travelog

Yes, it’s finally all over.  The great adventure had to come to an end sometime.  Six very tired English people clear the flat, pack their bags and make their way slowly from Mérida, a big city nestling in the Andes in Venezuela, to Pitsford, a small village in the heart of the English countryside.  Last tastes of Venezuelan food, tearful farewells, one last carelessly lobbed firework, some overzealous frisking and blatant dribbling at the airport, an emotional reunion with a kettle and the taste, oh the taste, of that first curry in over three months.

The last whole week in Venezuela for our English family of six, but the excitement isn’t over yet.  There’s Christmas Day with a barbecue, cold beers and an outdoor swim, the appearance of a highly contagious tropical skin disease (or not?), emotional farewells to good friends, New Year’s Eve with even more dangerous pyrotechnics, deep discussions about the next part of our journey and, of course, plenty of time for a little bit more rubbish television……

As the end of the great adventure draws ever closer, our English family of six enjoys a very different build up to Christmas Day.  Monster nativity scenes spring up everywhere, there’s a distinct lack of snow and a visit to some hot springs high up in the Andes.  We race down packed streets in killer karts, brave the Venezuelan Christmas shopping frenzy, eat far too much food and survive some very dangerous episodes involving fireworks and crazy locals.  And we thought we were winding down for our return to the UK….

One of the reasons why we went to Venezuela was to see what people were doing to help others in need. This quest led us to several places in and around Mérida where we met some great people and heard some uplifting stories of changed lives. We also heard tragic tales, ones which reminded us that the world is still upside down and it needs each of us who care to become agents of change. This is our report on one such place of hope.

As we approach the end of our great adventure in Venezuela, we leave Mérida for a week and finally make it to the Caribbean coast at Chichiriviche.  We settle into a new home, enjoy hot sun, warm sea, palm trees, fresh fish and beautiful tropical islands.  We get bitten by many new friends, are amazed by some scruffy beaches and hold our noses a lot.  Oh yes, and we meet the concierge with two teeth, a retired army officer and a man called Ron.

In the aftermath of the elections and subsequent lack of rioting, we say goodbye to good friends and use a more relaxed week to reflect on some lessons learned from our adventures thus far. We also manage to have another accident, watch even more bad Venezuelan TV, do some very dodgy charades in a chemist, track down a pseudo-curry, wear red wine, drink tequilas, smell out a communications centre, get scared by a dramatic doctor and prepare for a week in the Caribbean sun……

This week, our family of six in Venezuela is joined by two friends from England to enjoy local delicacies, which are both interesting and picante, a strong coffee, the local female equivalent of Doctor Doolittle, an impromptu rooftop party, yet more cliff-hanging experiences (not again, yawn!), a very drastic diet and a resounding victory for Hugo Chávez in the Presidential Elections.

Some of you may want to know – and indeed some locals in Mérida have been bold enough to ask – what business a gringo family has in showing more than a passing interest in this Sunday’s Venezuelan elections.  The main reason is that we, among a growing number of people across the world, see these elections as having global significance.  The wrong result could have an impact well beyond the borders of this beautiful South American nation and make our world a much more dangerous place.

Six continue to go mad in Mérida, braving killer pavements and anarchic traffic, making clandestine calls to their English base, suffering poisoning at the hands of vicious liqueurs, being tortured by surly-looking Spanish verbs, hunting chickens from street to street and finally seeing the oh so welcome sight of reinforcements coming over the Andes, the chocolate cavalry from England.

The ongoing South American misadventures of our intrepid family of six, this week featuring some good news from England, some stolen cash, mild hypothermia, a partially-naked dinner with a couple of delightfully liberal North Americans, the jeep rides of impending doom, further lessons in Venezuelan timekeeping and redpillboy walking about like a slightly deranged ape (no change there, then)……

The continuing saga of a family adrift without a job, a mortgage or a car, struggling to survive in the urban jungle that is Mérida, Venezuela.  Read this week’s exciting episode to see whether they can thrive for another seven days or whether they’ll be kidnapped and sold to an evil drug cartel with a side trade in slightly off-the-wall families……

No man in his right mind would take his wife and four children to a distant country – a country where the vast majority of the people speak a language he and his family can’t understand - without a very good reason and some sort of plan of action.  Or would he?

The further brave / unwise / downright idiotic* adventures of an English family in Venezuela, each day discovering new delights, occasional horrors and the wonderful quirks of a very different culture (* delete according to your opinion).  Read on for this week’s enthralling episode, boys and girls, chamos and chicas…….

At the start of week three in Venezuela, our friends from England leave Mérida for a week’s beach holiday before flying home.  In a crisis, there’ll be no more opportunity to call fluent English speakers.  We are on our own now and the adventure starts in earnest for our family - like a kid whose stabilisers have just been taken off his bike, whose father has taken his hand off the saddle.  Scary, yes, but exciting too.

Exactly one month before we’re due to fly home to England, there are elections in Venezuela.  In England, people who feel really passionate about an election may put a small poster in their window.  Out here, the lines are drawn more clearly and displayed much more extravagantly.  With just over 5 weeks to go, the election pot is starting to bubble nicely.  Red pill takers, please read on…..

We’ve been in Venezuela for almost 2 weeks now and there’s so much to tell but so little time to tell it in an internet café in Merida with ultra-slow PC’s running Windows 1895...

Going to Venezuela for 3 months was always going to be a trip into the unknown as well as an exciting adventure.  As we lay in our bed on the first night, my wife asked a good question, “Is this what we’ve come half way round the world for?”  Had I made the biggest mistake of an error-strewn life....?!

Well, the day (night) finally arrived and we left a cold dark Northamptonshire village and flew to a city of a quarter of a million people deep in the Andes in Venezuela which is to be our base for the next 3 months.  This is the story of the journey…

So why is a family of six from a small Northamptonshire village going to Venezuela for almost 3 months?  After all, what’s wrong with two weeks in Devon and Christmas with the family?  You can find out almost everything you ever wanted to know about the Great TTRP Adventure – and probably quite a lot which you couldn’t give a monkey’s about – in the new travelog section on Take The Red Pill.  To Caracas, Infinity and Beyond………