Semana Santa

When you move to a foreign country, you can’t help but notice that you bring along more than just the things you packed into your bag or suitcase. When the rush of new experiences subsides and you inevitably settle into the habits and routines of your usual lifestyle – wake up, check e-mail, go to work, eat, surf the web, go to sleep – you might wonder why you left home at all. But once in a while there comes an experience that reminds you all over again how far from home you really are.

When Semana Santa, or Holy Week, came along and gave me a week off from work, I took the chance to see another part of the country with a friend. We started off on an 8-hour journey to the state of Falcon with a half-baked plan to go sandboarding in the dunes of the Coro Desert. 3 hours later though, we found ourselves at a gas station in the middle of nowhere in a car that refused to start. With no AC in the blistering heat, I sat there for a good 30 minutes in the car while my friend went off to look for help. Pretty soon though, some of the attendants at the station came over to see what was wrong. When they couldn’t figure it out, they started calling over other cars that were passing through. Before we knew it, we were surrounded by a group of guys with beers in our hands, cheering as a turn of the key finally brought the engine back to life. Such an insignificant thing, really, but I could never see that happening in New York.

We made it through the rest of the drive in a hurry, not stopping anywhere in fear of the car dying again. We reached the mountains of Sierra San Luis just as the sunlight disappeared, and we made our way through the small villages of scattered dwellings in search of our hostel. There I saw a side of Venezuela I’d never seen before. I thought I’d seen Venezuela's poverty at its worst in the crammed barrios of Caracas, but here were houses literally made of dirt and sticks: patchworks of wood and earth that kept out neither rain nor wind. People walked around holding flashlights as entire towns were without power. Nevertheless, they were kind enough to give us directions to the hostel, which we needed every 5 minutes before finally finding the place.


The next morning, of course, the car was dead again. So we took our time and walked through the villages to find a hiking trail, which led to some awesome caves that we explored for most of the day. The nice Swedish couple that owned the hostel helped us get the car running again, and in the afternoon we made our way to Coro, a small town that sits adjacent to a massive desert. We spent the night in a traveler’s hostel, sharing a dorm room with two Venezuelan guys, a guy from England starting off a one-year tour of South America, and another from Australia who’d just visited Colombia. I’d never stayed in a dorm-style hostel before, but it’s a great place to meet interesting people and get information about where you’re staying.

We finally made it to the desert the next day. Unfortunately we couldn’t find a place renting sandboards, so we just spent some time walking around in the sand dunes. It was a pretty surreal experience that I have a hard time describing, but I think the pictures will speak for themselves. Enjoy them, because they’re the last ones my current camera will ever take – apparently sand and digital cameras don’t mix.