. haha She was just as scared as I was, but we got it out the window. I guess they come out now because of the rain, but they are huge! Not like a regular butterfly....it's brown and the size of a small bat. I also have no idea how it entered in my room because the windows were closed!