La Travesía

“Do you see it? It looks like café marrón (“brown coffee”), like mud,” Señor Jesus said to me as we starred into the water of the Orinoco River. Our bus had arrived at the river’s shore minutes ago from Cumaná, where I swim at the local pool with Señor Jesus and a handful of other university professors and students. But now we were waiting for the ferry to take us across to the other side of Venezuela’s longest river. It was a Friday afternoon, and we came to compete in a 3.1 km swim across the river scheduled for Sunday. Studying the characteristics of the water, as well as the town of San Felix on the opposing shore, I began to comprehend our group’s concrete purpose after having planned this trip for months. Yet my thoughts that weekend were to encompass not only the race and the Orinoco River’s innate qualities, for the competition spurred me to also reflect on my experience during the last seven months swimming in Cumaná at the local pool.

Swimmers –over 900 in all– converge upon the small city of San Felix annually to compete in this race, and all of them can easily tell you the river’s qualities. Señor Jesus´s comment only begins to convey its essence. For instance, the competition’s route really goes through two rivers: the Orinoco and Caroní. These two rivers join upstream, yet they run parallel and do not mix despite “joining”. During the competition, the swimmers first cross the Orinoco, turbid and loaded with sediments from upstream. The water is warm, and the current is the weaker of the two. After crossing the unmistakable Orinoco side, swimmers find themselves in the path of the Caroní two-thirds into the race. They quickly feel the difference. The water is cooler, and its hue is black (not brown like the Orinoco). Appearance aside, the Caroní’s stronger current proves a greater challenge; swimmers must swim faster and face upstream to make it to the finish line. The two rivers even taste different.

Considering the conditions of the water, I could not help but think about my training at the pool in Cumaná, which I can relate to my experience in Venezuela as well as a few salient reflections.

Since November, I have been swimming four or five days a week at the polideportivo, Cumaná’s public pool that provides an invaluable respite from the stresses that occasionally irk me. First and foremost, my daily workout at 6:30 am allows me to escape the intense tropical heat of eastern Venezuela. The unceasing 90º-plus climate has afflicted me since I arrived in Cumaná, yet an hour in the pool refreshes me and alleviates the incessant strength of the equatorial sun. But the heat is not the only challenge that I have encountered. Unlike any previous job, my work at the local university is highly irregular: teachers often cancel class, students occasionally hold strike, and administrators have closed the university due to happenings in national politics. Though pleasant, my work does not provide as much stability as I would like. Regardless of the university schedule, the pool at the polideportivo stays open, adding some regularity to my schedule. Gracias a dios.

My experience at the pool highlights a few of the difficulties and virtues of life in Venezuela as well. For example, the pool closes occasionally for one sole reason: a shortage of chlorine. Then again, supply shortages occur not only at the polideportivo but in many spheres of daily life (i.e. a paucity of rice and eggs at the supermarket, limited teaching supplies at the university, power outages in residential areas). An empty stock of chlorine at the pool typifies this reality. But the pool represents one undeniable virtue: the warmth and humor of the people. Each day I swim with the most delightful and motley group of swimmers, usually Señor Jesus (a slightly crotchety, retired chemistry professor) and Charli (a twenty-five year old computer science student). A slightly machista yet caring man, Señor Jesus has taught me most of the Venezuelan obscenities that I know, while Charli happens to be an avid evangelical churchgoer. We are a ragtag band. Señor Jesus often cracks perverse jokes as we rest between swimming sets, causing Charli to cringe and the other swimmers to burst into laughter. The temperaments of my two closest swimming buddies often clash, yet that does not preclude our usual post-swim cup of coffee. Nor does it keep us from traveling together to swim across the Orinoco River; Señor Jesus, Charli, and I became de facto partners-in-crime from the start.

