April 29 to June 24, 2004
Venezuela - Margarita, Puerto La Cruz, Angel Falls, Isla Los Tortugas
April 29 to June 24, 2004
Venezuela
N 10° 57.4'
W65° 13.5'
Greetings Earthlings
While moving on is the essence of cruising, it is all too often offset by the
natural desire to linger at ports of call. At last, we were moving on. So many
things had kept us in Trini for 4 months and it was a wonderful time, but now
there was a new adventure in the air. Under a carpet of stars, we raised our
sails in the lee of Chacachacare and left Trinidad an hour before midnight for
the short hop to Margarita Island, Venezuela.
We had doused our lights and brought down our radar reflector, as we did not
wish to be seen. The finger of Venezuela that reaches out to within seven
miles of Trinidad is reportedly a lawless world, where petty piracy abounds.
Pirates in that region had recently killed two Trini fishermen in separate
incidents over a 6-day period. We thought it prudent to travel incognito and
to give the region a wide berth. Under the mainsail and genoa, we headed due
north from Trinidad for thirty miles before turning westward and running
under our spinnaker with the prevailing easterly trades. By sunset the
following day, we had set our anchor in Porlamar Bay off the island of
Margarita.
Margarita is the largest of the Venezuelan islands with the attractions of
being both duty free and a major distributor of fresh water pearls. The city
of Porlamar is stretched out along the shore of a natural bay and is framed
by mountains close behind. The bay is home to a huge pelican population that
is fun to watch but which make a messy home out of any boat left unattended
for too long. We anchored next to Duchess (Randall & Cindy with their son,
Austin (10), and daughter Randi (8)), friends from the Crew’s Inn Marina in
Trinidad who had left some time ahead of us. It is a wonderful experience
meeting old friends in new places and soon thereafter we were all having
dinner at Jak’s restaurant, a shack on the beach next to the dinghy dock.
Beers at the restaurant were just 30 cents, a fabulous dinner was between $3
and $4 per head and we learned that diesel was 15 cents per gallon. What a
country! That night, a boat in the bay was boarded and shots were fired. It
turned out to be a squalid affair between the owner of the boat and some
locals he had apparently crossed, rather than some random act of violence.
We spent four days exploring the town of Porlamar, shopping for some pearls
and visiting an old Spanish monastery, now converted to a guesthouse, on the
far side of the island. Suddenly, it was time to move on.
The run to Puerto La Cruz was an easy 10 hours under the spinnaker in about
20 knots of steady, easterly trades. The islands along the way were exotic
colors of marble and quartz and almost completely devoid of vegetation. A
large pod of dolphin cavorted with us for hours, a treat that is always an
uplifting experience. We dropped the spinnaker right outside the entrance to
Bahia Redonda Marina and motored in. The only reason we were stopping on
the mainland of Venezuela was to take a trip to the Angel Falls. So much for
plans.
The first issue you have to deal with in Venezuela is money. The Venezuelan
President, Chaves, a Castro mini-me, has set a legal exchange rate of 1,920
Bolivars to the US dollar. However, thanks to the capitalistic nature of the
Venezuelan people, there is a booming black market for US dollars. Before
even the cab drivers can mob you at the airport, you are met by people
offering to change your dollars at 2,500B’s. Local storeowners, who trust
cruisers and take personal checks that they mail to friends and relatives in
Miami, offer the best deal at 3,000B’s per dollar. Although this is a Federal
crime, Venezuelans have a philosophical approach to laws they think are silly,
and everyone “does it” quite openly.
That brings me to crime and punishment. The police, who are paid a pittance,
are quite polite and never issue tickets. Instead, cars or people not carrying
“proper” documentation give them gifts of money or food and, as you can
imagine, Yankees are expected to be the most generous. Speeding on the
inland waterway in our dinghy cost me a gift of 50,000B’s, which I thought
was outrageous in a country where a can of beer costs just 500B’s at the local
deli. Actual crime outside the political arena does not appear to interest the
police or the coast guard and personal safety seems to be left to common
sense, private security firms and high fences.
The driving habits of Venezuelans are, at best, curious and, at worst, quite
terrifying. Red lights are nothing but an invitation to be aware that other
cars might be approaching on a collision course. In fact, I do not believe any
traffic laws are observed. It is a study of anarchy in progress, and it works
in it’s own way. You do arrive at your destination, although the time taken
depends on the nerve, inventiveness and skill of your driver. Best of all,
nobody ever gets mad, or not that I have seen. At first, we were quite
concerned as the cabs we were in rushed through red lights at high speeds.
