12/12/2011 - Onto Puerto La Cruz, a day in transit

You can have any toothpaste as long as its colgate

A plucky iguana in Plaza Bolivar

Since I decided to try and make it to Puerto La Cruz this evening, which is a considerable distance away, I had to leave early. However, we still squeezed in one last cruise of the Orinoco at 5am just as the forest awoke and a formidable dawn chorus provided the soundtrack to our little excursion. After breakfast, I packed my bags and we retraced our route back along the river to the town of Urakua. I waved goodbye to Lui and jumped in a taxi headed in the vague direction of Puerto La Cruz. After a couple of hour long shared taxi rides, a lunch of half a chicken in a town called Maturin and a 3 hour bus journey, I finally arrived in Puerto La Cruz, a sizeable town on the north coast of Venezuela, in the late evening. Having found the cheapest hotel imaginable (in my tiny bathroom, the shower pointed directly at the toilet) I went for a stroll along the waterfront. Full of hotels and chinese restaurants it was lively afair but not the most inspiring of places. However I had finally reached the coast so I was satisfied.

Chavez doing his thing on the telly