Adicora and the Paraguana peninsula

I am about to move to Adicora and since I don´t know when will I have internet, I decided ti tell you a bit about the place. 

                                  

At the Northwest end of Venezuela, in Falcon State to the North of Coro, is the charming Paraguana Peninsula, which will warmly welcome you.

Once one of Venezuela's most important ports, Adicora is located in the 
eastern coast of the peninsula of Paraguana, which is in the northern most 
tip of Venezuela. Its proximity to the Dutch islands of Aruba, Bonaire and 
Curacao gives this tiny town a touch of Dutch colonial heritage still seen 
today. Its Location on the Caribbean coast gives Adicora the warm waters 
and strong trade winds that also have made it an ideal destination for wind 
surfers and kite surfers.

Adicora has two fine beaches to offer: the North and South ones.
The latter is an ideal place to go surfing, thanks to the wind that blows hard all the year round. There are several windsurfing schools offering lessons from beginner to advanced levels.

Adicora's location also gives it access to many other great attractions. There 
are also other beaches nearby. In addition, there are also numerous other 
towns in that area, each with its own unique identity.

The dry climate and the steady breeze that blows all the year round make this land a privileged one.

On the peninsula Western coast you will find Punto Fijo, headquarters of the world biggest oil refiner center. It comprises two refineries: Amuay and Cardon. On that coast there is also the fishing town Carirubana and the warm water beaches Los Taques and El Pico.

A great attraction in the Peninsula is "El Cerro Santa Ana" (Santa Ana Hill), considered a national natural monument. You can reach the top departing from Moruy town where we suggest you hire one of the youngsters that work as guides. The first part of the ascending road is rather hot because of the scarce vegetation, but as the way goes upward and gets through a humid tropical forest the temperature lowers and the air freshens. At the top you will enjoy a superb overall view of the peninsula, La Sierra de Coro and Aruba Island.

Inside the Peninsula there are several towns such as Pueblo Nuevo, Moruy, Santa Ana, Buena Vista, Jadacaquiva. In Moruy you will see a quite interesting hand crafted furniture domestic industry. In all these towns churches show a fine architectural design.

On the eastern coast there are some of the finest beaches: Adicora, El Supi, Tiraya, Las Cumaraguas, which are very popular among holiday makers that come to relish sandy beaches, sun and the Paraguaná breeze.

El Cabo San Roman the northernmost point of continental Venezuela is at the end of Paraguana Peninsula. It was discovered on August 9th, 1499 by Alonso de Ojeda accompanied by Juan de La Cosa and Americo Vespucio. Within a short distance from El Cabo there are some dunes next to the seashore, and in your way to Cabo San Roman you will find a tiny village called Puerto Escondido, where you can savour a tasty lobster at a local cozy restaurant.

Chao

How is Chavez protected

Sometimes I asked myself, how is Chavez protected from a sniper or any kind of attack against him.

Now I know. This weekend, 12 - 13 JUL 2008, is the V Petrocaribe Summit in Maracaibo.

http://vpetrocaribesummit.menpet.gob.ve/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvIt9XtFSMM&sdig=1

The military was deployed 3 days ago. Maracaibo is a fortress guarded by air sea and land. Helicopters fly around all the time and speed boats patrol the lake. I assure you, no one is touching Chavez or his guest from 17 countries.

I also payed attention to the uniform of our military. Before Chavez, our military was wearing old stuff, some with helms some with out. Some with rifles and of those I don't know how many really worked and thats the way the USA wanted the army to be. Today I see a complete army as it should be and all soldiers have the Kalashnikov AK-103.

Petrocaribe is an Energy Cooperation Agreement based on solidarity support proposed by the Bolivarian Government of Venezuela intended to overcome asymmetries with regard to access to energy resources. This agreement aims at establishing a new favorable, equal and just exchange scheme between the countries of the Caribbean region, most of them without a State-controlled supply of these resources .

Keep it clean. Continue the revolution.

Experiencing Health Care as a Human Right in Venezuela

The premise of Misión Barrio Adentro is simple: doctors live and work in communities providing health services free of charge to anyone.(1) In the span of four years, Barrio Adentro added 1612 modules (with 4618 under construction) to the 4,800 existing public ambulatory clinics.(2) The national goal is to have one primary care doctor for every 1250 to 2500 habitants. While Cuban doctors currently cover a large portion of this health need, new medical schools are training over 17,000 Venezuelan youth to become doctors. A corollary training program has around 3,000 Venezuelan doctors in a postgraduate residency community medicine. It’s one thing to look at the numbers, but does this massive expansion of primary health through Misión Barrio Adentro actually work?

