Roughing it

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The next 5 days followed a similar theme so I'll give a run down of a typical day on Los Rocques.

Wake up at about 8am for breakfast. This consisted of melon, venezuelan bread thingies with cheese and ham (yes and, not or), eggs, pancakes and some cakey type fellas. Topped up with juice and coffee it was time for the first of 18 applications of suncream. Pack your bag and chill out in the Posada before chatting to Enrique as to where to spend the day. The choice was generally a variety of deserted beaches - with a snorkelling option if desired.

Once the route was sorted off to the pier to be picked up in the boat by the 2 lads. We couldn't pronounce their names so refered to them as Cuthbert (drove the boat) and Tarquin (ice box and umbrella man). Once on the boat C&T took you to your pre-arranged island, sorted out your umbrella and chairs and left your cool box (full of food and drink). A pre-arranged pick up time was sorted and then you're on your own.

The days were spent wandering around exploring, reading, swimming, snorkelling and re-applying suncream. The sun is vicious and you can get burnt in the shade from the sun reflecting off the sand - ouch. The wind keeps the temperature down and can give some entertainment as the umbrella makes a bid for freedom.

After dinner we pressed repeat button more swimming, chilling, snorkelling etc. Tough, but we made the best of what we had.

Cuthers and Tarqy would pick us up at about 5pm and take us back to the Posada. At which point we normally ditch the bags and head to the main beach to grab a beer and watch the sunset. I said it was tough.

After that it was back to get changed and play cards before having tea. This usually consisted of fish / pasta / soup and was invariably preceeded and followed by some rum. Occasionally we went for a walk along the beach after tea, but as that was a little exhausting we mainly just rocked back and drank some more rum.

That was it for about 6 days.

To break the cycle we went ot eh outer reef for a day which included a stop off at a turtle sanctuary. Lots of little turtles - which was nice. Then we stopped at a variety of small islands. One of which had been infiltrated by little black lizards. As soon as we opened the cool box they were all over us. team tactics won the day and as one person at the other stood on guard with a stick to beat the marauding hoard back into submission. Persisitent little fellas I'll give 'em that.

On the final evening we settled down for a drink with our hosts Enrique and Liana and a couple of Yorshire chaps. Cracking laugh in a brilliant setting. The rum was flowing and we had to retire to our room as i was worried we wouldn't be able to make it up the stairs to our bedroom!

Nice way to finish off the trip.

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