ISLA Margarita

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April 1st 2008

Published: April 20th 2008

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ScobieDobie

boats

From the great city of Quito we flew on March 20th through Bogota, without getting abducted by anyone interesting, and landed in Caracas, the crime capital of the world according to some. Managed to get through the airport with our shirts and over to the local airport for a short flight to Isla de Margarita. We´ve had a very laid back time here. Not alot to do and one has to just take your foot off the accelerator and chill or you can go a bit nuts. Very hot here. I mean very hot. Our friend Richard very graciously provided us with a comfortable apartment on the beach in the active fishing village of LaGuardia - active for the fishermen. We stayed for 2 & 1/2 weeks and it was a treat to live in a busy fishing village -with the fishermen out every morning at dawn cleaning boats, painting boats, going out on the Caribbean and bringing the fish in. There is just one restaurant way on the edge of town -but there are lots of little street vendor spots -for empandadas, for pizza, for grilled chicken...and of course we used our best espanol to buy groceries and cook meals

Isla Margarita

They have been shucking clams here for a very long time.

for ourselves. Many many little shops around town -Richard made us a great map - including, of course, a Chinese grocery. Every day we had wonderful fresh fruit including fresh watermelon from the truck that drove around town. The locals were welcoming and friendly and tolerant of our Spanish! Not many foreigners around at all and the beach was basically ours, especially during school hours.

We took a few day trips to see the geography and stayed for a few days in Playa El Agua for a change of scene - the "trendiest beach" on Isla de Margarita. Very touristy in El Agua. Beach merchants are very aggressive and in your face alot and there are turisticos on beach chairs all along the beach. Really made us appreciate the luxury of peace and quiet in La Guardia. We also took the local bus for 50 cents each way from La Guardia in to Porlamar to see the sights and found a used book table with English books- and had lazy days reading lots of books-such a treat.

And took a taxi into Juangriego for a day...beautiful old fort here and lots of sea food restaurants.

Also took

Isla Margarita

Great cliffs west end of Playa La Guardia.

a tour around the Isla which included a beautiful boat trip into the estuary in Parque Nacional Laguna de la Restinga and an exploration of the Peninsula de Macanao at the very dry western end of the Isla. And another day a full day tour by Catamaran to Isla Coche.

Sadly, garbage is everywhere. In fact this is very big problem for the island - for that matter all coastal places on earth - plastic gargage.

Starting to get antsy to see the grandkids and touch base with home and plan for the Asia leg of our trip. We will be back in British Columbia from April 8th to 24th.

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