1. Polars and pelicans

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1. Polars and pelicans

Hola amigo´s!!

No, don’t worry. It’s not freezing over here...(not like old Blighty) ‘Polar’ is the name of the only beer Venezuelans seem to drink! They serve it in tiny bottles for 27p each but I reckon you’d need about 40 to actually be anywhere near drunk. And sorry guys, it is bloody hot I’m afraid, had a bit of rain and it’s so humid that my wool socks I wore on the way here took two days to dry! It was raining when I landed but the sun has soon blazed out again, as I was leaving the main terminal for the domestic, it was like stepping into a sauna, my glasses were covered in mist and a rainbow arched over the mountains.

Stayed in Playa Colorada for 2 nights in a hammock. It was a tiny village next to a small strip of orange sand with a couple of posadas. Stayed in jakera.com which was a great place - normally habited by American students on some sort of ´programme´ thank god not then though!! There were only two Americans there at the time, a Norwegian guy in charge, a Lancashirian rocker and a Venezuelan guy building a climbing wall. They were all nice apart from the weird bird from Chicago who was doing all the cooking because she as a chef - went off her when I tried to help her in the kitchen and was only allowed to grate ginger and not chop spring onions even after i´d told her my celebrity chef aspirations!!

Santa Fe...
8 k up coast is the small fishing town of Santa Fe. Staying at cafe del Mar, wishing it played Balearic trance as the favourite tune out here is Gasolina, played every other time. My radio is coming in useful and it´s funny to hear how they adopt all the cheesy western pop tunes and add their own Spanish words. Met a group of five people on the beach all solo travellers from UK, Ireland, Sweden and Norway.

Salsoteca...
Friday night we went to the local disco which was great fun dancing with fishermen and young boys. It was all very civilised and when the group of 15 Dutch girls turned up the tourists actually outnumbered the locals. Of course, my salsa is a little rusty and I needed a few Polar Ices to oil the dancing feet!

Pelican crossing...
Yeah...real life pelicans, loads of them, ducking and diving for fish and perching on the market roof ready to dive for scraps from the fishing boats. They look like the donkeys of the bird world; all grey and scruffy!

Other wildlife...
Whilst queuing for the cash machine in Barcelona town square I gazed up at the trees and saw a sloth slowly moving down the tree trunk...he looked so cute with his great big arms!!

Bloody foreigners...
Today was spent on a boat trip to some islands...which was ok but I´m sorry, some people are so rude and dull that I fell asleep on the way back and my nose is now bright red! We did however see loads of dolphins and I got pricked by a cactus and had to pull out the very painful long yellow spines like something from a cartoon. I was actually trying to track the wildlife in a Ray Mears esque kind of way...mmm, some rabbit droppings and cloven footed animals have been here..lizards...

Keep the e-mails coming...it´s great to hear about what´s going on back home. Any news on the Royals especially welcome!!

Tomorrow is Mochima, 20k up the coast. Apparently there was a landslide on the road on Monday and a bus will drop you at one side and another pick you up at the other side!!

Mucha love!!!!!!!!

Zoe the intrepid animal stalker xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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