Things are going great here in South America!
I am in the area of Choroni, Venezuela and it is Easter week…people, people, people at the beach. The tide and waves came if freakishly high here and the town streets have been flooded and no one is allowed into the ocean. That has not stopped the mass consumption of the lightest beer I have ever seen by virtually everyone.
Venezuela has proven to be much more expensive than Colombia which I think has a lot to do with the strange exchange rate we have for dollars to Bolivars. And it is not nearly as interesting. We have visited two beach towns here on the north western shores of Venezuela and have seen the more prosperous people…lots of industry here. It’s basically sprng break for EVERYONE here! and people are friendly.
After Cartagena, we went to a small fishing town called Taganga and stayed in a house run by French people…there were other guests from all over the world…very fun. I was able to do a couple of fantastic scuba dives. We then went over the mountains to Tayrona National Park were the Tayrona people live…much older than the Incan. We had to hike for two hours through the mountains then two hours along the beach. We slept in hammocks in a pavillion on top of a crag jutting out into the ocean. Quite an amazing setting. We did a great hike straight up to 2 hours to see The Pueblito. We saw monkies, birds, butterflies…all that good stuff! It was absolutely perfect.
The flights to cross the border were no problem. We had to spend the night in Bogota but with virtually no time to see much…a very late arrival and a very early departure.
Tomorrow we head back to Caracas in the scariest bus ride EVER…I took some video to prove it. We already spent the afternoon in Caracas and it seems to be nothing special. I will fly out Sunday midday…everyone is leaving the same day.