Sand and desert in the tropics
Trip Start
Nov 29, 2007
1
2
12
Trip End
Dec 30, 2007
Coro,
Venezuela
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Coro is a smallish city on Venezuela's north coast, a day's travel out of Caracas. We went for its mini-Sahara of coastal desert dunes.
Our experience of getting there left us an unfortunately jaded impression of Venezuela. We received a variety of contradictory information about how to leave Caracas by bus, and I had the most frustrating time trying to find out how to get from Parque Central to the main bus terminal. Parque Central was not marked on my map, but the guys on reception would just tell me that the taxi would know where it was. This wasn't really the point. I never did get an explanation. But at least everyone agreed (but it took me a long time to extract this essential information) that the bus to Coro left from el occidente, which was the same as la bandera (although this had earlier been denied). I would have to take a taxi to la bandera but I could get one from where the bus came in and that would be safe. There were no taxis left when my bus got in, and when we finally got to that terminal the guys told us that we could not get a direct bus to Coro, but would have to go by Valencia and then change. I'm sure that was not true but perhaps they just meant that there was nothing going for a while. Anyway, by this stage we were happy just to get on any bus that was going in the right direction.
The switch at Valencia was actually as easy as had been promised. I was half expecting to have to go to another terminal, but the buses left from the place we got in and we easily found a bus going our way.
A Coro dunes lizard
We put put our bags in the boot and went to find some lunch. When we got back the bus had gone. It was not meant to have left yet. Seriously stressed, we were frantically searching the terminal, which probably had 50 buses scattered around it. We were very relieved to find a familiar face and he dismissively told us that our bags were on board, as did the driver, but neither would let us look. Given the quality of the information we had been getting lately, we were not entirely reassured, but they kicked other people off to let us on so we thought that we must be on the right bus. Still, it was a relief to arrive in Coro and find that our luggage had come with us.When we got to Coro everyone told us to take a taxi to town. We weren't sure if this was for safety or distance, which the Lonely Planet put at about 2.5 km. A girl we talked to in the street told us that it was quite safe but 'far', yet agreed when we said it was about 2 km. Our standard question of 'esta lejos a ...' was starting to look unhelpful when 2km becomes lejos.
So we walked. It took about 20 mins, and no one attacked us.
The first real work of the South American journey accomplished.
We had been hoping to end up at a backpackers where we could obtain information and meet people. But the place we settled on, being the first we came to, wasn't that kind of place, and I suspect that they often aren't here. No kitchen, no tourist staff, no one on the desk who could give useful information. When I asked where we could buy things like bread and cheese, he referred us to the restaurant out front.
If this is starting to feel like a rant, you may care to skip ahead.
The dunes of Coro
But we had had a very frustrating time of it and so far, and everyone was so very unhelpful. I'm sure that it was not just our Spanish.Anyway, we got through the night and morning wanted to go to the sand dunes. So we asked how to do it at the desk. 'Como llego al Parque Nacional Medanos?' 'Taxi'. The taxi is the answer to everything! 'No quiero tomar el taxi. Hay autobuses?' 'No.' Well, of course there were buses and I can only assume that there was a misunderstanding and she was happy to admit to there being buses on the way back. But she cautioned us most anxiously against walking because we would get hot and tired. We conclude that they are not into unnecessary walking around here and they assume that tourists have money so would want to do the easiest thing. Rafiel, our taxi driver in Panama City, was astonished when we told him that we walked about 5 km to and from work every day.
We walked. It was fine. And the dunes are pretty cool. The sand was yellow-brown and did form large dunes, very like the ones you see in calendars featuring the sahara. However, there was also vegetation, spiky trees with leaves like acacia that somehow grew here, although whether it was colonising the desert or losing ground to it I don't know. From the top of the tallest dune (which no one else in the park that day came near to, except some people in dune buggies) we had a lovely view over the desert to the city centre of Coro. We could also see some four legged animals in the distance which we decided must have been goats.
On the way into the heart of the dune land we practised our tracking skills, which were at the level of identifying lizard tracks, snake tracks (just the one), and something else leaving rounded prints that in hindsight were probably goats. There were certainly lots of lizards about, beautiful green and blue ones and some plainer yellow and white ones, possibly just a gender difference. They would scutter around quite actively, and when they stood still would often leave a foot or two off the ground. I'm guessing that they found the sand hot. There seemed to be some territorial dispute between one of the yellow ones and one of the green ones, who kept getting chased off.
We walked back into town too, and it is only fair to admit that the lady at the posada was right, we did get hot. But we also met up with some locals who gave us a lift to the bus station and gave us their take on the referendum and local situation. It was pretty bleak. The mother was saying that although she wanted to stay, she wanted all her children to leave Venezuela but was frightened that after the referendum (the following day) Cuban style restrictions on leaving the country would be introduced. I don't know whether that was realistic or not.
We left that night on the overnight bus to Merida. We had expected the bus to be cool, but it was absolutely freezing, and they wouldn't let us take our day bags on the bus. So we had a hasty repack in the dark which left me without socks on the bus. I spent a very cold night, even with a fleece jersey and my feet wrapped up in a plastic bag. Other than the arctic conditions the bus was pretty flash and very comfortable.
