For the last hurrah of the tour I was on (for a total of 42 days in the end) we went to the beach. It was on the Carribean coast, and was very nice. Above is sunset after we arrived on the doorstep of our hotel.The town we stayed in was called Santa Fe (unrelated its namesake "venue" in Wellington). It was another small finishing village with the familiar story of people from the outside discovering how nice it is, and then tourist numbers gradually growing. The tourist industry is still in its infancy though, with only a few hotels and restuarants. This means it still has the remote charm, and is still very cheap. Our hotel even came with lots of little crabs walking around the rooms.
With the one full day we had there myself and several others went on a snorkelling trip. It was a great day, and only cost about NZ$15 each. Fantastic. It was on a local fisherman´s boat, who seemed to do both snorkelling trips and fishing, though not at the same time.
Firstly we went to the snorkelling spot, which was a shallow reef between two islands. The water was very clear, and there was a rocky outpost with an abandoned building on it. After getting used to the breathing apparatus arrangement I saw colourful fish of all sizes (though not too big), and coral of all shapes. Then, on the way back to the boat I struck it lucky. A little octopus on the sand at the bottom, oozing it´s way along. Even the GAP tour guide (that had accompanied us the whole trip) who was from Venezuela and had done a lot of snorkling in his time had never seen one.
After snorkling we went for some more creature-spotting. We saw some smelling sea birds on a large rock, and then continued to some more open seas. I was distracted watching some birds diving, when there was some "ooohs" and "aaaahs" coming from my fellow passengers. What could possibly be so enchanting? Dolphins! A group of them, some big, some small. They were leaping out of the water and performing syncronised swimming for us. The little ones even made it all the way out of the water. We got pretty close to them several times, and they looked white as they dived underwater. Man dolphins are cool.
After all the excitement we made it to the above beach. The red boat is ours (not the fancy white one). There we had a nice lunch - I had calamari - and then sat away the rest of the day, looking at crabs and iguanas. Then it was back after a great day, and such a damn good price.
The next day we left for our final destination - Caracas. There we had our last supper as a big group (though we had already left two behind at Santa Fe) and attempted unsuccessfully to attend a volleyball game between, ironically, Brazil and Venezuela. Brazil won. The next morning our "dad"/tour guide was gone, and slowly all the others followed. I stayed one more night, with a group of four others (and luckily I managed to change my flight to 30 June as my leaving day to Mexico, otherwise I would have been stuck alone for a couple days. Although my impressions were different, many people said Caracas can be a bit of an "ass crack"; very dangerous at times. Where we went in Caracas there was always a good atmosphere though, but a lack of alcohol outlets - due to the fact we were in town. Just bars and stuff).
So the tour was over, and to my new good friends I said goodbye. It was a damn good experience, and I got to go to many places I otherwise wouldn´t have made it to on my own, with no local knowledge and very very little language. I still don´t like tours however. I felt too isolated from the local culture, as it was so much easier just to hang out in the group. Some of the other things felt too padded too. There are other reasons, but I will go into them in more detail in a future post. Although I will try and avoid tours in future, I had a damn good time and am glad I did it.
That concludes that section of my trip - a little late, but now it is done. I have had a good week in Guadalajara, Mexico hangin´with my sis, and keeping myself busy with other things. But more on those later...
