Arriving in Caracas

I left from the San Francisco airport early Monday morning. I had a layover in Atlanta where I met a lot of people on my flight who were also going to the World Social Forum in Venezuela. When the plane landed at midnight I connected up with a group of kids who were also planning to stay at the youth camp. WSF volunteers met the plane and provided free buses to the city. Normally it would be a 45 minute drive but the main highway from the airport is closed because part of the highway is breaking. So the ride took about 3 hours through small towns going up and down hills on a curvy road. The fog and curves in the road made the ride slightly nerve racking but we got to the city safely at 5am. We were dropped off at a central location and from there a group of 8 of us took a cab to the park where we thought the youth camp was. At 5:30 in the morning we found nothing but joggers, hundreds of them, it was so wierd, do people go jogging that early in the morning in the US too and I just dont notice them? Anyway, no one seemed to know anything about the WSF so we figured we were in the wrong place. We picked a spot in the park and settled down to rest until the internet cafes opened and we could try and figure out where to go and whereto meet people we were meeting. I spent the rest of the morning standing on lines to register, lines to pay, lots of really long lines. At various points we all split up and went our own ways.

Right after registration I ran into some of the Bard people I was supposed to meet up with. Once the Bard group was together we tried to find an event that was part of an Alternative Social Forum, but couldnt find it. At this point I was still carrying my 40 pound backpack, hadnt slept except a few hours on the plane and bus, and had been walking all day. I split off from the group and went to settle into the youth camp where I got to bed early to catch up on my sleep. The camp is up in the hills where there is a lot more rain than in the city and so the whole camp is wet and muddy and I woke up with my feet wet because the water had come into the tent and into my sleeping bag. Oh well. There were no real events yesterday, mostly just registration. Today was the start of activities, more on that later.