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| Practice parade in Plaza Bolivar, Maracay |
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| Creepy mural on side of hospital wall, Ah Chavez. |
As promised, after arriving into Maracay in the
early morning, we headed to Daniel's uncles place where we had
breakfast and a chat with Daniel's uncle and I picked up some useful
vocabulary (mochilero – backpacker). Their flat, small but nice,
was filled with all the usual conveniences like a flat screen tv and
a massive hi-fi and was covered head to toe in Christmas decorations
(including a novelty toilet seat cover).
After breakfast we went for a little tour of
Maracay after which I bid them farewell since I was travelling onto
Puerto Columbia today: a small seaside town some 2 hours north of
Maracay. Getting on the small bus to Puerto Columbia it was clear all
the locals heading the same way were in a fiesta mood and as the bus
driver turned the music up to full, the couple next to me cracked
open a massive bottle of sangria. Good times. As the road twisted and
turned through the mountainous region we had to cross to get to the
coast, the driver raced round the bends, making liberal use of the
horn and, as far as I can tell, assuming anything coming the other
way was going to get out of our way.
Arriving at my posada in Puerto Columbia, I
bumped into Ludek – a Czech traveller who I'd met in Santa Elena
around 3 weeks ago when he was waiting to go on a trek to Roraima.
Over a dinner of fish and guava juice we caught up and compared
travel notes.
The next day we grabbed some beach time (Ludek
was really desperate to get a tan since he was heading back home in 3
days and was still pretty pasty) and had a wander around the quaint
little Puerto Columbia. In the evening 2 more travellers joined us –
Julius from Holland and Gregory from France and we grabbed dinner and
beers in one of the cheap eateries in town (although, much to
everyone elses mockery, I stuck to juice since my stomach was still
in a turbulent mood and last night's fish had not helped matters).
The next day, we took a boat to a nearby beach
and walked to a small town (the name of which I forget) famous for
its chocolate due to the abundance of cocoa plants in the area.
Although we weren't blown away by the chocolate it was the best I'd
tasted in Venezuela so far (which isn't much of on accolade). The
driver of the boat we took to get to the beach had clearly ripped us
off so we decided not to bother waiting for him and got a ride back
in a different boat. As we pulled away from the shore and headed back
to Puerto Colombia, it was very satisfying to see him approaching and
angrily asking why we hadn't waited for him. We waved, smiled and
replied that maybe he shouldn't have overcharged us for the first
journey.
In the evening we headed to a friendly, if a
little expensive, bar-restaurant where we over-indulged in the
caipirinhas and excellent tapas dishes. This would be our last night
together (and Julius' last proper night of travelling) so we made the
most of it. As I went to bed I told my stomach to behave and tried to
ignore the fact that I was getting up in a few hours to catch the 6
am bus back to Maracay.
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