Hotel Colibri Margarita Island

... to the island’s largest fort, more sensibly positioned this time. Playa El Agua has 4km of white sands and many kiosks, restaurants and, unfortunately, large number of peddlers selling all manner of thing. Their prize sales are strings of pearls – ‘real, honest gov’. The water here looked dirty and the surf full of green seaweed so we didn’t venture into it. Manzanillo is a beautiful and picturesque bay between the mountains ...

... 8220;hola&#8221;; although to start with I thought he was saying &#8220;cola&#8221; (Spanish for queue), which I found quite entertaining considering that here in Venezuela there is a mammoth queue for just about everything.<br> <br>I&#8217;ve spent most of my time here on the beach, sunbathing and striking up conversations with the beach vendors to try and learn some new words and improve my language skills. Despite the large number of ...

... I am so glad, it is imense!! (to follow).<br><br>My Spanish is coming along nicely. I was speaking with the cleaner of Tita in the morning of leaving and wanted her to slow down, so I did......."muy desayuno, por favor", she must think he is crazy asking for very breakfast! I will not forget now how to say "mas despacio"!!!! But this was fun tambien. <br>

... De resto a comida é meia bomba e com o mesmo gosto, principalmente no café da manhã, onde o pão tem gosto de maçã, a maçã tem gosto de queijo, este com gosto de geléia, e assim por diante...<br> Fora do hotel fomos em algumas feiras, shoppings e apenas em mais uma praia (Playa el Agua), pois o tempo estava caído. O bom mesmo foi aproveitar a praia do hotel nas belas cabaninhas com colchões, bebendo cerveja ...

... really cool people learning Spanish. The family we stayed with only spoke Spanish and really engaged with us which helped a lot! 5 days of intense spanish at the school and I can now understand more so that I can at least say Hablo mas un porcito.... (speak more a little spanish rather than nothing.) I have promised our host family Jesus, Maria and Jesus that I will put something on the BLOG in ...

... everyone else is from all over the world. There is a couple from New Zealand, another from Australia, and many students from Norway, Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. Everyone speaks English, although we try to intermix this with some Spanish. But many of them are on their own little journeys to either work in South America or learn Spanish because they are travelling around the world or whatever. Every ...

... and education. Most of the poor have never had an education in managing their finance, nor do they have the confidence to take charge of advancing their own economic situation. They have historically relied on trickle down from the richer oil-elite, or more recently from the state. Some problems Of course not all the banks work perfectly, and there have been cases of theft in the past. Sometimes there is not enough trust in the community to make the ...

... they knew about a cheap-ish and nice place, and I'd only pay my half instead of the full price. I felt the whole time like there was something on the hook.... So I was careful. But nothing. They never ever asked for anything back, and none of my things disappeared. They were just some happy, friendly people who wanted to share. The next day they left, and me too, but to a different place - to Playa el Agua, as Juangriego wasn't quite as much ...

... the cinema to watch flight plan and we ended the evening wasting our money in the large casino until 1am. This was exactly the sort of travelling I preferred and then on the last day when were due to leave Lea chucked a sickie and so we had to stay an extra night. If it wasn't for the fact that Lea's tonsils had swollen up to the size of golfballs I would have thought she was faking, not that the idea of another day on this ...

I decided the easiest and quickest way to see a lot of this Island, especially the remote east side, was by a Jeep Safari Tour. It was quite good once we got going....the next day I took a day trip to nearby Coche Island, quite nice, though also very barren when away from the white sand beaches. As I was the only Australian on board the boat I became a bit of a novelty which entailed having to to pole dance on the voyage back to Margaritis, I didn ...