( Read complete article http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/2406 )

Hi to all friends paying high health care insurance and to answer the question does health care works in Venezuela? The answer is yes it does.

Today I went to check my eyes as I am experiencing some difficulties reading. Some friends gave me names and phone numbers of private doctors and at the same time I heard them talking about the prices they have paid for their reading glasses. The price range they where talking about was from 800 to 1500 USD and this are regular glasses. Imagine if you would have something specials happening with your eyes.

Any way, I believe in the revolution and so I decided do see for myself how does free health care works.

Below picture is prove of it. I did not pay a cent. I was treated better than in a private hospital.

Now I can read better so I hope to be writing more often.

Chao

All people have a right to health care, education, social protection provided free from the state.

Chichiriviche. The place I want to be

Located in Morrocoy National park on the North West Coast of Venezuela, approximately about 400 kilometers from Caracas, 1 hour by car from Puerto Cabello, 1.5 hours by car from Valencia International Airport and 5 hours by car from Maracaibo. This small city located in the coast is a perfect place for vacation. Water quality is literally like a swimming pool with salt. 2 scuba diving places and snorkeling. People are friendly and warm. Food is also a great plus, down to earth, local and typical town. Lots of private homes for rent and sale in this town. This is the place for Otthotel if all goes well.

With different choices in keys or small islands, one can visit each of them with help of boats for rent like http://pitiusa1.blogspot.com/ .Varadero beach is also a gorgeous beach, no service though but a rather quiet solitary amazing place to spend the day. Some island or keys are Borracho, Pelón, Sal, Playuela y Peraza. Some of these keys are very small, so they are the perfect place to rest or to get a nice tan.

My next step is to buy a car and start searching for an apartment/room in Chichiriviche.

A QUE LUIS

One afternoon in Maracaibo May 2008.
Cheers

Bats

One of the things I sometimes thought wile in Europe was about the different animals I saw in Venezuela, Iguanas, frogs, snakes, bats etc. Today, the air condition unit broke so we had to take it out of the shaft and take it for repair. Since you don't take an air conditioner out to often, I decided to clean the basin where the condense water collects. On the basin I found about 3 centimeters of bat droppings. Do any of you have an Idea how bad this smells? Wile cleaning it I found a bat skeleton (picture).

I just thought I share this with you.

Till next time

Departure from Frankfurt to Caracas and the first confrontation with Venezuelan reality.

17MAY2008

After spending 15 days in Germany with my family it was time to leave the continent. I will not get into details about saying goodbye to family and friends as I imagine we all know how hard it is.

One of the things I keep thinking before checking in at the airport was not the 60KG of luggage I had with me in comparison with the 20KG I was allowed, but the fact that my life fits in 4 pieces of luggage and is 60KG`s . By the way, I was traveling on a airline staff ticket and I was hopping that the extra weight will be accepted and it was accepted no problem as the flight was not full. I kept thinking 60KG`s, only 60KG`s of life in this 20 some years in Switzerland.

After a beer at the departure hall I came to the conclusion that my digitalized pictures of family and friends, health, support, passport, flight ticket, laptop and my mp3`s are enough to start a new chapter. The rest is just extra weight but I am happy to have this extra weight with me.

9 hours and 50 minutes later and a hard landing in Maiquetia, it was time for me and the rest of the 150 or so passengers to stretch out our legs.

Please use the next lines as a kind of lonely planet travel info.

I arrived at 15:30 and proceeded to pick up my luggage. At Caracas airport you have to pick up you luggage from the carousel and take it with a luggage cart to a huge x-ray machine. This procedure was implemented by the government to check if what you declared in the declaration form matches what you are bringing into the country and if it does not match the you pay for it. Simple or? This system also serves to check if you are bringing any drugs into the country and as you know and as CNN and Fox news tells us that Chavez is the only one allowed to deal with drugs in the world.

After the procedure I pick up my luggage and put it back again on the cart and proceeded to walk to the national airport located about 200 or 300 meters away. Please also note that this luggage carts are not designed to transport 4 pieces of luggage but I managed. At the moment you enter the national airport there is someone that stops you from entering and takes your precious luggage cart away. Oh f....k, what to do now?. Well, dont panic, there are friendly persons waiting a few meters away from the luggage cart stop point that will happily help you for a horrendous amount of money.

