Montezuma _ Puerto la Cruz

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Sorry about the delay on updating the blog, its been really hard to find the internet in Venezuela, let alone good internet.
On leaving Montezuma after a wonderful Xmas spent on the beach fishing we headed to the town of Alajuela which is in fact closer to San Jose Airport, both glad that we didnt have to venture into the dangerous capital. Before our flight we filled up on free samples of chocolate covered coffee beans, pineapple, passion fruit, guava, cashews, cacao nibs etc... and coffee, just incase we didnt get fed while in the air, we did.
On landing in Caracas we had a huge ado with the currency here, we were expecting 2145 bolivars to the US dollar, and the cash point gave us a total of 30 bolivars, only later did we realise theyve negleted the thousand off the notes. we eventually managed to get into Caracas proper, scared that we were going to be stuck there the night, but a metro ride later and we were on a bus heading out to the town of Maracay. Maracay was not a pretty town but we were using it as a stop off before heading to Tucacas and Morrocoy National Park. Our night in Maracay was very interesting and due to the high prices, the blackmarket offers over 4000 bolivars to the dollar hence everything costing us double, we stayed in a four person room with a German couple, although I had a bad stomach making it not much fun for anyone in the room (Chris!).
The next day we made it to Tucacas, only to find that the islands of the national park we were hoping to camp at had banned camping. This then made our trip to the West of Caracas a little bit useless as we also found we werent going to be able to go to Los Llanos. That being said we still managed to afford a bottle of rum on New Years Eve and drank it while watching the fantastic fireworks displays across the town.
On the 2nd we headed back towards Caracas and got a bus from there at 10.30pm to a town called Cumana, the jumping off point for another coastal national park, Mochima. We arrived at about 4 in the morning and slept at the bus stop for a couple of hours before making our way to the village of Santa Fe in the park. We arrived to find that due to it being national holidays all the hostals were booked and so were given hammocks by a friendly Swiss Venezuelan man, who later put us on a mattress in his house because it was raining. That day we splashed out (literally) and went on a snorkelling trip around the islands where we saw loads of beautiful fish on the reef and also a pod of dolphins from the boat, as well as a huge pufferfish, at least 1ft, dried on the beach. For lunch we were given a bowl of fish soup cooked by the boatman which tasted fantastic, they use so much lime juice in it and the fish were caught there and then. It made quite a difference from what has become our staple diet in Venezuela, bread, bananas and occasionally tuna (with added soya protein).
That being said we did have a lovely time in Santa Fe and feel that Venezuela was not totally a lost cause, and we have a spare couple of weeks in Brazil. As I write we are waiting for a bus to the border town of Santa Elena, which will take about 15 hours and arrive at about 6am, from Santa Elena we then have another 12 hour or so bus to Manaus in Brazil, its going to be a long couple of days and nights but then our Amazon adventure can begin.

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