Ulog #071 | Taking my Mother to Barinas

Greetings, everyone
As I mentioned in the previous #Ulog, I had to make a long trip to take my mother to Punta de Piedras de Barinas, where my sister lives. It was a very difficult trip for many reasons, mostly emotional. My mother can't continue living in our hometown (gang violence, rotten grandchildren, etc.) and I can't have her in the place I live (not enough room, sewage water poluting the house, financial hardships, etc.). Some of her children who live near may take care of her, but they just don't want to. They rather find avasive justifications in allegedly capricious old-age-character.

In any case, we were left with no options and I was the one with free time to pick her up and take her to her new, hopefully permanent, home. We were able to make this long trip thanks to the generosity of a nephew who paid for everything. It was more than 500,000Bs (remember, the average person makes 60,000 a month).

_{In this map you can see in black line the route we followed. My hometown's name does not show in the map. Maybe the narcos have not killed enough people yet to make it relevant enough.}

A sister-in-law was kind enough to go to my hometown and get my mother. She lives in Cariaco, just one hour east from Cumaná. That way she saved me 2 hours of road trip.
These pictures were taken in Cariaco on Monday, 19. They have quite a few fruit plants in their backyard and some of them had some we were able to harvest.

_{My mother picking up some limes before leaving}

_{Not ripe yet, unfortunately. Some delicous Jobos (Spondias mombin) or hog plums}
My mother stayed one day in Cumaná. On Wednesday we left for Puerto la Cruz (a two-hour ride)

_{Fish sellers are common around the Santa Fe area, half-way to Puerto la Cruz}
We left Cumaná at about 9 am and were in Puerto la Cruz before noon. My nephew, who paid for the trip, picked us up at the bus terminal, took us to his place and we had lunch with him. The bus was supposed to leave at 3 pm, so we made sure to be at the terminal by 2:30.
<sub>This traveler called my attention

Waiting at Venezuelan terminals is not fun at all. Facilities lack most basic services, you are exposed to thieves and all kinds of risks, delays are very common and noone will give you a decent treatment. It is especially hard for the elderly.</sub>

Finally the bus arrived and by 4 we were on it, but it left at about 5pm. There were all kinds of issues.
We were asked to stand in two lines, one for women, the other for men and one by one our handbags were checked by police officers.

Finally we were on our way to Barinas. There were many checking post on the road. one of them was particularly annoying and two passengers were detained for reasons we never knew. It is amazing how young national guards, kids who could be my sons, learn very early to terrorize common citizens. They may have a responsibility, but there got to be a decent way to go about it without having to ruin everyone's traveling experience.

We arrived to Barinas at a quater to 8am, Thursday 22.
From there we had to take a smaller bus (buseta) to Santa Barbara, which is 45 minutes from our final destination. My brother-in-law would pick us up from there. We waited for more than 1 hour for the buseta to fill all the seats. Three hours later we were in Santa Barbara and waited there for almost an hour for my brother-in-law to arrive. We were exhausted. We had been on the road for 29 hours, but we had made it safely. My sister was very happy to have her mother back with her. When she married this guy from the other end of the country we always regreted how far she'd go to live. In time, with so many issues going on in the country, that distance widened.

But life, tragedy, and circumstances got us close again. A niece and grand-nephew and a tiny dog were waiting for us to show us what family love feels like again.