Red Lights

There were 8 of us and we were all 19 when we organised our first major trip away from home. We were all at university, but still living at home, and some of us had never been kissed, so we were a very young 19. All of us were studying Spanish at the University of the West Indies and we decided to organise a cultural trip to immerse ourselves in the language. Since Venezuela was only a 40 minute plane ride away, it seemed the obvious choice. That decided, we set about raising the funds through cake and bake sales, car washes and hitting up our parents for as much money as we could get. Finally we had a date, a contact in the country, some classes booked and flights and hotels organised. We left Grantley Adams International Airport one July evening and emerged into a strange country a couple of hours later.

By the time we arrived it was dark, so we got a taxi to our hotel, checked in without diffculty and distributed ourselves (four girls to a room), then fell asleep, to tired even to think of exploring. The next morning, we rushed outside, then rushed straight back in to get cardigans, unprepared for the chill of the morning air coming off the mountains in this supposedly warm South American country. We looked up and down the street, flipped a coin and decided to head left in search of breakfast. We were in luck. We found a cafe and shop where we could get freshly baked bread, empanadas (meat pies), and all sorts of ice cold exotic juices. Not just orange and pineapple, but guava, papaya, soursop and some I’d never heard of and couldn’t translate into English.

Feeling better, we headed back in the direction we had come. That end of the street looked very different. There were tall, but rather desolate looking buildings and there was an air of deprivation. I saw several people poking into bins to get scraps out and even the dogs looked desperate. A call to our friends confirmed our feeling that this was not a good place to stay for a month. It seems we had ended up slap bang in the middle of the red light district in Caracas. Horrified, we jumped on a tram and set off in search of a new place to stay. This was a challenge, as we didn’t really know the area. However, we got off at the end of the line and decided to look around. The place we were in was called Sabana Grande and it looked much nicer. There was a big plaza, lots of shops and the area looked prosperous instead of run down. While exploring we happened upon a hotel down a side street and soon found out they had two rooms available. It would be four to a room again. Two more trips on the tram got us and our belongings moved to our new hotel and we began the process of settling in to what would be our new home for a month.

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