Thursday, April 21st, 2005- La Guaira, Venezuela

I woke up in Venezuela feeling real sick. My stomach was so upset that I decided to skip the Diplomatic Briefing, which I had never done and never wanted to do. I was going to sell my ticket for my day trip but at the last minute, after resting a little bit, felt well enough to go. The day trip was the International Student Exchange: University Visit to the Universidad Simón Bolívar. The SAS Spring 2005 Final Field Program describes the trip as:

Here is an opportunity to make new friends in Venezuela! This practicum will introduce you to local university students who are excellent resources for information about current issues in Venezuela as well as for suggestions of what to see and do in the Caracas area… Then there is time to tour the campus and interact with the students. (p. 91)

Let’s just say there was only one student there. The school was on its trimester break so everyone was on vacation, which put a real damper on the trip.

After an hour drive past Caracas we arrived at the pristine campus and were met by a Language professor, Dan Bailey, an American. He gave us a tour of the administrative offices and then sat us down in a theatre and gave us information on the university.

- It’s a public university with tuition free to all residents

- Entrance exams are quite difficult and only 1 out of every 9-10 people who take them pass them.

- There is no on campus housing.

At the meeting we met the one Venezuelan student. We then headed up to the Professor’s House, which is the name of the faculty cafeteria up in a house on a mountain. Lunch was pretty good especially eating out on the balcony overlooking the campus.

After lunch is when we were supposed to meet the students but that never occurred so we went on a tour of the library. By this time a bunch of the SAS students were getting annoyed and both parties felt that there was really nothing left for us to do so we left. The bus made a stop in Caracas on the way back to drop off anyone who wanted to walk around.

Random Facts:

- The ship is docked in the La Guaira, which is the middle of no where. There is nothing in the area around the ship to do and you must take a taxi into Caracas in order to get near anything of interest. The ride can be anywhere from 20 minutes- 3 hours, depending on traffic, especially since traffic in Caracas is real bad. Another deterrent is the fact that it costs like $20-30 to get there. I plan on doing SAS field trips everyday to help save money.

- Venezuelans admit that they are crazy/bad drivers. There are really no traffic laws, just suggestions. Police don’t enforce the laws anyway; however they are all over the sides of the highways. They are basically there waiting for accidents so they can direct traffic after one occurs. On my trip today, I saw two alone.