More fun in Cumana
Trip Start
Sep 12, 2006
1
10
323
Trip End
Dec 23, 2007
Cumana,
Venezuela
Friday, September 22, 2006
Our Spanish has improved muchly but the English is suffering.
Apparently people in Cumana speak some of the most difficult to understand Spanish in the world. Very fast, and slur many words so have our work cut out for us.
Naim and Oswaldo took us around the city and showed some museums of Sucre (another revolutionary hero here in Venezuela) and we went back to the castle on the mountain (more like a fortress) and received a full and well translated tour from the nephew Luis Mercedes Sanches who apparently pitched for the Toronto Blue Jays in the early 80s. Wow, I met a famous person, practically.
The Fortress has survived many attacks by pirates as well as multiple earthquakes.
On Friday Gaby and Leo took us to the Market to check out how the locals shop and live and then we went to a local beach. All in all a very fun day. The markets down here are something else. Thousands of booths selling all sorts of stuff, fresh fish, live chickens etc. Very cool. We spent the day talking to Leo and Gaby and learning what their life is like in Venezuela and their general perspective on life. Truly quite an enlightening day. Thank you very much guys!!!
Saturday morning Carlos and his wife Anna Maria took us to little place about 20 minutes from Cumana for some authentic Arrepas and cachapas. The family living in a small house by the road spends their days gathering corn in the fields, grinding it, and making arrepas (little ībunsī from corn, very good and rich) and cachapas, almost like crapes. They serve these with fresh made cheese or freshly fried pork on an makeshift oven on the side of the road. The food was great, the company even better and I even got to help out (see pic once uploaded).
On Sunday Cesar and his family and Gaby and Leo took us to Mochima, a wonderful park on the Carribean Sea about 20 minutes west of Cumana (everything in Venezuela is apparently in 20 minutes ).
A whole bunch of us ended up going.
Leo, and Gaby had their friend from Brazil join us as well as a couple who had bicycled from Argentina.
Cesar was there with his wife and son, and his brother Alejandro and his wife and little girl. Quite to large trip.
We were taken to an isolated beach by boat and spent the day relaxing, practicing some Spanish and English. Obviously cervezas were involved on the beach.
During this trip we were christened with new Venezuelan names.
Please welcome
Valentina Maria, and Martin Jose (sorry parents). It was great to have all the locals consistently call us by these names. AND we responded!!
more on Cumana when we have time.
Big thanks to;
Carlos Mote for allowing us to come to the institute and learn some Spanish but more importantly meet some super people
Gaby and Leo (see you in Poland) for welcoming us to their class and spending tons of time with us to explain things about Cumana, Venezuela and your way of life.
Cesar and his family for their great joy of life and generosity on our fantastic day at Mochima
Naim and Oswaldo for their time, translation and dedication to making sure that we got the fullest of our sightseeing of Cumana (sorry we missed you Saturday, Take care!!!)
Delta for her patience while teaching us Spanish.
Comments
Luis Mercedes Sanches
I found a lot of Sanchezeseses on former Blue Jay rosters. There are even a few Luis Sanchez. There's also one Luis Mercedes.
By the way, those Blue Jays finished beating Boston 3-out-of-4 this last weekend to go into 2nd place. One week to go.
UPDATE: Jays lost to Detroit on Tuesday, so they are back to 3rd place.
CLOUT UPDATE: The Kaszuby Dead Frogs are going to finish the season no worse than 8th place. There's still a chance of climbing up as high as 5th. The Christian Saints are hanging on to first place. The Sasquatch are 5.5 points back with 5 days left in the season.
Sasquatch update
The leafs are playing as we speak with th sens. I hope u guys are having a wonderful time! Fall is beginning and we are beginning to feel the change of season while u guys are in tropical venezuela/brazil!Sleep tight!
kowalski.
PS. TSN has now confirmed that the sasquatches have gotten within 2 points of the Saints while the Dead Frogs are now fighting for playoff position with the Barry's Bay hillbillies and the Gun Lake Crazy Kaszubs. Look for the Ottawa Senators to make a run as well...though its highly unlikely in this type of league :P.