Today we publish the last excerpt of her stay with Felicita and Pierre in Caracas, Venezuela.
Back in Pierre's towerblock apartment, we cook up some cheap student fare - plantain chips and pumpkin soup. The place is not unlike any student flat the world over, with its mishmash of furniture, piles of washing-up, brightly painted walls and the odd political poster, plus budget artistic touches such as the seashells that hang from the bathroom ceiling. The place houses far more people than the four bedrooms would imply, but, like Pierre, all are easy-going and no one bats an eyelid at having a stranger stay for almost a week.
Pierre is a true believer in hospitality tourism and claims to have opened his home to "hundreds and hundreds" of travellers, both here and in France. He was once an active volunteer for hospitalityclub, devoting around 10 hours a week to administrative tasks. However, in 2005, after a disagreement with the site's German founder, Pierre and fellow volunteers decided to launch their own alternative site, bewelcome.org.
The site went live last year, and has just reached the 3,000-members point. It still has a long way to go if it wants to rival Hospitality Club (with 300,000 plus), but Pierre insists they would rather take their time to build up the right sort of membership. The aim is to open up the project to people from all social backgrounds, people like Felicia. "I know I can offer tourists a new experience, and they can offer me one too," she tells me, as we share a few beers with her neighbours in her front room.
My first experience with bewelcome.org certainly does what it says on the tin, with Pierre and Felicia making me feel quite at home. Will my next host show me a different side of Venezuelan life? Javier, from the coastal town of Barcelona, is just back from a 10-month travel-networking trip around Europe, so is sure to have some stories.
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