,

VENEZUELA JULY TO SEPTEMBER 2006

Bahia Redonda, Puerto La Cruz We spent the first week settling in, talking to other cruisers who know the area and getting to know the marina's facilities and the surrounding area. As I mentioned in the previous log we had been warned this is bandit country so we decided to do our homework. Apparently Puerto La Cruz is the richest city in Venezuela and the marina development with waterside houses and boat slips attests to that. The marina development (which is really multiple marinas and is huge) is surrounded by a security fence with many security guards. The immediate surrounds range from low quality housing to shacks - not places to walk through, particularly at night. Thus we generally take taxis or the marina's free shopping bus. There are a couple of exceptions to the no-walking rule. If we turn left straight out of the marina there are some small, very basic, restaurants alongside the beach that sell fish or chicken, rice, chips and coleslaw. The food is excellent and very cheap. The restaurant we use has only a tiny kitchen so you need to be patient but given the price of beer it's not too onerous. The only difficulty is that they leave the empty bottles on the table so they know how many you've had when it's time to pay, sometimes it's difficult to find room for the food plates (Mike reckons it's just that the tables are too small). Further along the road is a fish, fruit and vegetable market and when we walk there we go mob handed. Both restaurants and market are alongside the barrio (slum) and we don't go there at night - one night three people were shot at the restaurant we use but it does seem that most crimes are organised hits (criminal on criminal), often drug related. The first time we went by taxi on a major shopping spree, visiting various stores around the city, we were amazed when Raúl (our driver) recommended places to get things, came into every store with us, called over sales assistants and generally acted as our minder. He even queued for us at a place that produces laminated copies of passports (that we need to carry at all times), all for under four UK Pounds per hour. Prices are not quite as cheap as Margarita but still breathtakingly cheap compared to the UK - UK Pounds 2.50 for a lady's haircut; 2.5 UK Pence for a litre of petrol (yes, that's pence); UKP 1.80 for a pound of large fresh prawns. We can also make our money go further by using (shall we say) entrepreneurs who give 2,500 Bolivars for one US Dollar versus the official bank exchange rate of 2,150 Bolivars. July 4th - American Independence Day A major party was held at the marina restaurant - we knew it would be good when the restaurant manager (a lady) was first up dancing on the tables! Some Americans were surprised we attended but Mike likes to point out that 'if it hadn't been for us Brits giving them independence they wouldn't be having a party'. Mike also enjoys telling them that when we gave up America we were slightly distracted because we happened to be fighting the Dutch, the Spanish and the French at the time. He should be in the diplomatic corps. The highlight of the party was one of the attendees, a Venezuelan lady, Ana, who we used to handle our local customs clearance (if you try to do it yourself it will take a lifetime) but her hobby is teaching Salsa. When she started to dance with her partner the dance floor cleared and everybody watched, they were fantastic. We've never seen Salsa before and it's a subtly sexy dance form without being in any way vulgar. It was beautiful to watch and we were spellbound. July 11h - trip out to Cumana and Mochima We hired Raúl for the day and he took us to visit Cumana, the oldest surviving city in South America. Unfortunately not much of the old city remains because it is sited on a fault line and it has been mostly flattened by three major earthquakes. The old houses that do survive (one is open to the public) take you straight back to old Spain and it's lovely architecture. We also visited Castillo de San Antonio de la Eminencia, a castle built between 1660 and 1669, and finished just in time to repulse the pirate Henry Morgan who happened to be passing by on his way from sacking Maracaibo. The guide at the castle took us down to the prison cells that are normally locked. One corner of the cell was blocked off for death penalty offenders - they were thrown in the cell, not given any food or water and only removed when dead. Up to three at a time were accomodated. The amazing thing was the normal prisoners were kept in perpetual darkness, the death cell inmates had a small window and could call out for food and water - presumably the jailors thought thy would suffer more that way. The main reason for the visit to Cumana was to see cigars being made by hand. This was fascinating and, in the humidor room where the leaves are given the right amount of moisture for rolling, very smelly. The workers were rolling cigars to different sizes, different strengths, different shapes and different quality. Each cigar