One of the things I hate is people trying to take advantage of someones situation so I decided to transport my life on me. I thought again about this 60Kg`s and the thought's where not nice.

Walking around, I found the arrival and departure information board. I saw a flight that was supposed to depart at 17:30 so I proceeded to the airline ticket counter which I passed 100 meters ago. After dropping my bags on the floor and cleaning the sweat from my face, I asked the lady at the counter about the flight to Maracaibo at 17:30. With big eyes she asked me what flight to Maracaibo at 17:30?. I pointed at the Information board and said the one on the board!. Her answer was, the information on that board was from yesterday and that the next flight to Maracaibo was tomorrow. I took my bags and started walking again.

At the end of the national airport I found Acerca Airlines. The only flight to Maracaibo was at 20:40 and according to the supervisor the flight was already full. I asked him to please put me on the waiting list and proceeded to buy a ticket but to my surprise they wont sell any ticket's unless you have a confirmed seat by the supervisor.

Looking over my shoulder I saw some person's siting on their luggages against a wall. As I had over 3 hours to wait I made myself comfortable with the rest of the standby passengers. Looking around I saw a poster saying, DONT PAY MORE FOR YOUR FLIGHT FARE. CALL 0414 ######. At this time the poster did not make sense to me.

I got to know this military person that needed to be at the Maracaibo base on Sunday at 09:00 and if he was not on board this flight he would be in big trouble. Suddenly a man appeared offering seats for the Maracaibo flight and charging 100 USD for his service. The military man accepted his offer and after a few minutes he had a ticket and proceeded to check in. The ticket man approached me and I rejected his offer. I was mad because again someone was taking advantage of others.

Just before eight and after spending so many hours awake, I decided to pay to get on the flight but just before closing the deal a man with a red baseball cap ( or was it green?) approached us and started confronting the ticket man saying tings like, do you know that what you are doing is illegal? The ticket man say yes I know. Do you know that you can go to prison for this?. The ticket man say yes I know. I have a video of you and will give it to the authorities. The ticket man left the area.

Apparently the ticket man is a fried of the employees of Acerca Airlines. The employees tell you that the flight is full hoping that you will pay the 100 USD to the ticket man and then split the money. I understand the poster now.

The man with the red/green cap is a public service personnel and since I am on the video he took, he asked me to talk to the authorities about this case and I gladdy will do it. The cap man is another prove that this country is changing for the good and although its a lot of work and time consuming I am glad to be a small part of it to fix one of the many problems the Venezuelan USA made society has.

For your information, the flight from Acerca R7 739/17MAY2008 departed Caracas with over 10 seat empty.

Cheers to all and hope to write to you soon.

Gone from Switzerland

30 April 2008.

Hangover after a short farewell party at the Samariterstrasse.

The apartment in Zürich is empty, the table and car are sold. Strange feeling not to have my own place. I just arrived in Kaisserslautern where I will be staying until my journey continues (17 May 2008). My long friends in Maracaibo offered me a room to stay until I find the right place in Venezuela and of course I will be writing and informing on the progress.

For your info, http://teuferth.com is under construction and will be the place to check for updates.

Thank you my friends for a excellent time and take care.

Apartment

Everything is slowly falling into place.
My apartment is rented and the good news is that it is staying in the family.
Next step is to sell my 2 meters long Mahagoni table with 6 chairs and the Jeep.
Write if interested.

Passport

The question how to enter legally in Venezuela is cleared. Last year I requested the consul to renew my Venezuelan passport. He denied my request on the grounds that I could travel with my Austrian passport, which is true. Why should I use the few passport's a consul has in inventory if I could use the one I have. Since I decided to move back home, I have a passport. It took 5 days and only 93 CHF to get it.
Viva la revolucion

Second step

I dont have an address in Switzerland as of the end of April 2008

Betreff: Kündigung Wohnung Samariterstrasse 16, 8032 Zürich

Sehr geehrter Herr XXX

Hiermit kündige ich meine Wohnung per Ende April 2008

Next steps will be posted

First step taken

My resignation was sent. Last working day will be the 31 of Mach 2008 and I cannot wait to get out of this office.

I will keep you posted on the next steps.