So, we are back from the World Championships. It was quite an adventure! I am quite proud that I actually managed the entire adventure with nothing worse than lost luggage to show for it.

I left Atlanta a complete bundle of nerves. I had discovered on Monday that the Atlanta – Miami tickets that I had booked to meet with the international portion of my trip were not going to be adequate because the international airline, Aeropostal (the “national” airline of Venezuela) did not have baggage handling agreements with any other US airline. This meant that I had to claim my luggage in Miami, take it to the ticket counter on another concourse (from E to A) and recheck it internationally and my original tickets had me arriving in Miami only 1.5 hrs ahead of time. I decided that I wouldn’t be able to make it, so I cancelled my cheap ticket to Miami (bye bye $157), which was the first flight into Miami on the day of departure and booked another ticket for Thursday night. Luckily, Claire Rookard was already staying overnight in Miami and she graciously allowed me to bunk with her. On Friday, my day of departure, after hearing of Stephen Carter’s experience, I went specially to buy a few St. Christopher medals because I felt I needed all the help I could get on this journey. St. Christopher was already hard at work, because I showed up at the ticket counter without my Amex card and, according to the new 9/11 travel rules, booking within 72 hrs requires the credit card used to book the ticket. Well, a very nice lady at Delta finally decided I wasn’t a terrorist and after much verification of other information, allowed me a boarding pass! Thanks St. Christopher!

Fast forward to the next day. Standing at the Aeropostal desk in Miami, Claire couldn’t find her passport. Pretty soon we have all her luggage opened up and all over the floor at the check in counter. We finally found the passport where it was supposed to be – in her fanny pack! Claire and I noticed a strange machine at the airport. You put your luggage on the machine and, for a fee, it was “shrink–wrapped”. ‘What for?’ we wondered. Being well– raised Americans, we knew that you couldn’t lock your luggage anymore so it can be searched, so why wrap it? This remained a mystery until later. We met up with Lom Sayasane, Sara’s dad, on the flight and started what would become “the parents group”. On the flight to Caracas, which was all in Spanish, by the way, and the flight attendants really didn’t want to talk to you in English, we learned that it is legal to saran wrap your luggage to keep unscrupulous baggage handlers from messing with your luggage in South America. Upon arrival in Caracas, we changed money $100 = Bs149,800 (bolivares). Getting through customs was easy enough although I couldn’ t get the pay– luggage carts to accept my newly acquired Bs5000 note. However, Lom and Claire were able to acquire carts, so we just shared. Having been forewarned by Stephen’s experience to NOT accept a ride from international to domestic terminal, we bungled our way to the domestic terminal and followed a likely looking lady to the Aeropostal desk. Talk about a crush! There were literally hundreds of people in the airport trying to sell you things, give you “assistance” for a few coins, change your money on the black market, you name it.

One of my suitcases had been damaged in the flight from Miami and was losing its bottom support, so I decided that since we had a 5 – hour layover, I would shrink–wrap it both for extra support and security. All the bags weighed a ton on account of all the added race wheels Jono needed (18 sets spread out across my 2 bags and my carryon) and the last minute supplies the team asked the parents to bring – peanut butter, power bars and powdered gatorade. It was actually the Gatorade that weighed the most! Each piece of luggage weighed just over 50 lbs. I thought I was doing good to keep it under the 70 lbs allowed for international travel – only to find that the limit has been dropped to 50 lbs, so I had to pay an overage fee for all legs of the trip. After checking our luggage (2 hours in line) and then waiting for the security screening (another 45 minutes) the 5–hour layover didn’t seem so outrageous. We ate a little food and waited for other parents to come in from all points across the USA. By the time the flight to Barquisimeto was ready (an hour late) our little group had grown by 5, three more parents and two coaches, and I was beginning to feel less alone in this adventure. We were still worried about how we were getting from the airport to the hotel without taking a taxi.

However, the Host Committee for International Skating had sent some people out to meet our plane and, blessedly, a English interpreter. We were bundled onto a large rickety bus along with several other delegations and together with a two motorcycle cop escort (policia), and one policia standing in the front door of the bus and one policia standing at the back door of the bus; we made a mad–cap run through the streets of Barquisimeto. I say mad–cap because there were not any traffic lights, the policia just pulled up into the middle of the intersection with their lights going and stopped traffic. It was amazing to me to see that they weren’t hit. The streets we passed on were full of potholes, but the bus just proceeded as if they weren’t there, so it was a very bumpy ride. Anyhow, we arrived at the hotel about 20 minutes later and everything was ready for us. Our rooms were small, well turned out – a double was two twin beds. I’ve stayed in similar in the heart of London, so it wasn’t too big a shock. We even had time for a beer in the nice courtyard downstairs before turning in. Our luggage had arrived still shrink wrapped and nothing missing, so that’s one system we will make use of again! I discovered that I was the only parent in the group that spoke any Spanish, so I became the defacto organizer of all our arrangements. Talk about stress! I didn’t do too badly until one day I thought we were getting 3 chicken and one steak meal, and we ended up with 3 steak and 1 chicken! Oh well, everyone treated it as an adventure.

