Venezuela has been interesting this time. Gina did a wonderful thing for me in getting my ticket to Caracas upgraded to First Class. She was able to do it because of all my frequent flier miles. (My status means that I'm no longer "Hey You!" I'm now "Mr Hey You!") Anyway, I had to brag about it. They fed us steak for dinner and it didn't cost myself or my company an extra dime. It went nice with the shrimp, the grilled summer squash, the orzo pasta and the Pinot Noir.

I spent the night in Caracas and then had to get up early to catch my flight to Puerto Ordaz where our customer is located. There was a mix up with my flight and I was forced to go standby. Luckily, I was second in line and made it onto the flight anyway. In fact, the only seat they had left was in first class again and that is where they put me. Don't ask me how standby works in Venezuela. I still can't figure it out.

The flight to Puerto Ordaz is one of the coolest things you'll ever see. I had to make a video of it to share. Caracas is a coastal city and you'll quickly see that Venezuela doesn't have a lot of usable coastline. The mountains tend to go directly into the seashore. That means every available valley along that shoreline is inhabited. The Venezuelans also make good use of their mountain areas. This is one of the reasons Caracas is so pretty at night. Wherever you go, you can see the streetlights following the sides of the mountains and illuminating their outlines for everyone in the valley below. It is impressive.

Later, the planes moved inland over the countryside. It reminds me a lot of the Midwestern United States. You see a lot of well-kept farms and it is fairly flat. I thought the clouds were making an interesting design in the sky.

Finally, our plane started to approach Puerto Ordaz. You might remember me writing before about the black and white rivers joining together, but keeping their colors as they run alongside one another? Well, the black river is the Orinoco and the white river is the Caroni. Here, you can see them after their confluence and you get a better impression of where the lines are. The photo really doesn't do it justice. You'd just have to see what an amazing phenomenon this really is for yourself.