Venezuela is a strange country. A lost country. Its inhabitants endure their fate as stoically as the Cambodians. Sometimes there is milk to buy, and sometimes they are willing to sell it to you. Otherwise, they have few interests. Venezuela is in a coma.
The American pirate has recovered his yacht. The police have arrested the privateers and looted the boat. To avoid ending up in prison too, the American pirate only had to pay $1,000, final sale. Venezuela is a country where pirates pay.
The magical sailmaker Miguel also manages to repair my second kite. We head back to Coche and have a good, strong but no longer murderous wind. An abandoned school planned by Chavez is enthroned on the mountain, with millions of shells lying in the glut in front of it. On the beach is the ideal world, behind it begins no man’s land.
The wind was gigantic. Not a single unkiteable day in three weeks – apart from four days with gusts of over 40 knots. Just as lively as the wind is, the land is just as dead. No country in the world has yet managed to spoil my desire to travel. Venezuela, with its hundreds of thousands of dirty stories of robbers, robbery and murder, is the first. That was not travelling. That was being trapped in a kite paradise. I’m looking forward to Germany. I’m looking forward to travelling.
Frank Woelky, born in 1973. Kitesurfer since 1998. Since 2006, I have been combining kitesurfing and web design on trips lasting several months off the beaten track.