Riding Babylonia Again

Today I went out for a ride and tried Babylonia; first time down since my crash. I first rode around El Morro some and took a few pics. 

I always count the ships waiting where I have a theory that more ships waiting means production bottle necks. Since I've been counting, the most I've counted was in the low 30s, and the least was in the high single digits.The number seems to hover between 13 to 20 on average. Today I counted 13 ships waiting to load or unload oil.

A pair of black vultures hanging out. They do this a lot; black vultures pair up and stay close to each other. 

A self-timer shot of descending the Babylonia Trail today was more difficult due to recent heavy rains. The rains have further eroded the slope and carried away rocks in some areas, and deposited more in others.

Clouds on the Sea

Always when I ride my bike, I try and take time to really appreciate where I am. Now carrying a camera all the time, gives me the opportunity to try and capture some of the things I see and experience when riding. Yesterday I was doing usual ride, and noticed the cloud reflections on the sea. I thought that was pretty cool. 

Isla Borracha

In 2000, I had been in Venezuela for about two weeks when I took my first trip to Puerto la Cruz. It is when I first saw Isla Borracha looking like this; late afternoon shadows highlighting the valleys, drainages, and sea-cliffs. Very striking in my opinion.

About 2 blocks from our condo, I took this the other day while walking Benjamin. 
(click on the pic to make it larger)

Virgin del Valle

It is time for this year's Virgin del Valle festival. I am not catholic, but this happens on the beach in front of my condo, it is kind of cool. I don't know the whole story but the Virgin del Valle is the protector of the  local fishermen.

My first year in Lecheria, the Virgin statue was just adobe mud. Each year in preparation for the festival, they improve the statue. She is a work in progress. 

 

There are actually two statues, a big one...

And a little one.

Weekend Riding

I've been trying to get some time in the saddle between now and June. Not having the bike handy during my work week makes it difficult, so I have been riding the spinbike at the gym and I have a home elliptical trainer (aka torture device). This weekend I ended up doing two good rides; Saturday I rode about 30 miles, and Sunday about 20 miles. Good fun, feeling good, and losing a little weight which makes the climbing a bit easier.

I took this pic on Saturday. Its been very hazy the last few weeks, probably due to range fires. Its very dry right now.

This is a pic looking down off the Acuaro trail. I've been cleaning this regularly, but today I dabbed (arrgh) on the entrance to the steep part (you can see it as that dark shadow just in front of the white jersey wearing rider).

I tried to get a pic of riders coming off the Fausto switchback, but it took me too long to get my camera out of my jersey pocket, turned on, etc. The pic I was going for was the riders all silhouetted against the sky on the switchback, also due to the hazy air quality right now. (There is that white jersey again.)

Anyway, killer rides!

Inukshuk?

On Sunday's ride I found another monument. This one was small, about 1/2 meter tall.
I don't know what to call them. A friend from Canada suggested to call them "Inukshuk" even though these are found 10 degrees north of the equator instead of 70 degrees north. I like them whatever they are and appreciate whomever is making them.

The Monument Maker

These things sprout up like mushrooms...
Today went for a ride and was happy to see the "monument maker" back at it. This time he or she made a delicate tower. About a meter in height, with a nice selection of rocks. Bravo!

Merry Christmas

Today there was a light dusting of dirt. [Had a good Christmas Eve morning ride.] Tomorrow we are headed to the beach for Christmas day.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Pics from Today's Ride

I went riding this morning and trying to get back in the groove of taking pics and blogging. Wish I had better pics. Oh well, I'll be in the Gila and New Mexico in 3 weeks, so I should be posting more then.

Jacques coming down the Extra Trail on La Falla (Failure Trail). Jacques is a novice but riding a super bike, a 2007 Rocky Mountain Vertex Team prototype (1 of 6 built). It has a scandium alloy front triangle, carbonfiber rear triangle. Nice bike!

Pelicans roost on the rocks at the Acuario.

Guayatoto [sic] plant in bloom. This is the plant from hell! It has an acid-like burn. Extremely painful and can be life-threatening...depending on your physical condition.

Venezuelan bike pile. These bikes are too clean!

Home Maintenance (updated)

Two years ago, my wife Tania and I bought our first home, a condo 150 meters from the Caribbean Sea. This is the first time I've ever owned anything of this magnitude, therefore I take pride in ownership.

What I am finding out, very quickly is home ownership involves a lot of care and maintenance. There seems to be always a project to do, or something that needs to be fixed or addressed.

Right now we are having our air conditioning rebuilt because the original contractor did not install it properly. Since finding our new air conditioner guy, the unit is working much better, but now he is making some needed improvements, so no a/c this weekend.

