Nicole schreibt...

Venezuela 2006

It might appear an unusual choice for a vacation, but only on first glance. Venezuela offers a huge variety of landscapes from deep rain forest to endless desert plains as well as Caribbean beaches, so it's a good starting point for forays into South America. We flew from Frankfurt to Porlamar, the capital of the Isla de Margarita, Venezuela's vacation hotspot in the Caribbean which is popular with locals and tourists from Europe and North America alike and spent the first two days in our resort of choice at the Playa el Agua, the most popular stretch of beach in the north of the island. Unlike other Caribbean islands where you are more or less stuck in your resort (I only have to think back of my trip to the Dominican Republic two years ago), there is a lively street scene on Playa el Agua with shops, cafes and beach bars, not to mention the gorgeous beach itself and waves to die for. But Venezuela has so much more to offer than just the beach and we had booked a four-day round trip to see the highlights of the country. First we were taken back to Porlamar, which is supposed to be a shopping paradise& on account of the Isla Margarita being a duty-free zone, but I found it rather disappointing and hardly less expensive than your average European high street store. After staying overnight in Porlamar, the fun really began the next day when we flew to Los Roques. All domestic flights were undertaken by Aerotuy, using cute little planes I had only ever seen in movies before and which give you an unique insight (at least if you snag the front row on the plane):

Los Roques is one of the best-kept secrets of the Caribbean, a large sprawling archipelago of coral reefs, hardly touched by mankind and hence a fabulous area for scuba diving and snorkelling. The planes fly to Gran Roque, a really cute little settlement with a handful of houses where there is simply sand instead of pavement in the roads and a few posadas, sweet little guesthouses in genuine Caribbean style (see ours below). The day was spent on a catamaran that took us to another island where the curious (including yours truly) could go snorkelling in a reef and say hello to the fishies and the others just walk around and laze in the pristine sand.

The next day brought us to the Orinoco Delta on a circuitous route involving first a flight from Gran Roque back to Porlamar and onwards to Maturin on the Venezuelan mainland (and I dare you to get through that trip without having Enya banging around your brain). From Maturin we went to the Rio Morichal Lago, one of the side rivers that feed into the mighty Orinoco, in a one-hour ride by mini-bus which was then followed by another one-hour trip by boat to Campamento Boral, a small jungle camp deep in the rainforest of the Orinoco Delta. Along the way we spotted monkeys, exotic birds, snakes and even a porcupine, but sadly no alligator (yes, I would have liked to see one live!)

Once arrived at the camp and having had a late lunch, we could go kayaking on the river which was great fun. I knew that piranha fishing was on the agenda for later, but somehow I had thought it would be somewhere ELSE somehow. So I was kinda spooked when we were told to leave the kayaks behind and step back into the big boat and then immediately the fishing began. How freaky is that, letting dumb tourists paddle around in piranha-infested waters? And those little critters DO look evil. They don't only have nasty teeth as our guide showed here on one caught fish, but also eerie red eyes that give them a truly evil appearance - and yet they are really small and you wouldn't think that fish that size could be that dangerous.

I wasn't really at my best in the jungle camp, I may just require too many creature comforts, but the small stuffy rooms and the cold-water showers didn't do it for me. But what really took the biscuit were the fat black beetles that crept into every room. The guide had assured us that they weren't dangerous at all, but there's something definitely eerie about the sound of sssss-krrrk-plopp in the night, resulting in a fat beetle dropping onto you from the ceiling while you try to sleep.

I was glad when we left the Campamento the next morning and went on by boat, bus and plane to Camp Arekuna (above) in the Gran Sabana national park, which is also home to the Canaima lagoon and Angel Falls, the highest water fall in the world. Here are pictures of the area and the camp. We went on a hiking tour around the camp, exploring the rain forest, something we couldn't do in the Orinoco Delta, where we only went everywhere by boat. Here are some ancient trees with lianas to make Tarzan weep and a tiny part of a long ant production line with hundreds of little ants carrying big leaves (well, big for them) to their ant hill. A really funny and curious sight, making a human feel bone lazy :)

But the real biggie of the Gran Sabana is of course Canaima and the lagoon with its gorgeous water falls. We took a boat across the lagoon and then walked under the great water fall shown here on the photo - a really fabulous experience that no artifically created swimming pool could ever try to emulate. The sound of the cascading water, the cold spray, the dangerous and yet exciting climb over wet stones and through puddles - it's really something everyone should try once.

Canaima's table mountains are also host to Angel Falls, the highest water fall in the world, cascading down almost thousand metres (or 3000 feet). We had planned to fly past the falls on our way back from Canaima to Porlamar, but unfortunately heavy clouds had suddenly drawn up and it became too dangerous for the pilot to actually fly close to the table mountains, so he had to turn back. But naturally I rather show off a picture of Angel Falls in clear weather here than a photo full of bulging clouds for an idea of what we SHOULD have seen!

Then we returned to Porlamar on the Isla Margarita and were taken back to our comfortable resorts and hotels and the luxury of hot showers (yes, after three days of only cold water, you start to appreciate a hot shower!). Here's the pool of the Hesperia Playa El Agua, our resort of choice, where I spent most of the remaining five days recovering from the tour. And thus ended a trip that led me to yet another fascinating corner of the world. I'm not that big on nature really and I guess I lost my heart in Asia, but even so Venezuela is a country I warmly recommend for a first-time experience of South America and for those who want to spend some time in the Caribbean but want to do more than just laze around at a beach or pool all the time.