Farewell Venezuela

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Trip Start Nov 29, 2007 Previous
Entry Trip End Dec 30, 2007

  Cumana, Venezuela
Sunday, December 30, 2007

Farewell Venezuela
We decided to spend our last real day at the beach, so having caught our transport from the cave we headed back west along the coast to a little beach called Arapito where we could camp.  We took a car which was an experience in itself. The car was old, the man claimed 1977 but it wasn't carrying its years well, and he kept his radio in the boot, just sliding it back into its slot in the dashboard when we started off. But he was reasonably old and we thought therefore that he could probably survive the road. In fact, his driving was sane by the standards of this area, and we arrived safely at the beach with most of the day before us. We spent it lounging and swimming at a beach with pretty fawn sand, coconut trees and refreshing water.

At about 5pm I put the tent up, only to have a friendly local tell me to take it to the other end of the beach where I would be safer. I was surprised that a five minute walk would make  such a difference but decided to take the advice. In the end we settled out of view of the road but within the circle of lights around the (closed) shops and restaurant. Naturally, we had no trouble.   Except from a friendly but flea ridden puppy Nancy made friends with and who slept under the vestibule of our tent.

It was a very pleasant last night and we expected it to be in sharp contrast to our 'travel day' to the airport. We hadn't wanted to spend any time in Caracas because there isn't much to do and if you are going to get mugged or killed in Venezuela then Caracas is the place. But it meant that we had a bit of travelling to do and would be spending another night at an airport. It seemed silly to go to a hotel when we would need to be at the airport at 3am anyway, and when people warn of carjackings at night on the airport road.   

But we weren't too sure about how easy it was going to be to get back to Caracas because more than one person has told us it is difficult to get tickets at this time of the year (in  fact there is an article about it in today's paper, people scalp tickets and apparently queues start at 4am).

But when we arrived in Puerto La Cruz we were able to get straight on a bus bearing Chavista slogans such as 'with Chavez the people are the government'. I later discovered that this carrier is the state bus company (yes the government runs buses; also a supermarket chain). But it was a comfortable bus with a very helpful conductor.

The ease of this last day continued. To get to the airport from the terminal we were told to get a bus to the metro, take the metro to Gato Negro (black cat station) and then get the airport bus. The local bus left almost as soon as we got on it and dropped us by the metro, in a bustling street packed with street vendors and pedestrians. I had the presence of mind to ask a woman (who told us our bags looked heavy!)if there was someone around who could fix my hiking boot (a new one which found Roraima too tough), and - bliss! - to sufficiently understand the answer. Fifteen minutes later my shoe was fixed, and in another five we were on our way to Gato Negro. (I paid an outrageous price for it which I didn't bother to argue over since I couldn't change money anyway and thought that it might as well go to a tradesman than to some shop at the airport.)

Caracas has a very user-friendly metro. Then we got straight on the airport bus.

Things could not have gone more smoothly but it had still taken us a good 9 hours to get here. 

The airport isn't the most charming place for the night, but it is not too bad either, and plenty of other people were doing the same thing.  And the warnings of stand over tactics from officials, or people who look like officials, were unfounded as far as I could see.

The only thing was that it was starting to be a while without a shower. None at the cave, none at the beach (although at least we could get rid of dirt if not salt) and none at the airport.

We had a very slow series of queues to get through check-in, the departure tax butt collection queue, customs (which they declined to open until there was a queue over 100 people long)and immigration. Two hours in all, which made me appreciate that we had started queuing three hours before our flight left rather than two. But make it we did. And that was the end of our time in Venezuela. 

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