To Puerto La Cruz and beyond
Trip Start
Jun 26, 2008
1
7
101
Trip End
Jun 2009
Santa Fe,
Venezuela
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
The driver is a young friendly guy, who can drive this Mercedes Benz Fridge Green Machine faster than any F1 driver. We catch up on our diaries and do some spanish before listening to some U2 and some sleep before we awake at the pit stop, which is a small pertrol station with couple of places to grad some dirty greeasy looking chicken. We opt to follow the good advise which "follow whatever the driver eats". He does not so we have a quick cup of coffee and a pack of chrisps. Snap quick photoraphic evidence that petrol is really as cheap as we have been told. (58 litres = 2 small packets of crisps or 1 GB pound!!!).
Time for a beer
NOTE ON FOOD
For those reading this and think it is strange that we describe food a lot it is because when one travels from place to place.. The Maslow Heirachy of Needs comes into full force and one becomes preoccupied with where you will sleep, how to get from point A to B and then Food, which being in a foreign place and language being a problem becomes a major challenge in itself.
You will all be pleased to hear that Fat Lardy boy is losing weight as buying is hard to do, and more importantly buying what you want is harder. So We are living on less than 2000 calories a day... good stuff !!!! 6 Pack days here I come. Ems has taken a slighlty different route and had a stomach bug for the last 3 days!! So a trip through the market to get some food with dogs crapping liquid stuff and the fish market smells mixed with urine and other vile vapours put one appitite at bay totally.
We arrive in Porta La Cruz and find a Por Pesto.
This is a small mini van that look like the Taxi´s in RSA, except with doors at the front and back, they are normally painted in bright colours and have the "usual" blacked out windows, curtains, a large hi-fi system with DVD and Screen powered by four or 5 - 6x9 (200Watt Pioneers) that when turned up with "Venezuelan techno tunes" blarring out seem to make the bus go faster
Sante Fe Beach
.Good news was the bus left quickly as it started to pelt down with rain, we hit the coastal road for the hours´s drive to Sante Fe. On the way we went though Playa Colarada which was one of the places we looked at staying. On seeing the Playa, being a Sunday we are pleased that we decided to stay furether down the coast.
We arrive in Sante Fe at the bus terminal, which is a true slum. Dogs all over the show, but it seems ok. We get off and wait for the rain to calm down. We donn our raincoats and head for the nearest stall to ask directions to the playa (beach) which is where all the posadas are. The chap points down the puddle filled road which has loads of kids playing in the pools of water. The road is dirt and there are slum houses on either side. Halfway down we see a bus coming up behind us filled with tourists.. "A sure sign we are heading in the right direction" the driver stops next to us and shouts something incomprehensible at us in spanish, we point down the road and tell him we are heading there. He continues very slowley through the deep puddles as we follow and find the beach and all the posadas. We find the Sante Fe Resort and Dive Centre.
Check in which was fun as the chap could not understand that we had booked a room, after much gesturing we finally got keys to our room
Our Posada
. We met up with one of the tourists that was on the bus that passed us, he turns out to be a french guide who advises us that the road we took was very dangerous with drug gangs and not safe for tourists... We were fine as it was a sunday and there were loads of people around. We will head out of town a different route!!TRAVEL NOTE:
Santa Fe Diver Centre is a hoax, they Dont do diving round here, so dont be fooled as we were by the PADI logos´the red and white dive signs etc as there Aint any !!!
Seems like the guide book also gt it wrong that anyone at the Sante Fe "resort" speaks any english..... Nope again, my spanish phrase book is now officially my new best friend!!
Our Posada is on the beach and the views are great, dont get me wrong the place is very beautiful and our room is fine, but the place is 3rd world and we are staying in what is arguably the best place here, but the standard is not much higher than the cheaper posadas along the beach which are between 50-80 BS a nigh CHEAPER than we are paying.
The do however have a laundry service which is close on heavensent
Sante Fe at its best
. I have never been so happy to smell clean, fresh and dry clothing ever. In fact we have now sent in the entire clothing contents of our bags even things that we have not worn as the climate here makes things mouldy!!We have decided to chill out here for a few days, check out the Mochima National Park with its islands and take a boat trip with some people we met at Angel Falls, Seems like we all end up in similar places.
Spanish Lessons
We have finally sorted our spanish course which starts on Monday in the cool setting of Isla Margarita Island and have arranged that we will be staying in a homestay with a venezuelan family. We will have spanish lessons for 5 hours a day with excursions in the afternoon which are in Spanish... So immersion time is coming. Hopefully we can get some much wanted Scuba in on the Island too !!!