The other thing is rust. Being close to the sea, we are experiencing rust, our chrome cabinet hinges are rusting, chrome steel supports on our bar, the stainless steel barstools are rusting, and even on the some of the brushed stainless steel cabinet pulls are rusting. Today I bought some anti-corrosive spray, and sprayed the hinges and wiped down everything else that was metal.

We also need to call a plumber. It seems our kitchen faucet is leaking. Tania refuses to let me try and fix it. I think it just needs a new O-ring.

Update: We had the plumber come and review the faucet this morning. Looks like it is busted and we will need a new one. My theory is that due to the air that gets into the waterlines when the water pump is shut off, puts a lot of stress on the faucet. The air coming out is almost like an explosion. A new faucet will cost about Bs.F 1000+ ($175.00 +) uggh!
BTW,I am going to look into adding a water pressure regulator into my water main. 3rd world water pressure is hell on the system.

Carnival! [Day 3]

Most of the day I hung out with Tania. Around 5'o clock, I decided to go for a ride. So I did a short afternoon solo ride on the Merlin. .

I watched pelicans for a while. Then watched the sunset.Hooked up with these guys when riding back into town. Ran into a small Carnival crew on one of the back streets. It was a good little ride.

Carnival! [Day 2]

Check the Horizon

Went sailing today on Daniel's boat.

Not much wind going out so we had to use the outboard. Once we were far enough out, we caught some wind and tried to tack to Isla Borracha. The boat began taking on a serious amount of water. We headed back to Los Borrachitos so we could figure out what was wrong.

Once in a tiny cove, dug around and found a small hand bilge pump. We would have to fill our beer cooler with water then dump it overboard. Each stroke of the this little pump would spit out about 500 ml (1 pint) of water. It would take at least 100 strokes to fill the beer cooler. This soon got tiring and we decided to rig up a small electric pump we found. It was not powerful enough to send a column of water up and over the rail, but it was easier to fill the beer cooler than the hand pump and soon we had to boat empty of water.

A cotter pin came loose from one of the stays on the main mast and we could not put it back in due to length of the cable. We decided to go out, put up the main sail hoping sail would tweek the mast so we could put the pin back in place. Daniel had go out on the rail do the fix but it worked.

Then water started coming back in...a lot of water! I went below and hooked up our makeshift electric bilge and started the bucket brigade once again but we were not making any headway. Water was coming in faster than the pump could take out. I asked Daniel if all the seacocks were closed. He thought so...

Borracho y la Borracha

A couple more beer coolers full of water and Daniel asked where the sink drained. I looked under the sink and found our problem. The drain pipe had come lose and the seacock was open. Water was coming in like a firehose! The seacock was frozen, but with the help of a Leatherman tool, Daniel got it loose and closed it. Then we were able to empty the boat of water via our electric bilge pump/bucket brigade method. We probably emtied at least 1100 L (300 gallons) of water.

Came home and watched Ben Hur on TMC with Tania. I hadn't seen that movie since I was a kid. It is really good. Last night we watched Bridge on the River Kwai, also very good.

Beautiful Spot

Venezuela is a beautiful place with a lot of flaws...the flaws being primarily political..But it is a country full of beauty everywhere...and until recently, most Venezuela didn't care about the rest of the world. Why should they? They had their paradise.
Need proof? Take a look at this photo I took when riding on Sunday. Only 2 miles from my condo. Nice!

Acuario Point

Sailing

Capt. Dan

At the Tiller

A Broad Reach

The Sawana

Lunch Offerings

School O'Fish

Went sailing today with Daniel and Marino. Daniel bought the sail boat a couple of years ago, but it was in pretty bad shape and got even worse because of neglect. Finally during the Christmas break, Daniel and Marino recovered the boat from where it was tied up, and took it to Marino's place where he had his crew clean it. Boy howdy! What a difference! The boat still needs quite a bit of work, but is now sail-able.

We sailed a broad reach to Playa El Saco (motored the last mile since it was a direct headwind into the beach), had a killer lunch, then did some snorkeling (murky water due to the time of the year...did see some fish though).

Things were working pretty good until a strong wind ripped the mainsail on the way home, then it was motoring. The sail was dry rotted from sitting in the sun for such a long time and would have needed replacing anyway. Now Daniel and Marino will need to find a new sail.

Overall was a fun day on the water.

Paddling and Snorkelling

I am back in Venezuela (arrived Aug 23). I've been working for about two weeks now. I took my Klepper out for a paddle this past Sunday. In the front seat was Matt, the new teacher at school. I figured I would show him another part of Venezuela besides El Tigre.

I like paddling the Klepper. It is a stable, forgiving boat, but still fairly fast across the water. We paddled to the "Hemmingway House" at La Piscina, and paddled around Isla Arapo. Here are a few pics.