Its a big spot

---

2 days of travelling to get to Los Rocques in Venzuela started with a morning on the beach before saying goodbye to Pucon, most agreeable. A trip in the taxi with The Bunk to the airport before flying to Santiago.

Santiago appears surrounded by hills and looked impressive as the sun set in the distance. Our airport hotel did the job and the pain of the previous day's bike ride was slowly diminishing.

29/2
Back on the plane for the trip to Caracas. Finally managed to buy decent postcards at the airport but getting stamps is like searching for the holy grail. Our seats are 'H' and 'F' which indicated we be sat apart once more. Tough for the wife but a chance for some quiet time for me. Bizarrely H and F were together - i resisted to have a word with the flight company. The plane was brilliant. We had individual TVs in the back of the seats infront and got stuck in to watching films and TV a massive treat. Brilliant stuff.

Before landing in Caracas the plane was fumigated with some air freshner type stuff, aparently this is the law, weird eh. The immigration / customs form was a bit confusing so we asked the flight attendant who basically made something up. We asked at immigration and a nice lady helped us out. We got through the checks and picked up our bags.

We met Peter our guide who was properly Mr Cool. The unflappable. He helped us get cash out of the machine and drove us to our airport hotel in Macabo. The trip was a bit of a culture shock. The driving was mad, they should line the Venezuelan's up with the Buenos Aires population and see who comes out on top - carnage.

The mountains roll down into the see and the houses sunk into the mountainside appeared to be little more than shacks. People strewn all over the road with shacks selling what appeared to be mainly booze. It took ages to drive all but a few miles, but we got there in one piece.

The hotel was ok, but meal caused great confusion and was unbelievably expensive especially as we thought this would be the cheapest leg of the trip. More cash needed.

We escaped the enclaves of the restaurant to retire to our room. Footie was on the TV - result.

---