Sun, Sea, Sand and......Diving!

Trip Start Dec 05, 2004
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Trip End May 04, 2005


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Flag of Venezuela  ,
Sunday, April 10, 2005

From Caripe we headed along the coast to stay at a remote beach town called playa Colorada for a few days... made the mistake of going out for dinner at 9pm on the day we arrived only to find that everything was already closed!! It was good to relax here for a couple of days but it was just too quiet!
Next stop was Caracas- the bustling capital of Venezuela. We stayed in a hotel in Sabana Grande area of the city- not a safe place to go out after dark but it was cheap- only £3.50 per night with en-suite air con & TV! This was to be our base for my remaining time in Venezuela to explore the beautiful archipelago of Los Roques and the adventure sports capital of the Continent Merida.
Los Roques consists of around 40 main islands plus about another 250 islets and it didn't disappoint- though the costs of staying on the island was a bit of a shock after Caracas however after shopping around we found a posada with bed, breakfast and evening meal which didn't blow the budget Feeding Time
Feeding Time
 ! We feasted on freshly caught Barracuda every night!! On our first afternoon on Gran Roque- the main island we got our bearings and booked a 4 day dive with a local diving centre. The diving here was superb, the only downside being that it was the windy season and we had to go out into rough sea for the best dives! We minimized this painful experience by kitting up before leaving the relative calm of the headland but it was fairly gruelling getting in & out of the water- especially on day 2 when our dive master announced that his regulator wasn't working just as we were all kitted up and ready to go so we had to head back to base to get another....!! The fish and coral were amazing- saw moray eels, trumpet fish, stingrays, barracudas etc and the visibility was fantastic for the most part!
The other highlight of Gran Roque were the pelicans- hundreds of them! From dawn till dusk they were fishing spotting their prey from above, then dive bombing them in the crystal clear waters scooping them up in their huge beaks while other less able birds tried to steal their catch from their mouths!! It was a magnificent sight, especially at sunset....
After 5 days here we headed back to Caracas...
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