Where traffic was thicker, everyone slowed down and took turns merging, as
if the traffic light simply didn’t work, which often is the case. After a while,
you begin to discern a method in the madness and travel by car becomes
bearable, but it is always an experience where you contemplate your own
mortality.
The Angel falls are deep in the jungles of Venezuela’s interior and are not
easily reached. We left the marina in two small Kias, accompanied by a
German couple off another boat and a local driver for each car. We drove
for four hours through a dusty, barren countryside to the small city of
Bolivar on the Orinoco River (the home of the Arawak Indians - the first
people to settle the islands of the Caribbean). Every so often, one has to slow
down to pass through a police checkpoint. Once, when the car the Germans
and I were traveling in had managed to become separated from the other car
carrying Carol and the kids, they were asked to stop at a checkpoint.
Unfortunately, I had all their passports with me and we learned the hard way
that this was a mistake. With the help of the Venezuelan driver, who spoke
very little English, the police, encouraged by a gift of 20,000B’s, allowed
them to pass. We have since learned to carry laminated color copies of our
passports at all times.
We checked into a “5 star” hotel and were met by a tour guide who drove us
around the city explaining its historical significance in the country’s struggle
for independence. The town is full of beautiful old Spanish buildings and
images of Simon Bolivar, a five foot dynamo, who wrested from the Spanish
the independence of not just Venezuela, but also Columbia, Bolivia and a
couple of other countries that escape me right now. Back in our room at the
hotel, the bracket holding the TV “high” on the wall carved a slice in my scalp
and I thought hungrily of how much I might have sued an American hotel for
such an indignity.
At 7:00 the next morning we crammed into a 6 seated (the Germans flew
separately), single engine Cessna with a quietly spoken, confidence inspiring
pilot for the 2 hour flight to “base camp”. In the parking lot of the airport,
there is permanently on display the plane that, in 1935, American adventurer
Jimmy Angel crash-landed on a mesa in the jungle, from where he discovered
the falls that were named after him. The plane is a single engine custom job
made of corrugated iron sheets over an aluminum frame. I am sure it was high-
tech in its day, but you have to admire the nerve of guys like Jimmy Angel.
Our flight was uneventful and, for those who know me well, you will be
surprised to learn that, sitting in the co-pilot’s seat, I hardly slept at all.
Slowly, the terrain changed from dust bowl, to grasslands to jungle. For an
hour we circled over the falls waiting for a break in the clouds that had
rushed in to greet us. It never came and we touched down at close to 10 a.m.
Reunited with the Germans, the seven of us took off in a 25-foot dugout canoe
powered by a 40hp Yamaha outboard and a crew of three. This was an
amazing craft. Rough-hewn out of a single tree, its sides had been increased
about 8 inches and it was reinforced with thick, hardwood ribs. With the
exception of one 20-minute portage early on, we spent the next 5 hours
zooming up the river even deeper into the wilderness. The river is so filled
with tannins from the forest that it has the clear, golden look of tea.
At last we pulled into a tiny creek and began hiking into the forest. It
started raining but, at this stage, nothing could dampen our excitement. The
hike was not easy, but after little over an hour we found ourselves on a
narrow ledge, a few hundred feet above the forest floor, looking across a
narrow gorge at the highest falls in the world. As the water falls from the
top, its velocity causes it to dissipate into mist. Three thousand, two hundred
and twelve feet below, at the bottom of the falls, all I could see was mist.
This quickly reestablishes itself as water and continues on its way to the sea.
Since the earliest memories of my life, pictures and stories of the Angel Falls
had fascinated me. To be standing there actually looking at the falls,
together with Carol and our children, was a great and moving experience for
me. This was an adventure that none of us will soon forget.
As daylight began to fade, we headed back down to the dugout on the river. I
brought up the rear with Richard and we managed to lose the trail for a
while. Of course, I never panicked, outwardly, that is, and after a while we
retraced our steps and found where we had made our mistake. It was just
another reminder that, in most of the world outside of America, where
litigation does not protect the uninformed, stupid mistakes are your own
responsibility. Back in the boat we moved just a few hundred yards
downstream to our camp for the night. We bathed in the river, ate chicken
cooked over an open fire, and slept in hammocks in an open sided shelter with
concrete floors. The trick is to position yourself diagonally across the
hammock so as to allow yourself a straight back. Nonetheless, we can all
attest to the fact that it takes more than one night to become accustomed to
sleeping for long periods in a hammock.
