Adventures in Santa Fe and Tucupita

Well it´s been a crazy week here! So much to say, I´ll try not to make it too long...

My last day on Margarita was great, we went to the national park of Laguna de la Restinga by por puesto, which is like a cross between a taxi and a bus. The driver waits until there are enough people and sets off, dropping you off anywhere you like along the route. It´s usually the cheapest way to travel although as a tourist you still have to pay more than a local.... but the petrol here is so cheap, for the price of a litre in Holland you could buy a full tank here!

At the Laguna we took a boat trip through the mangroves which was beautiful. We saw a lot of pelicans (although we discovered they´re everywhere where water is, we´ve seen so many now they´re not very interesting anymore!), and in the water tiny red starfish and even seahorses! Our guide took us to an amazing beach, but sadly we didn´t take our swimming things, which was agony because the sea looked so good! Had some nice fresh fish there though, and then we went back.

On Monday we had to get up at 4.45 :( to get our ferry to the mainland. The trip took 4 and a half hours, although you would think it was an overnight trip because the Venezuelans immediately hung up their hammocks everywhere and went to sleep! The trip over was fine, we even saw some dolphins, very small ones.

We arrived at Puerto La Cruz, and managed to quite easily get a bus to Santa Fe, our first destination. It´s a small fishing village which is becoming popular among tourists. We dragged our bags through the village to the Poseda Cafe Del Mar on the beach where we were staying, stared at by everyone on the way (everyone stares at you here because you´re a foreigner, I get really tired of it sometimes!) It was a very nice spot by the beach, the poseda even had a roof terrace with hammocks and chairs to relax on in the evenings, ahhh... But we discovered there isn´t much to do there, apart from swim in the sea (which of course is great, but only for a few days) We took a boat trip with a group of other tourists to some islands nearby, stopping for snorkelling on the way where the sea was beautifully clear. And we also stopped at a beach, although the sea was very rough and I almost lost my bikini top at one point, potentially extremely embarrassing!!!!

It was a good trip, but the weather wasn´t great, it was cloudy most of the day (I still got very red though) and rain on and off. In fact it´s been raining quite a lot here! Anyway, we decided that 2 days was long enough there, plus we were running out of money and there were no banks there, so we headed back to Puerto la Cruz on Wednesday. From there we booked a bus trip to Tucupita, from where we hoped to organise a trip to the Orinoco Delta. We thought we´d get a nice big air-conditioned one like all the ones we saw, but no, we got an old crappy one instead :( After having to stop for an accident in the road, we then had to stop because we got a flat tyre, and then later again to check the tyre.... it was getting later and later, and we didn´t seem near our destination. By 7 o´clock (after 5 hours on the bus) we arrived at our halfway point of Maturín, and decided enough was enough! We got out there and spent the night. No way were we going any further, as it was already dark.

The next day we got a por puesto to Tucupita with 2 Venezuelan girls and a man. It all started out OK, but after a while we came across a huge group of people in the middle of the road. Another demonstration!!!! This time against unemployment, apparently. They weren´t letting any cars through at all, and it was the only road heading to Tucupita. But we managed to swap cars with a group of people heading in the opposite direction - the only problem was, would they let Irene and me through, because we were obviously tourists and we might get harrassed. But the Venezuelan girls told them we were doctors here for voluntary work, and they were happy to let us through, thank goodness.

I thought that was the last obstacle in our way, but then we had to stop at a police control point, and after seeing Irene and me, we had to stop, get out of the car and remove all our bags, then stand in their office while they copied details from our passports and asked us questions. It was all completely pointless, nobody will every look at the details, but anyway. The policemen turned out to be quite nice - one of them asked me if I knew any salsa, so I said yes and I danced a few steps with him in the office! Then they shook our hands, wished us safe trip and waved to us when we left!

FINALLY we arrived in Tucupita where we are now. We spent yesterday looking for a trip to the Orinoco Delta, but they all turned out to be outrageously expensive, especially because we were the only tourists around. Fortunately in the end we got a good deal, and we found a Swiss guy who could come with us. We originally planned to go today, but our guide arrived early this morning to tell us that he couldn´t get petrol for the boat... last night at about 6 there was a power cut through all the town which lasted until 11 o´clock this morning! And on top of that, there was no water either. Our hotel was rubbish - the people there were completely unhelpful, and couldn´t understand that we wanted candles because it was pitch black in our room. Finally, reluctantly, they set off to find some. But we were so upset with them, and because we were paying quite a lot of money for the room (and we found 2 cockroaches in the room :( ) that we decided to leave this morning for another, nicer and cheaper place.

Anyway, the electricity and water is back, and tomorrow we´re going to the Orinoco Delta for 3 days, sailing up the Orinoco in a boat, meeting the Indian people who live there, sleeping in hammocks and hopefully seeing some of the wildlife there. There are also 2 more tourists coming with us, so it should be a nice group. I´m sure I´ll stink when I come back, but it´ll be the experience of a lifetime!