world record... pt2

DAY2

SOUTH AMERICA

We arrive at Caracas, Venezuela and it is total mayhem. The airport is total chaos. We queue for over an hour to get through passport control; people are climbing over each other to get to the kiosk with the shortest line. Martin and me however are British so we join one line and stay there queuing civilized, as one should. We get through arrivals and there are people everywhere, police, army, security all sorts. The two of us obviously stand out as tourists as several people surround us asking us where we need to go. After a desperate 15minutes where we couldn’t find anyone from Skydive Venezuela I try to call the drop zone to see if in fact our lift is here. My phone doesn’t work. But amongst all the mayhem we spot someone wearing a skydive Venezuela staff t-shirt. I don’t know what would have happened if we didn’t find him. We had no cash, we didn’t even know the currency and of course we don’t speak Spanish. So of course it was a huge relief to find our driver.

As we have no money Martin tries to explain we need an ATM, he flashed the MasterCard and he understands. Of course the ATM is all in Spanish so its total guess work that results in failure. It’s now about 4o’clock in the afternoon and so we set of to the drop zone where we’ll be staying. We drive for about 2 hours through Caracas it’s a beautiful place but so broken and desperate. Caracas is run into the ground; poverty is everywhere the city is covered in rubbish. We carry on driving to the drop zone the roads are littered with street sellers desperately trying to make a living selling anything from sweets and followers to tea, coffee and water. Some sell stuff to fix your phone to the dashboard one guy was even fire juggling on the side of the road. This was not the M25. We finally arrive at the drop zone accommodation at around 8o’clock in the evening. It’s now pitch black and way too late to jump. Our flight to LA via Miami is at 4o’clock in the afternoon so Martin will have to jump in the morning. We get shown to our room, it has a double bed in it and literally that’s it. We look each other bemused, we are knackered, jet lagged and not four, so top and tail isn’t going to work. The house keeper just keeps speaking at us in Spanish and we just stand there looking horrified not saying a word. She speaks more Spanish and walks off. Great. She comes back and ushers us to follow her, she moves us into a room exactly the same but with bunk beds. Martin decides to take a shower but because we don’t have any towels he uses one of the record t-shirts to dry himself, gross. Lights out, air-conditioning on and we get to bed at around 9o’clock. We were told that we would be picked up at 6o’oclock to go the drop zone.

After being woken a couple of times during the night by other drunken guests we get up at 5o’clock. Martin takes another shower and uses the same record breaking t-shirt to dry himself- sick. After spending a bit of time reading and praying we go down at 6 to wait for the lift to the drop zone. There is no sign of anyone…6:30 comes and the Spanish speaking house cleaner tries to say something, who knows what. About 2 minutes later he comes back with a skydive Venezuela staff t-shirt and gestures to swap with one of the record breaking ones. So he wasn’t try to tell us that the lift was late or whatever.

It’s now about 7o’clock and we haven’t eaten or drank a thing since the flight, about 13 hours ago. We crack open a pack of starburst and joke about the lovely fruit salad breakfast. Finally at around 9o’clock a guy called Luis came by the house to pick us up and better still he spoke English. This was a huge relief, as we haven’t spoke to anyone in two days. We are at the drop zone and introduced to Giancarlo who is the Skydive Venezuela manager. As we have no cash I ask if we can get some food from the café and add to the total of the jumps etc. That’s fine, so at around 10:30 after 14hours of not drinking anything in South America’s climate we finally get some water! We share a jamón york y queso sandwich, ham and cheese. For the first time in my life during those 14 hours I didn’t have water and food the basic needs to survive at my disposal, like I would have at home. It made me realize just how lucky and blessed I really am. We spent the next two hours waiting for the jump. There was a Venezuelan journalist there who took a particular interest and even asked to have our photos taken. She gave us her email address and took ours, so who knows. After the jump Giancarlo gave us a few Skydive Venezuela t-shirts, which was a nice gesture. Whilst we are waiting for Joseph to come and take us back to the airport Martin can’t find his ticket or passport. This was obviously a big deal. We empty all the bags and search everywhere but can’t find them. We hope they are back at the house otherwise we are in serious brown stuff. It turns out that Martin had left them in Joseph’s car. I took back his passport and his tickets and put them in my bag and looked after them from then on. We then took another two-hour drive back through Caracas to the airport. We arrived in good time to catch our flight to Miami. Venezuela is a beautiful country and skydive Venezuela like the country was full of characters, warm, welcoming and friendly. As we check in the assistant takes a real interest in what we are doing, the trip, Project O and the orphans.

Once in departures we decide to eat as we still haven’t eaten properly and unfortunately Venezuela is yet to discover Starbucks and here was no McDonalds, pizza place or grill. So we decided to take our chances at some café that looked nice enough. We knew we would be eating on the plane so got two sausage-rolls or at lest that’s what they looked like. I must also point out that there was no ketchup anywhere. I bit into this thing and, well, it wasn’t a sausage roll. It was full of some vegetable stuff and some kind of stringy meat that to this day I have no idea what it was. We were so hungry that we didn’t care if it was cat, dog, rat or steak. It was time to board the plane to Miami and leave this beautiful country or so we thought. We were delayed for over an hour before they told us that it was due to a serious problem with another airline.

When we finally go to get on the plane the airline staff check everyone’s bag. When they put Martin’s bag through the x-ray machine they panic. Parachutes house a little computer called a ‘Cyprus’ that measures altitude and acts as a fail-safe so if you fail to open your canopy it automatically cuts open the parachute. So there is a circuit board and a series of wires and blades. So if you have never seen a parachute before it and know what you’re looking at you may think its some sort of bomb. They want to unpack it and look at it one guy even reaches for scissors! Martin shows them the paperwork for the ‘Cyprus’ and clears up all the confusion. The staff apologize and let us board the plane. We at last leave Venezuela an hour and half late which is worrying, as we need to catch a connecting flight to LA.

The flight to Miami was pretty standard and only lasts three hours. When we arrive we realize that we only have 10minutes to catch our connection. Its 9:05pm at our flight leaves at 9:15pm we get through passport control and are told to follow the yellow dots on the floor. We start to run until the dots stop. I scan the room looking for someone to help and tell us where to go now. An airline staff member points us in the right direction. At security to get through departures there is a queue some people kindly step aside and let us in front of them we ask the staff member if can jump the line because our flight is leaving now. He tells us that we’ve got 5 minutes and that’s plenty of time- is he having a laugh? When we get through security we run to our gate. Which is gate 32, there is sign saying ‘gates 16-40 this way.’ So we start to run past gate 16, 17, 18, 19. One of my bags is open, as I didn’t close it properly at security so stuff is flying out. So I’ve got to keep stopping to pick it up. Martin is gone. I finally catch up outside our gate. Were both red in the face, out of breathe, tired, stressed. At the gate there is no one at the counter so we run straight past. There is no plane. Nothing all shut. The wall gets a kick out of frustration. I look at my watch and its exactly 9:15pm so if we’ve missed the plane its only just and so at the least it should be still at the gate. After what seems forever an American airline staff shows up. I ask her if we’ve missed our flight, panic lining my voice. She looks down and starts typing away at her computer. She looks up and smiles, then looks back and carries on typing. It’s like being in a film. She looks back up and tells us that we haven’t missed the flight and that it is delayed and isn’t due to arrive till 9:50, my watch says 9:15 but the clock on the wall says 8:50pm. In the panic we hadn’t taken into account the slight time difference. So we were an hour early. We sat down, cooled down, got out breath back and had a drink.