ROBBERS, MUGGERS AND REVOLUTIONARIES

ROAD TO CARACAS: FRIDAY, DECEMBER 1
I resist riding a 200 kilometre detour. Bikers ride through Caracas every day. Not all of them get hijacked or robbed. Nor can the robbers and muggers be more dangerous than Venezuela's drivers.
The anti Chavez vote mounted a huge demonstration in Caracas last night. Today is the Yes vote mobilises. Every bus in the country is crammed with red shirts headed for the capital. Banners wave, fresh painted slogans gleam, klaxons screech a premature victory tattoo. Buses, old and new, collect at service stations. Red shirts swirl in the forecourt and in cafeterias or clump forlornly beside a steaming radiator or a flat tyre with the tread worn smooth as an egg. Hills slow the ancient to a crawl. Putative mechanics peer under a relic's hood. Bricks support an antique marooned by a broken spring. A shattered half-shaft strands another.
Six chrome-and-polish monsters steamroll me off the hard shoulder. I hit soft dirt, skid as I break and nearly fall. The engine stalls. I sit astride the bike, legs trembling, heart pit-a-pat and a fear-pain in the belly. Thanks buddies, thanks for the brotherhood of man. Long live the Revolution.

SUICIDE IS VENEZUELA'S NATIONAL SPORT

BARCELONA: THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30
I chatted with a couple of German travelers last night and with two Germans resident in Venezuela. They warn that Caracas is dangerous, Merida is dangerous, even Barcelona is dangerous. Barcelona is my next stop. It has an historic centre. Hopefully the centre will be less of a disappointment than Carupano.
Mount up and head out...
The coast road is curves and heavy traffic. I cling to the hard shoulder and pull off where ever possible to let trucks and cars pass. Don't let them pass and they overtake on the next blind curve. Why? Because this is Venezuela.
Suicide behind the wheel is Venezuela's national sport.
Players are homicidal maniacs with a minus IQ.
They scare the shit out of me.