A Bit Uncertain

So. A job, yes? Well. Turns out I'm in South America folks. You can only get so far with a dodgy under the table job in an unsafe country with people you don't know. In the words of the great man that was my grandfather, 'Awe, shucks.' After a long seven days on the job I decided to put my career to rest, let other people have a try. Well actually, people are the reason things didn't work out in the first place. I can't seem to figure out why, but something about a country having a very high crime and homicide rate by world standards, tends to make people a little uneasy about visiting Venezuela. There were no tourists to be found, not many to sell tours to. Or even talk to. I woke up day after day to a lonely hostel, an empty building that proved to have more plants than people. Nothing but the maid that wasn't actually, because she never did her job, and a dog that I couldn't see somewhere up on the terrace that howled every time the clock tower sounded. It seemed to live up there but I wasn't quite sure how it had gotten up so high and isolated, and nobody ever went up there. How did it eat? I never did find out. But the two people I did find made it difficult to leave right away. Rob and Jurianne. Two lovely europeans who made things just dandy, like a happy helium balloon or a waffle-cone ice cream drizzled with chocolate sauce and nuts. Yup, that is the best way to describe the three of us I think. Merida is a nice city, in the daytime it would get up to 30C, rain a little around late afternoon, and at night it would go down to about 20. The city is surrounded by giant green mountains and misty clouds, so you feel like you are in a massive, cloudy green fishbowl. And with good company such as englishman Rob and dutchman Jurianne, I had a good time regardless of not really knowing what I was doing there. You win some you lose some. This email will be a bit shorter, as I have been so busy selling tours to people who aren't here, going to the bus depot to find no one but angry, over-worked Venezuelan bus drivers, and listening to mysterious howling dogs every hour. I've included a picture of the plants, as I saw them everyday and were my first real friends. (Don't make the mistake of thinking there were people about, as in the background the maid is the one sitting yet again alone at the table drinking coffee and doing nothing. - Or maybe it was hard liquor, I'm not sure) As well as a nice photo of myself with the two funny guys. It's a very fitting picture because it portrays what it was like all the time being in Merida with them. We couldn't even make a decision on how to pose for a simple picture, I think it symbolizes things quite well. And now, the choice remains. Do I stay with the funny guys a little longer, or embark early towards my Christmas destination? Hmm.. too many decisions. The Newly Un-employed.