Blogs from North-Eastern, Venezuela, South America

The Orinoco Delta Caracas airport looks like an aviation museum. I flew in something from the 1960s with engines bolted to the back of the fuselage just in front of the tail. Given the warnings on government websites about Venezuela (frequent kidnappings, violence, armed robbery etc) I had booked all cars, tours and accommodation in advance. This helped as I was met at every location and got around the country in private cars that blended in with ordinary traffic. The drive to the port at the edge of the delta was through flat, featureless farmland with only one distinguishing feature, it was abandoned and not being farmed. My driver explained that a few years earlier the then president, Chavez, claimed that the price of meat, around 2000 Bolivars ( $3US on the black market ) was ... read more

Curaçao, Dutch Antilles Tuesday, April 16, 2013 Arrived at 8, enjoyed the sailing, lovely, colourful and prosperous A governor had migraines, decided that the whitewash was the reason for his problems and made a law that all the buildings had to be “not white”; imagine lovely Dutch buildings in pastel colours all different, lovely. Curacao is built on 2 sides of a small harbor with a floating pontoon moveable bridge. We are docked between these old and new sides within short walking distance of the pedestrian pontoon bridge. We walked the old side for an hour this morning, came home for a drink, I had to drown ¾ of a liter of lemon tea and wash some clothes: very hot. Terry is reading Shibumi for a little break( thank you MF). We are going back out ... read more

Hola a todos Ya estoy en la cuarta semana aquí en la granja y me doy cuenta que todavía no he presentado el equipo. Somos: Keith el jardinero jefe, Alex su asistente, Hannah y Lizzie quienes son aprendices, Al el eventual (trabaja nada mas en primavera y verano) y Bridget y yo, los voluntarios. Así que somos 6 personas quienes manejamos 10 ha de terreno. Todos menos yo y Bridget trabajan 5 días a la semana, 7:30am – 4:00pm. Nosotros empezamos 2 horas después en la mañana, a las 9:30am. Aparte del personal hay un tractor y un motocultor que se utilizan para cultivar la tierra además de otras labores. Por el resto casi todo se hace sin maquinaria pesada. Todos los días hacemos las diversas tareas según el plan maestro de Keith. La semana pasada, ... read more

After being warned how dangerous Venezuala has become in the last years, my friends and I were ignorant as to how much these dangers had escalated in this country and ended up flying in Caracas! Arriving on the plane, all the locals were staring at us as if we were actually crazy to be going here. Three women insisted we fly to Colombia as soon as possilbe, we didn't really believe them actually how bad it was but stubborn as we were we stuck with our original plans. To make a long story short, we ended up being robbed at gun point on a beach in Morocuoy National Park. It was a Monday morning. Two guys approached us (no one else was around), took a gun out, and made us kneel in the trees while they ... read more

We had intended to leave Santa Fe today or tomorrow, but were advised against it seeing as it was a public holiday and the buses and accommodation would be rammed. To our delight it was another sunny day, so we relaxed on the beach until lunch when Sonja and Fredrik left. Just as we had finished reapplying sun cream in our room I heard the noise I'd been dreading, sure enough, another tropical storm. The kids on the beach were undeterred but the parents retreated, all armed with cool boxes and bottles of rum. I've never seen rain so heavy; eventually driving away even the children. Upon trying to be productive and catch up on our blog in an internet cafe, we were plunged into darkness by the third power cut in as many days (there ... read more