HAPPY NEW YEAR

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
We hope you all had a wonderful Holiday Season, we sure did and again we have no idea where time went. So much has happened and I probably will forget to mention one or two things.

First to catch you up on El Presidente, it took him exactly 10 days after the election to pass a new law which is not in favor of his people. His congress of 167 people voted 167 to 0 to pass the new law. Of course nobody would even think voting against it, they either loose their seat in congress or much worse. The new law is every citizen of Venezuela age 15 to 50 has to volunteer 5 hours per months to the government or have the choice to go to a school for two years (must be a brain washing school). Citizens not following the law will have to pay a fine which will be deducted monthly from there already measly salary. I think some citizens are finally starting to have a rude awakening. “VOLUNTEER???”

There was finally some sugar in the store, but of course sold out after just two days at two bags per person.

Yesterdays rumor was El Presidente eliminated a TV station that is not under his control, starting to sound very communistic to me.

Lots of cruisers left to spend the holidays with their family. It got really quiet on the dock as only a few remained. Denny on White Tiger came up with the most unique Christmas decoration for his boat, empty beer cans wrapped in colorful shiny Christmas paper. I asked him if we could steel the idea for the tree of knowledge, me wondering how the heck we’ll manage to drink two or three cases of beer on time for Christmas, which was one week away. The next morning when I stepped on deck I found a trash bag full of empty cans, Denny was so happy that somebody liked his idea he donated the cans. He also had a good time harvesting them. Later that afternoon I had all the kids together and we decorated the tree of knowledge. The kids had a blast.

Sid’s buddy Jim (the unofficial “Mayor” of Maremares) are busier than busy running around town, helping Zenny with her hot dog stand, shopping in hardware store, fixing up things on the dock, building a BBQ for the boaters or having coffee early in the morning with a “Sicilian mafia gang”. The Gang wanted to cook a pasta dinner for all of us cruisers and so they did. I tell you it was awesome. First they cooked us a Pasta Carbonara which was served in a wooden bowl that was about 5 feet long, looking like a cattle trough. We ate it all and surprise, they cooked more pasta and filled that trough up again, this time it was Spaghetti with seafood on a marinara sauce. I don’t think anybody cared that they were full already because we ate all of that too. It was an incredible evening.

A couple of days before Christmas Jim and Jenny invited Dotty and us to Los Altos, about two hours away from here up in the mountains. What a beautiful place, very remote and each house with the most spectacular view over the coast line and the islands.

Christmas Eve we had a comfy get together with the left behind cruisers and shared appetizers and played some games. Jim’s friend Darrin invited us for Christmas Day to his house. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner with his Venezuelan friends. New Years Eve we celebrated with a wonderful Fondue Bourguignon Dinner under the tree of knowledge and enjoyed the most incredible fireworks show at midnight. There must have been 20 individual firework shows all around us. Most of us partied until 3 am, Sid, Joanne and Natalie and family danced until 5 am and I think they were still drunk when we started our New Years Brunch at 11. We had a wonderful time.

Venezuelans love fireworks and since Christmas we been watching several each night. On the 8^th was the last day of celebration in Venezuela so it got a lot quieter here.

And finally on the second of January we moved into our new home for the next few months. The condo is incredible and so are the many stairs to schlep everything up to the first, second and third level, we are all very pooped but in good shape now.