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About two-thirds of the way
to Mérida our long, cold bus ride ended in a town called Valencia.
There we split up, some folks electing to press on to Mérida right
away, some buying plane tickets, some staying in Valencia for a day.
By the time everyone got to Mérida and regrouped, it was time to
decide what we wanted to do for New Years. After nixing another
excursion due to half of it being spent in vans (we just wanted to
stay in one place for awhile!), We decided to head up to a small
village in the Andes outside of Mérida to ring in 2001.
We chose a town called Pueblo
Nuevo, tucked against the side of the mountains. The ride up to the
village consisted of an hour of gut-wrenching switchbacks. It was
especially fun after a couple of locals in the car told us the story
of a car that had gone over the edge a week before. No one had known
until someone spotted vultures circling and investigated. |
It's a long way down... (note the road on
the right side) |
View from our room in Pueblo
Nuevo |
It was worth the trip,
however. We stayed in a wonderful little posada near the plaza, with
most of us piled into one large common room that slept seven. The
family that owned the posada cooked our meals, and it was some of
the best food I had the entire trip.
When we first arrived, we
were introduced to a young man named Ender. Or, more accurately, he
introduced himself to us. He was the self-appointed guide to Pueblo
Nuevo: very charismatic and a total ham. He told us he was 20, but
later it was revealed he was only 16. He was especially enamored
with the women in our group, of course.
Once we were settled we found
ourselves with an hour to kill before lunch would be ready. Ender
offered, or rather insisted, he take us on a hike "down to the
river." How long would this hike last, we asked? "Oh, about a half
hour." Okay, sure, lead on. Now of course there was a voice in the
back of my head saying "don't rivers carve out these valleys, and
doesn't that mean the river is a long way down?" But I thought
nothing of it and we headed out, most of us not bringing sunscreen
or water. After all, it's just a half hour...
Roughly three hours later
half of us stumbled back into town, burnt to a crisp and shrivelled
up from dehydration mixed with altitude. We cleaned out all the
bottled water in town in the course of an afternoon. The other half
of the group had elected to hike all the way to the river, but
myself and four others stopped halfway. That's not to say the
scenery wasn't absolutely beautiful, and practicing Spanish with
Ender was unique, but we just hadn't been
prepared. | That evening after dinner we hung
out in the plaza chatting with the locals. It was my first really
satisfying Spanish experience of the trip. A couple of the local guys and
I discussed music, how the town gets its electricity, what we do for work,
and some of the town's New Years customs. I had to ask them to repeat
themselves fairly often, but they were very patient and we were able to
communicate.
Our conversations weren't without
their pitfalls, however. While I was talking with the two guys about their
town, another older man came up to me and was vigorously attempting to
explain something to me. He kept mentioning a woman from my group having
left crying. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was going on,
but Rick sorted it out. Christine had been talking to him and he had said,
over and over, how much the townsfolk liked it when they had visitors
("nos gusta..."). However, he would swallow his S-sounds, so it sounded
like he was saying "NO gusta," as in "we DON'T like it." Since she seemed
puzzled when he said this, he kept repeating it, more and more vehemently.
Of course being told over and over your presence is not welcome is quite
upsetting, so Christine finally left. Everything was worked out in the
end, and we assured him that we enjoyed his town thoroughly.
When midnight came we walked
through the town. Everyone was hugging everyone else and wishing them
"Feliz Ańo Nuevo!" We were invited into Ender's house to meet his family,
then we went to a dance he had organized. The next day most of the group
stayed in Pueblo Nuevo, but four of us had decided to return to Mérida.
This was not an easy proposition, however, for we had to find a ride back
to town. This being New Years Day, most of the local car-owners were not,
shall we say, in peak form. We were fortunate enough to meet a couple who
were visiting Pueblo Nuevo for just an hour or so, and they offered us a
ride back to Mérida.
They were both fascinating people.
They had a home in Mérida, and were spending the afternoon leading some
guests of theirs around to the outlaying villages. The husband was
Venezuelan by birth, and the wife had dual citizenship in the United
States and the Netherlands. They both studied anthropology at Columbia
University, where they met and teamed up to study religious cults. Their
permanent home was in the Netherlands, but they had been in Venezuela
nearly six months in an attempt to adopt a child. However, Chavéz (the
President of Venezuela) was in the process of reworking government to
match his vision, and this meant the systematic dismantling and rebuilding
of every governmental organization. Our friends had chosen the wrong
moment to attempt adoption, for as soon as they arrived in the country the
adoption agency was dissolved. It was a fascinating look into such a
personal part of Venezuelan life, a part to which one is not generally
exposed. We also got to practice our Spanish, but we eventually dropped
into English because the stories were fascinating and we didn't want to
slow down their telling. We arrived back in Mérida that evening.
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