Blogs from Puerto la Cruz, North-Eastern, Venezuela, South America - page 3

Nous sommes arrivées ici à Maremares depuis le 11 octobre, une marina dispendieuse, mais un hôtel avec tous les services. Hier en arrivant nous avons fait les papiers de douanes encore une fois pour une entrée dans le Vénézuéla car c’est indépendant de l’île de Margarita où il nous a fallu faire nos papiers de sortie. En arrivant près du quai, nous sommes reçus par le dockmaster et son assistant qui placent et attachent Moana. Les gens sont souriants et nous avons droit à la visite de tous les services. Nous nous sommes aussi promenés en dinghy à travers les différents canaux ici pour visiter les constructions qui sont comme à Venise dans l’eau avec les bateaux attachés devant la porte. Le lendemain, un peu à l’extérieur de l’hôtel, nous avons pris un déjeuner à la ... read more

In this episode: Winter in the bar, constant contrasts, plumbing the unfathomable - the Venezuelan toilet system, security, the effects of too much gravity, the Marina and the Development, Puerto Ordaz, Caracas revisited, another rum factory, the bus, the neighbourhood (there it goes), getting published and more grammatically strangled pithiness. At least my español is improving and I have ñ on the keyboard! yes, the time is slippping away...I've got no idea any more about anything ...but my conscience has been prickling lately so it must be close to blog o'clock...I've been keeping some notes but it just isn't the same atmosphere on the boat as it was on the bike....like fear, danger, impending and real disasters, speed, pain, more danger etc etc.....here life just oozes out like melted chocolate down the asphalt beside the crashed ... read more

The last two days have been awesome...We woke up at the crack of dawn on Tuesday to start our drive down the coastal highway..some lovely views and beaches on the way...venezuelans drive pretty fast for the crappy roads so we had to be a bit careful since the highway went through hills and was full of bends and hairpin turns.. after stopping at a couple of beaches, we landed up at playa colorada, a slightly touristy beach, but with safe parking for the car, and jumped into the water...after spending a few hours on the beach, we got a fisherman to take us to some nearby islands, where we snorkelled around la piscina and saw some weird coral (looked like a human brain) and cool fish the coral was so shallow that at parts you had ... read more

JOE WAS COMING TOMORROW TO MEET WITH OYSTERS AT A FART PARTY What I meant to say was I’M COMING WITH MY GIRLFRIEND AND MEETING THE OTHERS AT THE FESTIVAL Ahh language!…If one is, as I am, verging on the bereft when it comes to speaking espanol…even on the computer I can’t find the bizzo that should go over the ‘n’…then conversations on the telephone are nigh on impossible!…however, as some testament to endurance over competence I did manage, this morning, to get us into a marina….fortunately, as we approached this enormously expansive waterway with multi-marinas, our guy was waiting at the dock and sign language sufficed to settle us in….but, in general I am still grappling with the lingo…actually getting by pretty well…it’s all relative!….for general conversation I can hold my own but then, when ... read more

We were back in the big, bad city of Caracas, where the Dragoman tour ended. But I enjoyed it so much, I decided to stow away on board for the next leg towards Brazil! So it was goodbye to the old passengers, and hello to the new ones. Sally, Suzie and Tony were also staying on board, as far as Rio. On our way out from Caracas, we saw the slums on the outskirts, which was quite a shock. Hundreds and hundreds of basic cinderblock and brick buildings crammed together, literally on top of each other using every single available bit of space. Most houses have actually been contructed by the residents themselves. This "barrio" is called Jose Felix Ribas, and is one of the largest in South America, being home to some 120,000 people. Some ... read more