We moved to Venezuela from Toledo in December 1960. I remember my parents sitting in the living room in discussing it, and whether they should let me stay in the US with my aunt and uncle in Boston. They also gave me the option of going to boarding school. I didn't want to do either, I wanted to go!
Mother, Lydia, and I took the Grace Line ship, Santa Paula, from Port Everglades to Caracas, where Daddy met us. The next day, we went up a ski-lift type thing to the very top of a mountain to a tower-like hotel. I still remember the name of it, the Hotel Humboldt. It was above the clouds, it was amazing.
Then we flew from Manquetia Airport in Caracas to Barcelona. It was a small prop plane. I was sitting on the water side, and I looked down and saw a circular rainbow, like a rainbow ring. I never saw once before or since. People traveling in airplanes often see the plane’s shadow cast on a cloud, surrounded by a circular rainbow. of light. It's called a 'glory', a 'pilot's bow', or an 'anti corona'. A glory is made of sunlight scattered back toward you. It’s much smaller than a rainbow, and it’s made by light scattered from the droplets of a cloud, instead of falling raindrops.
Then when we arrived in Barcelona, we were driven to Puerto La Cruz. We lived inside a compound. My father was an engineer who built refineries. I guess Americans were not particularly popular at the time with local Venezuelans so we were kept under lock and key for our own protection. When we needed to go to the grocery store, we had a driver who escorted us to the store and I guess would have protected us if something had happened.
Even at age 14 I remember the poverty and the grimness of the locals. There was a Sears & Roebuck in town, which surprised me. The grocery store was pretty similar to what we had in the US. It was a strange place. I loved our house, it was 3 sides of a square with the 4th side being a hedge of camellias. inside the square we had a courtyard where we ate all our meals. When my parents had parties, everyone would dance in the courtyard. There were flowers everywhere, and parrots We had a mango tree and banana trees. I loved it.