BOATBUMMS LOG: Election Day

Sunday December 2, 2007 a day that will go down in

Venezuela

's history either way the election will turn. It's been an interesting year to see how the current president is running down his country. Little by little he starts to control everything. It started with not being able to find sugar in the stores. Still to this day there is no sugar, although I managed to get three kilos a few weeks back, great I thought I will bake Xmas cookies this year, but then I couldn't find flour, that is taken off the shelves as well, I finally found some a few days ago in the most expensive store in Puerto La Cruz the locals don't shop. After the sugar beef and chicken was a problem, then butter, then cooking oil and even salt. And now the major thing we cannot find is milk, fresh milk, every once in a while one of the stores will bring powdered milk in and turning the store into a chaos as everybody in town wants to get some, sometimes involving the police. You are limited to two boxes per person. The lines are incredible just for milk. The worst is the Government is trying to convince the people that milk is not that important for children so don't worry if you can't find it in stores. Today's vote will determine whether El Presidente will be able to stay in office indefinitely also have complete control of the people of the country. The pool shows that the majority wants a NO, students all over the country have been demonstrating against El Presidente to keep their freedom of speech and freedom period, but his followers are sent in to disrupt the peaceful demonstrations even some military groups on bikes with guns. All the stores are sold out of most, especially toilette paper and papers towels out of all things, as they are worried what will happen. It's not just a vote that will determine the faith of the poor folks here but also the faith of us visiting tourists. What a beautiful country this is and what a shame to see it loose all it has to offer to be turned into another

Cuba

. We doubt that he'll succeed but this country will probably face a lot of unnecessary turmoil. It's bad enough that it is a Latin American country and corruption controls most things, but the people that have made a good life for themselves are probably going to loose that if he wins. We're still having a good time here, even though it hurts to see what these people are having to face.

In the mean time we've been to Angel Falls and Gran Sabana, but you will have to wait on this report as I'm still working on it. It was an incredible adventure and the scenery was just absolutely breathtaking everywhere we went.

A couple of weeks back we were invited to Arnaldo's daughter Francesca's 15^throom, but instead a beautiful dressed princess (in a type wedding gown) is brought to her father. In front of the princess were two "not" ring bearers but "shoe" bearers carry a nicely decorated pillow with a glittering shoe on it and lead her to dad. In front of dad is a dressed up chair the princess will sit in, he then places the shoe on her foot which symbolically puts the girl on the market to be married. Then he starts a dance with her where one bachelor after another will take a turn. Poor Francesca had to dance 4 songs. Then the party started. It was quite elaborate, champagne and whiskey was placed on the tables, a steel band showed up a couple of hours later followed by a mariachi band, where dad sang a song for his daughter. It's a Spanish song saying "Isn't my daughter beautiful". We had a wonderful time and danced until 4 in the morning (there are no parties that stop before 4 AM here). You should have seen how they dance here, it's amazing, they wiggle they're butts and bodies like they are made out of rubber, we couldn't get enough watching them, no matter how young or old the person was they still have the same moves.

Maremares Marina is pretty quite, there are only 3 boats here, Three Keys, we're still boat sitting, White Tiger, Ottifant. So our usually busy potlucks are usually only White Tiger and us, the four of us.

Remember the tiles my friend Gabriela painted for us, Sid put them in the head (bathroom) and it looks just beautiful. It was hard work as he had to custom fit lots of tiles and he managed to only break one tile, not bad. He did a great job. I've been busy sewing again, made new mosquito netting for the cockpit and a sun awning for the foredeck.

So life is good, we're keeping busy while meeting more and more wonderful Venezuelans. The Christmas spirit has set in early as all the stores and private homes have been decorated since begin of November already. I just pulled my Christmas stuff out and will decorate Paradise in the next couple of days.

Sid finally had X-rays and MRI's taken on his shoulder and next week we'll find out what the problem is as he cannot lift his arm over his head. Imagine the cost of the X-ray was US$ 18 and the MRI US$ 68. A couple of weeks back I had my tests done, mammogram, bone density test, all the blood tests you can get and more, total cost just slightly under US$ 80. Since it is so reasonable here and I'm going to turn 50 in three years I thought I go ahead and have my colonoscopy done here as well, so think of me next Tuesday LOL US 72. I also lost a filling in my tooth, I found a wonderful dentist that picks patience up and drives them home. He refilled the filling, did some X-rays and cleaned my teeth for US 43. The type filling I have they say last 6 years, mine are now 7 years old and so he'll exchange them for 17 bucks each and I though Colombia was cheap. Anyway, we're still enjoying it here and plan on staying a bit longer as we still want to replace the cabin soles and eventually galley counter, but that depends now on the politics.