The next morning, we located a woman who was willing to show us how to use Venezuelan phone cards (cheapest way to call overseas) which we purchased at the local ‘farmacia’ for Bs10000 – that gave us about 60 minutes of calling time to the USA. However, when tried to find a pay phone that worked (we tried 6 of them) we couldn’t find an operable one. Finally the hotel let us use their desk phone and we called home to the various relatives to let them know of our safe arrival. We then found an “unofficial” taxi – the brother of the bellhop – to take us to the Villa Boliviariana (the ‘real’ name of the Sports Village) and look for the kids. We found Jono and William and two coaches in the cafeteria at the sports village, handed over food and wheels, and then accompanied the team on their “ghetto bus” to the Track. It was affectionately nicknamed the “ghetto bus” because compared to the “tour buses” that most of the other delegations had rented; it definitely had a ghetto air to it. The USA team really liked their transportation – it was a beat up city bus (looked like a white school bus) “Ruta 5” with an awesome CD sound system. The driver did not mind putting in the teams’ rap CDs and turning up the volume, so everyone knew when the USA was coming around.

Once we arrived at the track we remarked the beautiful day, but boy, was it hot!! We watched the kids practice and tried to stay cool, but the temp was rising. Each day would start “cool” about 70 degrees, and it would heat into the high 80s, and with the humidity, it felt much hotter. There are no trees at the track and only a bit of covered grandstand. We elected to use the bleachers at the edge of the track because they were much closer than the grandstands. After the team’s practice, they were given a treat – a trip to McDonalds! We also stopped at the Makro – a local equivalent of a Sam’s Club and purchased water, a chair and umbrella for Claire, and various snacks. We were dropped at the Hotel Obelisco – about 1/2 mile from the team’s accommodations to check out a place a bit closer to the track than our original hotel, which was downtown. After viewing the rooms, and finding out that we could get 2500:1 in exchange rate from the local cabbie, we decided to pay cash for a our new room and moved the next day to the closer hotel.

The Opening Ceremonies were a big deal and attended by at least 10000 people and broadcast live on Venezuelan TV. Venezuela has certainly raised the bar for next year’s championships. We had the normal parade of nations, but then they had some local dances and ended with a large fireworks display. The music was loud, local and rhythmic – quite a beat to dance to. We had a big jumbo tron screen to view the spectaculars close up and it really added to both the opening ceremonies and the racing that followed. It was definitely useful in bringing the racing to the whole stadium, not just the judges in front of the finish line. Its just too bad that we can’t get these kind of crowds back home!

From then on, it was basically a commute from track to the hotel and back again. The parents moved around, occupying a different place on the bleachers or the rail each day. We met a lot of fabulous people – the Venezuelans are SO friendly! In the USA, if you go to a baseball game or a football game, it is just not the thing to get to know the people around you. You don’t introduce yourself and begin to ask questions about where a person is from. But, in Venezuela, it is rude not to get to know your neighbors. People want to know who you are, they want to ask your name and find out where you are from. And, they are more than willing to talk about themselves, too. They love to smile and to practice their English. They were more than willing to cheer for the USA skaters if you told them who was on the track at a particular time. Several of the young men would even cry out “I love you, Julie” or “I love youTheresa” as the girls came by to sign autographs. When I pointed out that both women were in committed relationships, the response “es no importa” brought much laughter all around. The people loved the little USA – themed gifts that I had brought and they once and awhile reciprocated with little gifts of their own.

The racing was fabulous, despite the hot weather and several rain – outs in the evening. The best skaters in the world were represented and the competition was hot between the USA, Columbians and the Italians for the top spot with the most medals. The total medal count came out in the USA’s favor by only two medals. (http://www.patincarrera) Of course, the number of medals doesn’t matter so much as the point count, but since we were not expected to do so well, we were satisfied with each medal we received. The level of competition was absolutely amazing. Everyone was SO good! I was just thrilled that our kids had the opportunity to compete at this level, and then to have them do so well was like a dream.

