I was teaching scuba diving on a small island North of Venezuela called Bonaire. The diving there is rather good! I had been on the island all summer and I wanted to get away for awhile so I asked a friend, Manionita, of mine if she knew of any good places to stay in Caracas. She is a Venezuelan national who fled to Bonaire (a Dutch colony) due to the political unrest. She said that she had an apartment there however she had not been there in over a year and a half. She offered me the keys and said I could stay there for two weeks while I explored. I had another friend whose father owned a small prop driven Cessna 426 (a two engine private plane). He was flying to Caracas to pick up a family member and he said that I could come along for free if I shared the flying since I am a licensed and experienced pilot. He said that he was also returning to Caracas 13 days later to bring his family member back and that I could return then. This was a great deal so I accepted. I received the keys to the apartment from Manionita along with so basic directions to her flat from the airport. The short flight to Caracas was uneventful but upon arrival I determined that the directions were very poor and I should have planned a bit more before departing. It took me several hours, two busses and a taxi to find her place. The “apartment” consisted of concrete walls with a rusty metal roof enclosing a small entry room and one all purpose room. Once I opened the door I discovered that the place was in horrible disarray. A minute after I opened the door the largest rat I have ever seen darted out from under a table up a piece of wood to the roof and across a rafter to a hole in the wall. The all purpose room had a two inch foam mattress on the floor with a torn mosquito net piled on top of it and a two foot wall around a restroom (i.e. a six inch hole in the concrete floor). I removed the piece of wood from the latrine and a swarm of insects darted out of the hole. I stomped on as many as possible before opening some windows to air the place out. I erected my mosquito net, cleaned a bit and had some bread a cheese I brought with me before bed. After a night of squirming and fidgeting I awoke and decided to clean the apartment from top to bottom so that I could stay there for the full 13 days. Although I could not get rid of all the bugs and the frequent visits from the rat from hell (who I named Dexter) I tried to make the best of it since it was, after all, a free place to stay.
