The Caribbean!!

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hello from the Caribbean! I´m in Puerto Colombia, a small town on the caribbean coast of Venezuela - did I mention the Caribbean?! The story so far is: I flew to Lisbon 1 week ago, spent a couple of days there just pottering about. Just went for a long walk the first day and then went to the Oceanarium the second day, and had another unexpected long walk trying to find it after taking a wrong turn. Pretty uneventful, but it was nice just spending time in pavement cafes somewhere warm and walking by the sea. Or it might be a river or estuary or something,but you know what I mean.

Then flew to Caracas last Thurs. Got a whole 2 seats to myself during the flight and had 1 hour in Funchal in Madeira, where we got bussed off the plane, went into the aiport for all of about 15 mins, then got bussed back on to the plane. despite all the stories about immigration in Caracas involving 4 hour waits, I got through in about 5 mins, although the drive to the hotel took about 2 hours, as there is a bridge into the city which collapsed a couple of years ago and is still being rebuilt. I´ts really strange being in a new continent for the first time, lot´s of people selling things in amongst the traffic, and completely different rules of the road! I had a day in Caracas before meeting up with the group, but as I didn´t have a map or guidebook, and the hotel reception didn´t have any maps to give out, I was a bit clueless as to where to go. So took the metro to the main shopping area, which I think I might have missed by coming out of the underground the wrong way or something. Anyway, I don´t think anyone is going to have Caracas down as their favourite city- it is a bit of a concret jungle, and doesn´t seem to have much in the way of older parts of the city or visitor attractions, although I might well have taken the wrong turning there as well!

So met up with the Dragoman group on Saturday morning,and we set off within a couple of hours for the coast rather than spending more time in Caracas -the general consensus was that we weren´t missing out on much. So we set off on the big truck which will - more or less- be my home for the next 18 weeks! As there are only 8 of us at the moment, there is plenty of room for us to spread out,not sure how it´s going to be later in the trip when there will be 19 people on board! The drive was meant to take us 5 hours, but there was a really bad traffic jam due to an accident,so it was nearer 7 hours, which meant that it was getting dark just as we got into the Henry Pittier national park, which is meant to be stunning! We´ll see it on the way out anyway, as we have to drive back through it, hopefully in daylight this time.

Puerto Colombia is a big weekend destination for people from Caracas, so it was mobbed yesterday (Sunday) with loads of people camping on the beach, but it´s a completely different town today now that the crowds have gone. We´re going to head down to the main beach later, which was completely packed out yesterday, but will hopefully be a bit quieter today. It´s really stunning,with palm trees all the way along it for about 1/2 km,and mountains in the background. As soon as I work out how to get photgraphs out of my camera and onto the computer, I won´t have to describe it! Better go, too much sunshine outside to waste!

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Photos

cheerio, Europe
flying out of Lisbon

hola, South America
first sight of Venezuela from plane

Dragoman truck arrives in Caracas
I was just hanging my washing on the hotel balcony, when I looked up and there was my home for the next 18 weeks!

Comments

[Dad]

Bags
Morag is daft! She wouldn't let me carry her bags. Best of luck. Have a great time

[kiran]

aight
bit of spanish translation for you, just in case.. seseme street in spanish is el Barrio seseme.. may come in useful? kiran