Early the next morning we headed back down to base camp, stopping at
another set of falls where we walked along a path in the cliff face behind the
falls to a swimming hole on the far side. The roar of the falls and the high
winds they created in the space between them and the cliff was exhilarating.
By nightfall we were back aboard Safari, happy to be in our comfy beds and
content with our adventure.
Duchess had arrived in Puerto La Cruz the day after we had and was staying
at Maremares, a beautiful resort marina that we had been unable to get into.
After our return from Angel Falls, the marina found space for us and we
decided to move there for a few days to say goodbye to our Duchess friends.
Together with the American crew of Sea Jays (Jack & Jackie and their boys
Tyler (13) & Austin (10)) who we had met at Bahia Redonda, Duchess and us
went off for 4 days to Vista Montana, the Venezuelan version of a cross
between a dude ranch and a guesthouse. Located in the mountains above
Puerto La Cruz, it was very relaxing. We ate lunch at a restaurant on the
side of a mountain with chickens in the yard and great views of the ocean. We
visited some of the local ceramic entrepreneurs and chatted with the locals
who lived in shacks and had so little but were always quick to offer you what
little they had. The kids went horse riding and played with one of the local
wild monkeys that had become semi-tame. This monkey also had a great
relationship with one of the dogs on the property and it was fun to watch
them play. We all went off to a swimming hole at the base of a small
waterfall in the jungle. Suddenly, it started to rain like crazy and we took
shelter in a cave behind the falls until we noticed that the sound of the falls
had increased from a gentle spray to a raging torrent. We scrambled up to
our SUV, a Toyota Land Cruiser, and headed back to the ranch. The road, cut
into the steep mountainsides, had been washed away in places and, in others,
was strewn with boulders washed down the mountain. We were all quite
relieved to get back to the ranch, but there’s nothing like a little excitement.
Back at Maremares marina, we decided to stay a few more days to say hello
and then goodbye to Windhorse (Americans John & Amy with Lucy (13) and
Jack (11)) who we had met in Trinidad and who were about to arrive in
Maremares. Our original plans never included much time in South America,
but our brief stop in Brazil and our time in Venezuela had piqued our interest
and so we decided, what the heck, let’s not rush off to the canal in June when
there is so much to see in this part of the world. Instead, let’s just add a
year to the trip and go through the canal in January with the added benefit
of having twice as much time in the South Pacific islands before arriving in
New Zealand by the end of November for the South Pacific hurricane
season.
The Maremares resort includes a massive pool and a fitness center with a spa,
a gym with spin classes, and racquetball courts. I bought a couple of racquets
and introduced Richard and Andrew to the game. It’s a great workout and fun
to boot. We also play doubles against some lower league players who show up
on a regular basis. The spin classes are a hell of a workout and the
Venezuelans are wonderful people. What’s not to like?
Next, we heard that Paul and Judy Konowitch, our dear friends from New
York, were going to be at the Ritz Carlton in South Beach, Miami for four
days to celebrate Paul’s 50th. Carol and I decided to leave the kids on the
boat and join them as we have shared all the important milestones of each
other’s lives for the last 25 years. We surprised them in the lobby of the
hotel and I gained at least 10 pounds in the next 4 days. It was a happy time
for all of us and we were reminded of what a great and plentiful land America
is.
Then Molly Minchew, Lauren’s friend from Mountain Lakes arrived in Caracas
to join us for a month. We have known Molly since she was a baby, and it was
a happy surprise to see how much she has grown and blossomed since we last
saw her. Already, Molly has been to the top of the mast in the boson’s chair
and she will return home with a few salty tales to tell.
Today is the first anniversary of the day we left America. It has been an
amazing year and words cannot describe the great joy that comes from
spending so much time in such cramped quarters with the most important
people in my life, living the dream of a lifetime. The meaningfulness of our
time together is especially heightened knowing that, in just a couple of years,
Andrew will be on his way to college and our compact unit will start to evolve
into something different. This opportunity will never present itself again.
We are anchored at Cayo Herradura off Isla La Tortuga, 60 miles from
Puerto La Cruz. It is a beautiful place with just a few seasonal fishing
camps. The reefs are spectacular, the life is simple (I am sure Molly thinks
we’re crazy), and the adventure continues.
