Hola Amigos y familia,
Wow, so much has happened in the last couple of weeks! We had a crazy start to our trip. Because it was high season in Venezuela when we arrived they said our bags would arrive 24hrs behind us (glad I carried on a tooth brush!). This meant we had to stay in Caracas which we hadn´t planned on but we found a safe place next to the airport. We quickly learned about the black market for American dollars. Basically, the official exchange rate is 2 bolivars to 1 U.S. Dollar, however you can exchange on the street for 5 bolivars to a dollar, which more than doubles your money. We definitely should have brought more U.S. dollars but we didn´t want to be carrying too much cash. However, after all of this everything went smoothly and we got our bags and hopped on a very very small plane to Los Roques, an area of over 300 islands in the caribbean just north of Caracas. We landed in Gran Roque, the most populated of the islands (1500)and promptly got our new camera stolen, what a bummer! But then we found a great place to camp on the beach and had a fresh fish dinner. The next day after talking with the locals they told us to get a boat to an island nearby called Crasqui. This was an island with only twelve people that lived there and one restaurant. We arrived in the evening by boat by a woman named Olivia to a completely deserted beach all to ourselves with two chairs and an umbrella set up. We watched the sunset and went through a path to another part of the island called Playa Norte. We set up our tent right on the beach and that night saw tons of stars and went to bed listening to the ocean. The next morning we went snorkeling and saw tons of coral and awesome fish. There were also tons and tons of Conch shells that had all washed up on the beach. Merritt got sick the next day and so after two nights of camping we retreated to Olivia´s hacienda and she made us homemade soup and got Merritt back on his feet. There were several Yachts anchored next to the island where all the Venzuelan Millionares come and hang out. We got to say hi to the president of Banesco, the biggest bank in Venezeula. We told the one restaurant that we were coming many hours in advance, were were the only patrons for a fresh lobster dinner, yummy. We stayed two nights with Olivia and her husband Jose and they also boated us to a couple of the other islands and we got to see baby sea turtles and watch some incredible sunsets. We had many fun conversations in Spanish with them and got to take strolls along the white sand beaches. It was quite the experience!!!
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
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