Thus it was no surprise that the three of us were running late before the competition on Sunday. All swimmers needed to check-in by 5:30 am inside the San Felix City Hall. We arrived at 6:00 am. The city hall was a mob scene upon our entrance, complemented with men and women of all ages and sizes in their swimsuits. Speedos under our clothes, we quickly stripped down and checked-in as one of the event volunteers marked our respective assigned numbers on our arms and back. Soon after, a priest held a short service on the town hall’s outdoor balcony. Without a single rabbi in sight, I chose to stretch inconspicuously until the priest’s spiel came to a close. With his final words, nine hundred swimmers loaded up into the fleet of municipal buses that waited for us, and we headed off to the town’s nearby port.

At the port, we boarded a navy transport ship. The atmosphere was saturated with frenetic energy on the vessel as we waited for everyone to get aboard. I felt jittery yet said almost nothing. Charli and Señor Jesus conversed. Around 8:00, the last swimmers got onto the ship, and the captain blew the horn. The passengers –especially the rambunctious, younger ones– jumped up and down, cheering uncontrollably. All the while, Señor Jesus laid sprawled out on the ship’s deck, looking into the sunlight with his eyes closed, cool as a cucumber. He told me softly, “Stay down, Jeremy. We still have a while.” Legs crossed, I sat and concentrated on my breath. The ship brought us downstream to the course of the race, and we headed towards a beach across the river from San Felix. Nearing our destination, Señor Jesus told me to take a look. The river was filled with kayaks, private motorboats, jet skis, and navy patrol boats – all present as part of the event’s security set-up. A helicopter passed overhead, prompting the swimmers´ roar to double in volume. We approached the starting point, a beach cluttered with spectators and event volunteers. The ship’s landing ramp lowered, and we rushed onto the beach. After a short warm-up period, the volunteers told us to get back onto the beach. The men were to leave first, five minutes before the women. We crowded behind a rope that represented the starting line. A judge stood on a tall post before us, his flag raised. The masses watched intrepidly.

When the flag lowered, all hell broke loose as a flurry of swimmers departed. There were no lanes. Order did not exist. It was every man for himself. Swimmers moved left, right, and straight forward. Most flailed their arms wildly and kicked like mad; not paying attention meant a smack or kick in the face. Having lost track of Señor Jesus and Charli, I decided to stick with another swimmer in our group, Ramón, and we headed slightly up-stream in order to avoid the masses that veered with the river’s current. Soon, Ramón and I were swimming nearly alone; most of the other swimmers had scattered.

The wild frenzy mellowed down into a brisk yet meditative journey. Participating in my first open-water competition ever, I accustomed to this earthen, unrefined arena. My hands ran through the chocolate brown water, and my brain reviewed one thought at a time: follow Ramón, watch the opposing shore, swim slightly up-stream. Two thousand yards later, the water changed from chocolate to ebony, and the pressure of the current intensified. I was in the waters of the Caroní, the race’s most taxing section. Ramón had gone farther and farther ahead by this point. As he moved out of my sight, it was time to follow my own instincts. I was clearly above stream from the finishing point, but the current was rapidly pushing me down. I picked up the pace and directed myself farther up-stream. The finishing line in San Felix came into sight. Nearing the end, other swimmers entered into my peripheral vision. No one familiar. I crossed the finish line, and my exhaustion caught up with me at that very moment.

My brain simply stopped working. As I stood, dumbfounded, an event volunteer handed me a plastic card that indicated my standing in the competition. Someone else pushed me along to the table representing my category (men, ages 19-24). I breathed heavily and expressed a few of Señor Jesus´s regular obscenities, trying to overcome my lightheadedness. The sun shone brightly, and I sauntered around the beach even though the sand burned my feet. I received my free energy drink and packet of fruit from a table and recovered my breath. The crowd of elated yet ready-to-drop participants grew and grew. I dawdled back towards the finish line and congratulated others from our group. Now meandering with Charli, I caught sight of Señor Jesus´s back. He was at the water’s edge watching the final swimmers glide through the Caroní. “Señor Jesus!” I called. He turned around and stood up. Munching on an apple, he had stuck a banana into his Speedo as if he were a gunslinger with a pistol stuck into his pants. Charli shook his head at the undeniable double meaning of the banana. Señor Jesus grabbed us to shake our hands and commenced the congratulations. We basked in the late morning sun, elated and exhausted