Gran Melia y San Ignacio

Our arrival to Caracas was smooth and unprecedented. We found our 'secure' driver without a problem and hit the winding road for the hour drive into the city. The damage and poverty left behind by the disasterous rainy season of 2002 and the lax government was very evident along the way.

Our driver, Castor, was passionate to share his view of Venezuela and current government. An older gentleman, proly in his 50's with dirty gray hair and blood shot eyes, went on and on about the failures of the Chavez leadership.

A city plagued with crime, a 40% unemployment rate, and a transportation infrastructure that frankly is a mild step up from mideval times, Caracas has really suffered the decay of an ignorant, absent minded, and unproductive government. I could go on for paragraphs about my ever changing perception of Venezuela's reality and the options left to correct it, but in interest of the brevity I shall digress.

Once we settled in to our 3 bedroom suite at the Gran Melia 5 star hotel *SWEET*... we took the time to get to know the surroundings...mainly the hotel, pool, gym, and attached mall "El Recreo".

We hit up a sports bar for dinner and caught the US vs. Venezuela soccer game. A 2-0 loss to the US was not what the crowd was looking for, so we tried to keep our "gringo-ness" to a minimum.

Later that evening we met up with the wedding crew for a little dancing at the San Ignacio complex in El Chacao. It seemed to be the safest choice...we had a blast.

I don't know why but for some reason I was in the mood for making faces in all these party pics...see if you can find me in the one above...HA!!

Wowi visits Venezuela

In the honor of my roomate and great buddy, Ovidio (aka Lil Wowi), I dedicate this most entertaining of posts. The plan has been set for months now...a trip to Venezuela for Memorial Day, 2006. The MO: Wedding Crashing. I seemed to have logged posts with this theme before but never to this extent. Picture this, a niece of a Venezuelan ex-president decides to marry a US national from Nova University and personal friend of aforementioned Lil Wowi. At the rate that past South American politicians looted the countries they represented, you can imagine the level of bling-bling this event aims to attract...lets just say Franco de Vita is on the guest list. So as a devout roomate and friend, I along our other buddy Jeff decided to accompany Lil Wowi on this adventure.

So far it has been just that, and we haven't even gotten there yet. We arrived at the airport on time (out of character for me but Wowi wouldn't have it any other way) to find that the flight was delayed by a plane malfunction...three hours later they get us another BRAND NEW plane, a Boeing 767-P to be exact.

Whatever, right? Well turns out that in the switch MY seat was eliminated and I was bumped to Business class...you know how people say that Business class on foreign airlines is like First class on american ones? uhhh, hell yeah!! And being the true homie that I am, I rose up to pull Lil Wowi up with me...it was a bit of a challenge to swing Jeff up as well but I'll get'm next time...At any rate...Gadang, we were balling it up!!! Drinks, confort, and technology...this is bliss...