The last of the travels

My time is now also nearly over.

For my last few remaining days I decided to head even further east on the coast of Venezuela. From Puerto La Cruz I moved to Santa Fe in the beautiful Mochima national park. The town itself is dirty and unapealing but does have some nice posadas right on the beach. Here I spent two nights and went snokeling on one of the small islands in the area with an American fellow named Ed. I soon grew weary of Santa Fe and we decided to move to Isla de Margarita. Here I would spend the remainder of my time, 7 nights, which is also the longest I've stayed in one place for the past four months.

After a five hour ferry from Puerto La Cruz and a short bus ride we arrived in Porlamar, the commercial capital of the island. The next day we moved to Juan Griego on the north western side - another quiet fishing village. As soon as I could I organized for a couple of dives and went the next day to Los Frailes off the north eastern coast of the island. All in all I was unimpressed and realized that I've been spoiled by my many previous diving experiances in Mozambique. The rest of my time on Isla de Margarita was spent laying on the picturesque beaches, swimming and having some beer. Rather the small beaches for me, as I feel that at the main beaches, like playa El Agua, are very trendy, full of the bad things, aparently, and don't really have space for my beard (that is now starting to reach epic proportions). Mostly I was at playa Caribe with other people from the hotel where I stayed. This one's smaller and has very pleasant, laid back beach bars.

fishing around Juan Griego

more fish and coral

My final day was spent on this beach consuming, perhaps, a bit too much sun and beer. The next day from Isla margarita I got a flight to Caracas, and then that evening, flew to Sao Paulo via Lima, arriving at 3:30 am. Portugese is not the same as spanish!

playa Caribe and some friends

another Caribbean beach sunset

All in all my travels have been amazing! By the tomorrow I will be out of South America altogether and that will mark exactly 4 months of traveling. And what an experiance it has been! From enourmous waterfalls in brazil, to the glaciers of Argentina, to the Andean peaks and altiplano of Bolivia, to the Inca ruins of Peru, to the rainforests of Ecuador, to the Caribbean beaches of Venezuela! As Neil also said, I hope that everyone has enjoyed following our adventures and that this blog has inspired its readers to visit Latin America. This will probably be the last entry concerning my travels although Neil and I may make a final joint update from back home in Stellenbosch.

Lloyd