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By Philip Cartelli, Freelance Writer September 2007
It’s easy enough to arrive in the country of Venezuela via plane or to cross overlan
The Sea Prowler has a few inconveniences, including that it’s necessary to be at the docks (a one-hour ride from the closest budget hotels) by 7am for a thorough customs check prior to a 9am departure, and that the open upper deck of the boat is drowned in the pounding beats of uptempo Soca (Trinidad’s most popular music, a cross between “soul” and “calypso,” another local style) emanating from several upright speakers. However it’s easy to forget the early hour and get used to the booming Soca once the Sea Prowler begins churning its way from the Trinidadian port town of Chaguaramas through the placid morning sea, as snow-white gulls and herons circle overhead, the misty hills of Venezuela’s Paria Peninsula just becoming visible in the distance.
The Sea Prowler makes the round trip journey once a week every Wednesday, and so our stay in Venezuela was limited to only 6 nights. We planned to make the most of them. By mid-afternoon, the ferry arrived in the port of Guiria, and we took a shared taxi to the Caribbean coastal city of Carúpano before nightfall, where we discovered a small dent in our plans for a good time. Walking into a bar next to Carúpano’s lively boardwalk, I was confronted by a man who spoke at me apologetically in rapid Spanish, gesturing for me to leave. I turned to Rodolfo, my Spanish roommate in Martinique who spoke with the man for a minute before turning to translate. “He says there’s no beer.”
“Fine,” we conceded. “We’ll find another place.”
“No,” Rodolfo continued, looking back at the man for support. “There’s no beer anywhere.”
Apparently, due to the many beer-and-rum-fuelled car accidents that occur in Venezuela over Easter weekend, an executive order by President Hugo Chavez had made it illegal for stores or bars to sell any kind of alcohol from Wednesday evening through Sunday at noon. Although we had not been planning any kind of Spring Break-style debauchery in this South American country that has recently had not-so-friendly political exchanges with the U.S., the prospect of an enforced dry spell in the middle of our trip was not welcome news.
“Maybe we should go back to Trinidad,” wondered one of my companions.
But no, we would stick out the week, thirsty or otherwise. The next morning we left our hotel in Carúpano early in the morning and after negotiating another shared taxi headed straight down into the south-central area of the country, we passed one night at a nondescript Italian-owned inn in the industrial center of Ciudad Guayana, before finally catching a local bus on our third consecutive day of travel for the riverside city--Ciudad Bolívar.
Walking from the bus station on Ciudad Bolívar’s outskirts to the old city center on the Rio Orinoco was like moving gradually back in time. The newer unpainted concrete buildings, covered with grates and surrounded by tall iron fences, interspersed with empty sand lots, gradually gave way to cathedral spires and houses of wood, adobe and colorfully-painted concrete, reflecting a recent effort funded by the Spanish government to restore the historical center of the city. Marveling at the intricate architecture of the house fronts and open plazas that we passed, we eventually found ourselves in the large tree-filled Plaza Bolívar. Now there is a Plaza Bolívar in every Venezuelan city, but this is the only one fronted on three sides by meticulously-restored buildings historically linked to Simon Bolívar, the “Great Liberator,” who led the mid-19th century struggle for independence of the entire northern region of Spanish-speaking South America. (The other side of the plaza was occupied, as is also common, by an imposing cathedral).
Searching for our hostel/hotel for the night, the Posada Amor Patrio (literally, the “Inn of Patriotic Love”), we were surprised to find it located overlooking the square. Surprised, largely because of its rates, which were around $3 per night per person in several different eclectically-decorated, shared rooms in a restored historical mansion. The Posada also featured a third-floor roof balcony strung with hammocks overlooking the Orinoco (a great place to watch the sunset), and an open-air garden-kitchen off of which was a small common room with antique photographs, gramophones and musical instruments—wooden shutters led out to the small balcony from which we could already see the crowds gathering for Friday evening services at the cathedral.
