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Steve Sleightholm
Steve's Venezuela Memoirs
The Ride
Steve Sleightholm's Venezuela Memoirs
The Ride
Oh about mid-50's there was an international car race that ran from Caracas
to Maracaibo and back. Remember!! The race was highly reported in the papers and
was the subject of a great deal of discussion.
The race begins: There were about twenty or so cars in the race as it left
Caracas including one American entry, a Cadillac sedan. You have to visualize
that there were no major highways from Caracas to Maracaibo and no bridge over
the lake. Carretera Nacional between Palmarejo and Lagunillas was virtually a 1½
lane oil/sand road which was seriously rutted and humped to cause rain water
runoff during the rainy season. In the race are some well known Italian Drivers
who spoke no Spanish.
One hot summer (they all were) when I and a number of my friends were bored with
the camp, we piled into my Dad's jeep and headed out the pipeline road towards
Dabajuro. My compadres on this occasion were Randy and Mike Lanciault and Dan
Sweeney. As a refresher the pipeline originated at Ule near Tia Juana (Any one
remember the small camp there - it was a unique and neat community of people who
worked at the huge oil pumping station there and the huge oil tank farm) that
started oil down the pipeline that ran to Amuay.
Anyway, we drove out the pipeline and then off into the savannahs where we spent
the better part of the day following cow paths and just driving across the
rolling grasslands taking in the sights. We did a lot of that during our last
couple of summers in Venezuela.
Finally the sun began to set and we rode back to the pipeline service road and
headed back to camp (Tia Juana). We came upon a rise in the road which fell off
gradually for about a quarter mile and the road rose again up the next rise.
From the top of the rise we could see a typical cantina on the left side of the
road set back about 15 feet from it. The cantina was made of upright poles
chinked with mud and it had a rusted corrugated tin roof which overhung a bar.
Out front was a hitching rail and standing there were a couple of scraggly
horses and a burrow. You could hear music that far away which was not unusual in
those days because that was how the cantinas attracted people. You could also
hear a one-lung generator chuffing in the background which lit the colored bare
light bulbs which hung under the roof, ran the radio and chilled the cooler.
There were four guys at the bar and the owner behind it.
Well, an idea came to mind. We coasted down the hill and just before we reached
the bottom across from the cantina I pulled out the choke and the jeep sputtered
to a halt across from it. Well, the guys at the bar looked at us and smirked.
You could read their minds -- dumb gringo kids!!! No gas here!!
Well, the four of us in the jeep gestured at each other indicating what were we
going to do now. I told them to follow my lead and each of us in-turn got out of
the jeep and pretended to piss into the gas tank which was on the side of the
jeep facing the bar so they could not actually see what we were doing. I must
say we played it to the hilt.
We got back into the jeep and I pulled out and pushed in the choke and worked
the gas pedal and then hit the starter and a miracle occurred right then and
there and the jeep engine started. We smiled and congratulated each other, waved
to the guys at the bar whose jaws dropped and drove off. When we got to the top
of the next rise we died laughing as we recalled the amazement that came over
the faces of those paisanos when the engine started.
A great ride!!
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