Making Hallacas

I was finally able to convert and upload the hallaca video to YouTube.

Happy New Year

I thought I might have a chance to divide this up into a couple posts during my trip but I was enjoying not being very connected so didn't do much except occasionally check my e-mail. So I'll give the quick run down.

We were supposed to leave on December 19 but they overbooked the flight and were looking for two people to give up their seats so we offered ours in return for $500 flight vouchers for each of us. They also put us up in a hotel for the night. This had us leaving the next day and arriving into Caracas at night instead of the morning, which makes things a bit more difficult. We were overcharged for a taxi ride to a hotel thanks to my gringo face and stayed there for what felt like just a few hours since we had to get back to the airport for a 6am flight. In the end it would have been best just to have stayed in the airport. We learned our lesson and did that on the way back.

The next day we took the flight to San Cristobal and were picked up by Veronica's mother, father, and sister. From there we went straight to Vero's other sister's house to make hallacas, a Christmas tradition. Hallacas are made using plantain leaves where you place the dough, meat, and other fillings and then cook them in a very large pot. Then you eat them for the rest of the holidays until you're sick of them, not that I think I ever did. They are quite tasty. I took a video of the process but it exceeds the size allowed by YouTube so I'm going to see what I can do to reduce it.

We spent the next few days through Christmas in San Cristobal, the town where Veronica grew up. We visited with her family and friends and celebrated Christmas Eve. Christmas Day isn't so much of a big deal as Christmas Eve. The eve is when everyone gets together and waits for midnight to come and that's when gifts are opened and Christmas dinner is served. There are also a lot of fireworks throughout the day culminating at midnight but I'll go into that a bit more for New Year's. Christmas Day is spent relaxing and making sancocho, a typical Venezuelan soup.

After Cristmas we went to Mérida, where Veronica attended university and where her mother lives. We spent the next five or six days through the new year with her. She is a live-in care person for a mother and son so it was a full house, especially once Carolina arrived. We went to a friend's place for New Year's Eve and rang in the new year there, although as we were searching for the radio station for the countdown we realized we were a little slow because when we finally found it they announced it was 12:02. Oops. The most memorable thing about New Year's is the fireworks. The government doesn't put on a official show but you can get just about any kind of fireworks in the street from firecrackers and roman candles to the full blown professional looking ones that burst in huge displays of colors. So the people buy them and then light them off throughout the evening until midnight arrives and the display intesifies so much that you can't take it all in. We had 360 degrees of fireworks and by looking in one direction you might miss something behind you so you end up going around in circles trying to see it all. Pretty cool.

From Mérida Veronica and I went to the coast for a couple days before flying home. We went to a colonial town called Coro on an overnight bus arriving at around five in the morning. We went from posada to posada looking for a room but to no avail. We camped out at a bakery waiting for the time to pass in hopes that there would be some openings later as people checked out. We ended up finding a crappy room in a large, ugly hotel only to later find a nice little posada that had only been open a year so wasn't in the guide books yet. We left the hotel and moved over to this posada and were much happier for it. It was a shame we were only able to stay one night it was so pleasant. By the time we were settled in it was early afternoon so we fit what we could in with the rest of the day, which turned out to be enough. We went to see the dunes, visited a disappointing botanical garden, caught a por puesto out to the next town over for a couple beers on the beach, walked around, and then made it back to Coro for dinner and to meet up with some friends of Vero that were down from Ureña.

The next day we took a bus to Caracas and spent the night in the airport and then flew home the following morning. And that was our trip. We might have done a bit more during our stay but things sort of shut down during the holidays so it was hard to get around. But that was fine. I found it relaxing just being able to sleep and read and enjoy doing nothing. I have some pictures from our trip which you can find here:

Venezuela 2006

And if I can do something with that video I'll post again with a link.