Perhaps some of the best news, delivered by our hostess at the posada, was that a Lebanese restaurant around the corner would be open for another hour: in additional to delicious shawarmas and “pizzas,” made on thin dough with ground beef and tomato sauce, but no cheese, they were completely willing to sell us as many bottles of Polar Ice and Regional beer as we wanted. Having consumed our fill, we headed down to the cathedral from which, as we had been told by the restaurant owner’s younger daughter, we would shortly be able to view life size statues of Jesus and Mary being carried down the hill from the cathedral to the river’s edge, an Easter Friday tradition from Mediterranean Europe still being practiced in this intensely Roman Catholic Latin American country. Rushing down the cobble-stoned streets, we were quickly ca Once we reached the bottom of the hill, the line of spectators slowly turned onto a main avenue that connected the historical quarter with the newer neighborhoods of Ciudad Bolívar from which we had walked earlier that afternoon. Slowly appearing in the glow of the streetlights in front of us, was a group of musicians, all clad in dark suits, and nervously fingering their instruments—mostly clarinets, trumpets, and waist-mounted drums. As we drew closer they began to play, directed by a man in front of them who simultaneously kept careful note of the bearers’ own walking rhythm in his gestures. They played music that I recognized from the Nino Rota-composed soundtracks to Italian films of the 1960s such as Fellini’s Amarcord, incongruously up-tempo and lively funeral dirges. As the crowd walked past the musicians they began to scatter, stopping off at hot dog and soda vendors lining the road or heading directly into neighboring side streets. Looking around, we decided to head for the waterfront on our own, leaving the unraveling parade behind. Walking to the waterfront we were confronted by voices seemingly carried across the river on loudspeakers. Moving closer to the railing above Rio Orinoco we discovered a crowd of at least a thousand seated on a large sandy beach next to the river, all entranced by a performance happening on a lit-up stage at the river’s edge. Recognizing an older man we had seen at the Lebanese restaurant, I asked him what was going on. “This,” he responded, beaming at me, “is the greatest theatrical performance ever mounted in Venezuela!”
A more in-depth description revealed that we were now watching the incredibly popular local performance of Christ’s Passion (lacking most of the special effects seen in Mel Gibson’s film adaptation), staged annua
The following couple of days in Ciudad Bolívar were filled with other memorable moments: eating delicious sopa de pescado (fish soup) at the tiny, terraced restaurants next to the central riverside market, visiting the Museo de Arte Moderno to see the unique permanent collection of mammoth light sculptures by celebrated local artist, Jesús Soto, getting drawn into a discussion on our respective native languages with a museum security guard, and watching the sunset from the boulder-filled El Zanjón Park on a hill overlooking the river. However, each night of that weekend, though neither I nor my traveling companions considered ourselves particularly religious, we found ourselves heading down the hill with a mass of people to see the next installment in the Passion play, an incredibly communal and visceral event that emphasized, in its openness to group participation, the generally welcoming spirit of most Venezuelans whom we met during our short but memorable stay there. It was also this particular memory that we all spoke of most fondly as we rode back to Trinidad, several days later, on the Soca-rhythm-soaked upper deck of the Sea Prowler, cruising its way through the unmoving sea.
**All photos by Philip Cartelli
If You GoThe Sea Prowler
Lodging Posada Amor Patrio Calle Amor Patrio (Plaza Bolívar) Ciudad Bolívar Phone: 0285-632-8819
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d from either Brazil or Colombia, but that takes all the fun out of a special kind of border crossing, experienced by the Caribbean traveler lucky enough to take the once-a-week ferry that plies the waters of the Gulf of Paria between Venezuela’s northeastern peninsula and its Caribbean Island neighbor, Trinidad. I chose this option, on a boat called the Sea Prowler, this past spring with several colleagues, all of us on temporary vacation from our jobs as language teachers on the French Caribbean island of Martinique, a short plane ride from Trinidad and Tobago.
ught up within a crowd of hundreds, pushing and heaving outside of the plaza to catch a glimpse of the statues and their bearers. Slowly, as the crowd around me began to gesture and cheer, I was able to see the Christ figure’s characteristically outstretched arms come into view, his likeness buoyed up by six brawny men who were being directed by a middle-aged woman who stood in front of them and directed their steps with her fingers extended like an orchestra conductor. The entire crowd moved aside to let the bearers move past and then began to follow them slowly down the narrow street, unconsciously mimicking their swaying movements as we jostled one another for views. An old man, sitting glumly on his second-floor balcony in shirtsleeves broke into a grin as he saw the Christ-led crowd head in his direction, and stood up, bowing to greet the statue and its followers.
lly over the three nights of Easter weekend, and attended by thousands from the surrounding south-central Venezuelan community. The man I was speaking with was a Caracas theater director, who made this pilgrimage every year to see what he considered to be a miracle of popular theater: a classic work performed for a huge audience replete with special effects, musical tracks, and fireworks at the end of each night’s show. We stayed and watched for a while as actors ran up and down through the seated audience, occasionally inviting youngsters onto the stage to the encouraging laughter of their friends and family. Once the crowd began filing out of the natural riverside amphitheatre, we said goodnight to the man and headed back to the posada, the Passion play’s performance having concluded for the night.