Day 2

1-15-06 We spent our second day in miami waiting for our bags and exploring our ridiculously bizarre hotel. To our surprise, they were delivered in the morning so we could go on with our plans for the night. Took off around dinner time with nate and his buddy kush to an all-indian party first (hilarious) and then weaseled our way into gloria estefan´s club Bongos managing to avoid the stupid $20 cover. It was a good time until ruby and i started fighting which lasted through the night and well into the next morning on the flight. We were slightly intoxicated and didn´t get to bed til 5am and then back up at 7 to meet ruby´s dad for a ride to the airport. Delerious on the flight and finally landed in Venezuela.

What´s the worst that could happen? The airline loses our bags again and we spend an hour in line waiting to fill out the claim form. May have been a blessing in disguise however because we met this lawyer from Caracas who offered to have his driver take us to the city. This was a great relief as we had been worried about getting a taxi since the main road is closed making the normal 30 min. drive a 4 hour ordeal over the mountains. The traffic turned out to be worse than anyone expected. For most of it, walking would have been a quicker option. We sat parked in a huge line of cars on a windy two-lane mountain pass sucking exhaust from a dune buggy we were behind. Got quite a view of the "other" side of Caracas on the way in. Drove through an amazing shanty town precariously perched on the steep slopes of the hills. Finally got into the hotel; turned out to be a pretty decent place though the room is a bit dilapidated--somewhat reminiscent of the good ol Deauville. Went and got some tough steak and good fried cheese at a place across the street and came back to finally sleep off the punishing hangover