I am always impressed by the capacity of memory to bring back things that seem forgotten. These days I was talking to the only friend I have from my youth. Due to life he now lives in Mexico and we frequently talk via Whatsapp. In our conversations we almost always remember events from the past and sometimes he asks me some unusual questions.
In a recent conversation my friend asked me if I remembered the first hotel I visited. The question surprised me, I didn't find the answer easy.
I thought back to the times of my childhood and there was no hotel record there. It is true that my father took us many times on vacations to the interior of the country, but every time we went to relatives' houses, we never went to a hotel.
I was almost convinced that the first hotel I visited was in a field work we did while I was a student of Geography at the Pedagogical School of Caracas, I was about eighteen years old when we did a field work to the city of Merida, in the west of the country, we were there for a week and the University paid all the hotel and food expenses of the students.
But then I remembered that maybe a year before, at the beginning of Holy Week, a friend, my brother and I agreed to go for a few days to Margarita Island, in the north of Venezuela.
That outing was quite improvised. Each one of us took out the account of our savings and we agreed that we could spend about three days on the island.
Of course, we would not have any kind of comfort. We would sleep in a small tent on the shore of the beach and eat whatever light food we could find along the way. None of the three of us had ever been there before and we had no idea what we might find. But the youthful spirit when hungry for adventure will do anything.
We left Caracas by bus on Friday at 10 p.m. and arrived in Puerto La Cruz, in the Oriente, at about three o'clock in the morning. We had to walk for a long time through lonely streets until we found the ferry terminus that connects Puerto La Cruz with Margarita, the hardest part was to find someone to tell us where the terminus was, but we made it. The first ferry left at five in the morning.
A little before five thirty the ferry left, it was the first time we all sailed on the sea, we could not believe it. Seeing that sunrise on the boat was truly glorious.
When we arrived at Punta de Piedras, in Margarita, we did not know how to continue to Porlamar, our destination. A generous soul gave us a tail in a truck where we were riding on top of a few sacks of potatoes. In a little less than an hour we had arrived in Porlamar, and we had kilometers and kilometers of endless beach in front of us.
Although it was the holiday season the coast was quite empty, we settled in a place where there were some palm trees and a few fishermen's boats. We didn't ask anyone if we could do it and no one came up to tell us no either.
That first day went by quite fast, we left the sea very few times to eat some fish empanada (cornmeal stuffed bun) and drink soft drinks from a bottle.
At night we set up our tent, it was just a piece of canvas that we kept upright with three pieces of pipe, it had no floor, but it served us to have some privacy.
That night I slept very badly, I am not one of those who can sleep anywhere, I felt that the animals in the sand were biting me, somehow they went through the towel on which I was lying. I woke up very early and the beautiful view of the sunrise surprised me walking along the beach.
On that second day we found a gas station where they allowed us to take a bath with the hose that they used to wash the cars, that gave us a great relief, we would not have to sleep covered with salt water. But just like the night before, I could hardly sleep for a few minutes.
Two nights without sleep was already too much for me, I wished I could find a place where there was a bed.
While I was buying bread for lunch I saw a small house with a sign that said: rooms for rent. It was a very modest dwelling. I asked the manager, a kind lady who spoke with the accent of the Orientals, and she gave me the price. I was happy because it was within my budget.
I told my brother and my friend that I would spend the last night of our trip at an inn. In the morning we would meet to return to Caracas.
I arrived at the inn at about eight in the evening. I took a bath and didn't really pay much attention to the details, what I wanted was to sleep. I lay down on a small bed, with a mattress that was sinking and there I fell asleep. I was awakened by the sun's rays...
That little inn was actually the first hotel where I stayed. Then came many more, of all categories, some good and others not so good. All of them are testimonies of some trip I made alone or with my family. I have always liked to travel...
Thanks for your time.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version).