I was very impressed with the team’s camaraderie. Especially for the juniors there did not seem to be any huge egos. Everyone was glad to get the races that they got, and they felt that the distribution was pretty fair. Once the races were in progress, no one was showboating or grandstanding. In Junior men, I attribute this mainly to Joey Mantia who worked for each teammate where he could. With the exception of the 200m and 300m time trials, Joey got all his gold medals after first stepping up to help his teammates try to win a medal. Only when it became obvious that they weren’t going to pull one out, did Joey step up for the USA and win gold. He showed what a true champion is all about. I had “cheering laringitis” about the 3rd day cheering for the whole team, and I had to speak in a hoarse croak for the rest of the time I was there.

We latched on to a favorite cab driver, Ali, who took us to special places and gave us our good exchange rate for US$. One afternoon we took the scenic route back to the hotel and got to drive on the bluffs around Barquisimeto. We even saw a full rainbow in the clouds. It was beautiful. At the marathon, Ali kept the cooler supplied with ice and Polar (the local beer) and afterwards took us to see his Iglesia Moderna (very modern church), which was the Barquisimeto Cathedral. It was VERY beautiful. He also drove us by the Plaza Bolivar the largest park in Barquisimeto. Finally, we made a swing by his ‘casita’ to meet his wife and daughters. His youngest ‘bebe’ is a cute little girl of about 10 months. They were very thrilled with the gift of our cooler and umbrella. We also gave him our foldup chair. We managed to extract his address, so we can keep in touch. He was quite sad at our leaving on the final day.

We ate a lot of food, but not all of it was that different from home. I’ve already mentioned the local beers – we latched on to Polar, Polar Ice, Polar Light and Solera which are pretty much equivalent to Bud, Bud Light, etc. They only came in little 250ml bottles though (about 6 oz), so it always seemed that we were drinking a lot more than we were. We tried several bottles of local wine, too, which were absolutely awful! Stick with the beer! We also enjoyed an ‘empanada’ type food which was like stuffed fry bread. It was stuffed with tamale meat, or ham and cheese or just cheese. They were very good and we ate a lot of them. We also tried plantain chips, which were sold like popcorn at a ballgame. We had several roasted meats, tried the fried plantains and drank a lot of Pepsi. Pepsi seems to have the heart of Venezuela – couldn’t hardly find a Coke for this Atlanta person! We also tried several sweet desserts that I didn’t care much for; neither did I like the chocolate. However, the fresh fruit and especially the mozzarella cheese were out of this world. Otherwise, we ate normal type fare with a distinct Italian flair. We didn’t find anything too spicy and no one got sick. We did find a nice rotisserie chicken place and had several meals there.

The trip home was the funniest thing I’ve ever done. Claire and I left on the afternoon plane from Barquisimeto with the Italian, French and Chinese Taipei teams. When we arrived in Caracas, only the Chinese Taipei team had its luggage. We found out that in Venezuela it is much more important to have the plane take off on time than it is to have the luggage loaded! Even though our luggage had been waiting on the tarmac for 3 hours, it was not loaded into the plane because the plane was late arriving and they wanted to leave on time!! We only had a two hour layover in Caracas on the way back, so you should have seen me trying to push my way to the front of the line with the French and the Italians yelling in their various languages at these poor Venezuelans who only spoke Spanish. Finally I got my name put on the list with our tag numbers and then we left the domestic terminal for the international. We only had 55 minutes to get to our plane. What I didn’t realize is how many levels of security we had to go through. If we had had our bags, we would have never made the flight. As it was, I played the rude American and went to the front of every screening line, shouting “solamente 40 minutos” (only 40 minutes) with my croaky voice. Two levels of security later, I found that the plane was only giving us another 10 minutes to get to the gates and then I got a customs guy to help us fill out our papers – he thrust them at the agent and escorted us through – we’d missed paying 2 lots of tariffs on the way out! I guess they didn’t want me in their airport any longer! Anyhow, we boarded the bus that took us out to the tarmac to board the plane and then we waited in the plane for another 30 minutes – maybe they were loading luggage?.

Since returning home yesterday, I have been very happy to turn over the search of my lost luggage to my dad, who has had a magic touch with the airline. I never really expected to see the luggage again what with the language barrier and the fact that the domestic terminal in Caracas had no idea what our final destination was, and they don’t even fly to our destination city. But, somehow, the luggage was located, and it was shipped to Atlanta.

So ends the grand adventure. I’m left with a lot of useless Venezuelan money, but a lot of great memories of the trip. The government of Venezuela did its best to ensure the safety of everyone in the championship and the people of Venezuela certainly rolled out the red carpet of hospitality. I would return to their beautiful country for another World Championships because of the people, certain Caracans not withstanding.