Coro, Venezuela

We spent two nights in the lovely town of Coro at a cool hostel called El Gallo run by a sweet French family. The highlights include Venezuela´s finest colonial architecture, shady plazas with grand statues, great art museums, a small university, and a gorgeous national park. We arrived at Parque Nacional Medanos de Coro around 5pm and enjoyed the quiet break from the city as the light changed on the dunes approaching sunset. The park´s vastness can be felt immediately and you can walk and walk and still feel far away from civilization. We watched a lovely sunset and then Merritt got a quick work out in the park with the locals. We had quite the adventure trying to find dinner that night asking at least 5 people how to find Barro de el Jackal. Finally we arrived to a great terraza and sat outside to a yummy meal. We enjoyed our time in Coro before heading on to cross the Colombian Border.

The Venezuelan - Colombia border crossing proved to be quite the challenge. We spent one night in Maracaibo the city closest to the border only to find that buses to Colombia were extremely expensive. We decided to go shared taxi (por puestos). So early in the morning we headed out in a ¨car¨ (if you can call it that) older than Hanalei with a sweet Venezuelan family. The passenger door had to be closed from the outside and the overstuffed trunk barely held our bags in, tied together with rope. We honestly didn´t think it would make it the 3-hr trip without breaking down, but our faith was rewarded when our driver lead us to each checkpoint and directed us to trustworthy money exchange and bus service on to Santa Marta Colombia with reassurance that Colombia would treat us a little more gently than Venezuela. So far-so good!