mad props to our friends with cool children

We´re nearing the end of our week in Santa Fe. We´ve done almost nothing, which is great. The water is literally ten feet from the door to the posada, so we pop out for a swim whenever we get warm. Otherwise, we´re just eating, sleeping, reading, and hanging out. I spend a fair amount of time listening to baseball on the radio, which sort of qualifies as my Venezuelan Spanish lessons. Amber spends hours at a time hunched over a short Chilean novel, madly looking words up in her dictionary.

I suspect that she´s learning more Spanish than I am, but at least I get baseball instead of, like, culture or something.

The only little wrinkle in our paradise is the 21-month-old daughter of the posada owners. She wails like a banshee almost non-stop. She´ll calm down for a few minutes, then go right back to screaming. And screaming. And screaming. It really bothered me for a couple of days. Now I´m getting used to it--it´s turning into white noise.

Quite a few of you have children who are fairly close to that age. And none of them do that. Sure, kids get moody--I definitely met my buddy Jon´s 2-year-old on a bad day in July--but I can´t say that I´ve seen anything quite like this.

I´m not a parent, obviously, but I get the feeling that parents´ general vibe rubs off pretty thoroughly on their kids, even when the kids are only a year or two old. Seeing this little hellion at the posada--and her disinterested/dysfunctional family--makes me really appreciate some of you who have kids.

I might embarass myself by leaving somebody out, but I keep thinking of the kids I truly enjoy being around...Volmer, Burns, Dullaghan, and Frigyes jump to mind. You guys rock.

Okay, enough of that.

I´ve had a few questions about our travel plans, so here´s the quick rundown. We´re heading south to Ciudad Bolivar, where we´ll look into tours of the Gran Sabana, a region filled with waterfalls and table mountains. After that, we´ll take a long bus ride south to the Brazilian border--there´s a small chance that we´ll take a weeklong trek up Mount Roraima while we´re down there. Then, into the Amazon in Brazil--I expect to be there by October 20, roughly. We´ll try to arrange a jungle trip outside of Manaus, then start heading downriver after that. Odds are good that we´ll ¨settle¨in NE Brazil (Sao Luis, Fortaleza, Natal, Recife, Olinda, Maceio are candidates) by mid-November.

Before I finish, I want to make a couple of more comments about Venezuelan economics. I found out that there is indeed a serious milk shortage in the country, which is a direct result of the price controls--an enormous number of producers have simply given up trying to make a living at the unrealistically low government price.

I also read in the newspaper that the government sends agents out to check prices in stores and markets. Businesses can be fined or shut down for selling goods at prices above the regulation level. Crazy.

And to give you an idea of wages, I met a college-educated woman who works in Caracas as the director of a major youth sports program. She earns about $400 a month, in spite of her education. The minimum wage is around US$286. With food prices as high as they are (did I mention the sliced ham for $9/lb?) it´s a pretty rough place to make a comfortable living.

In spite of all of that, Venezuela consumes more whiskey (mostly Scotch) per capita than any other country on earth. Go figure.

But still, no fernet anywhere.