has to be perfectly cylindrical and of a certain weight plus or minus one gramme. It is an extremely skilled job and one person can manage no more than one hundred and forty cigars per day, for a payment of UK Pounds 150 per month. On the way back we detoured to Mochima a small town that lies at the head of a fjord-like inlet. Mochima is a national park and is very pretty with hills and cliffs made of red rock - even the beaches are red! Suffice to say we had a splendid fish and prawn lunch in a little restaurant overlooking the bay - not that we could see anything initially because there was a huge thunder storm and the rain totally blocked the view. July 14th- Bastille day Another party and Mike had another reason to attend. In this instance it was 'if it wasn't for us Brits they wouldn't be celebrating Bastille day, they'd be speaking German'. I think there's a pattern developing here. The party wasn't as riotous as the American party, the French don't seem to dance as much. The funniest thing was when an English speaking cruiser asked a Spanish speaking waiter foe a rum and Coke - she got a big glass of neat rum and a big glass of Coke. We had a great French meal albeit having a first course of pastis and popcorn was rather odd. I have to say that the French cruisers here are very nice and friendly, (I guess the 'thieving French' have gone back to Europe - we know some of them have because they alledgedly stole a fifty four foot racing yacht from the US Virgin islands some months ago.) All in all it was a good bash with quite a few kids around, lots of red white and blue balloons and a French cruiser who bought us a bottle of red wine. You can't ask for more really. July 28th - Christmas party Yes, Christmas in July. The reason for the party was to raise money for a Christmas party for the kids in the barrio (the local slum area) - the cruisers here host a party at the marina for the poorest kids. The party was the best so far. There was a surprise present swap where the person getting a present from under the tree could 'steal' one of the earlier presents or get one from the tree. Needless to say anyone who showed the vaguest liking for their present had it 'stolen' - it was extremely funny. The meal was the traditional Venezuelan Christmas meal, Ayacas - corn meal, minced beef, olives, spices, and raisins all wrapped in a banana leaf and steamed. We took along a couple of Christmas crackers for the Dutch kids on Orion. It was amazing that neither the Dutch nor the Americans had ever seen crackers before, so they had no idea what to do with them. We knew it was time to leave when they put the shutters up at the restaurant bar and turned off the Christmas music and lights. If they hadn't done so the party would have gone on all night, as it was there were lots of people weaving their way back to their boats. Nearly the marine industy's finest hour? Regular readers will have noticed that we are not exactly fans of the marine industries and the poorly designed, badly engineered products most of them produce. So here's some toilet speak. The largest manufacturer of marine toilets is Jabsco. It is necessary to strip down and clean the toilet every year otherwise it clogs up. The pump assembly consists of plastic fittings held together by twelve self tapping screws. The monkey who tests these things has already worked out that each time you screw a self tapping screw into plastic it eats the plastic away until the screw won't hold tight and the pump leaks. The situation is exacerbated by a top rubber gasket that is so thin that any slight distortion in the assembly also causes the pump to leak. The solution is to slightly increase the size of the gasket and replace the screws with bolts - total manufacturing cost perhaps 2 UKP, on a retail pump price of c. 150 UKP. Interestingly they have redesigned the pump but it still uses self tapping screws - idiots. When we bought our Avon dinghy we made absolutely certain that the construction material was Hypalon - dinghies used to be made of PVC which degrades (goes sticky and fails) when exposed to UV, Hypalon has high UV resistance. It was with some surprise then that we noticed our dinghy's inflatable floor was becoming sticky and we mentioned it to another cruiser, who happened to have had the same problem. We discovered that the dinghy's floor is made of PVC although this was not mentioned in any of the company's literature or by the salesman at the London Boat Show. The company calls the floor an accessory because you can choose between a wooden floor or an inflatable floor, and accessories have only a two year guarantee. It's an interesting concept that a floor can be an accessory and it looked to be a weasel way of avoiding accountability. To Avon's credit they have agreed to replace our floor free of charge and we will now cover it with Sunbrella fabric. While on this subject we must mention the goons at Plastimo, a large and well known marine industry player. One day I touched our Plastimo clock and the glass fell out! Marine engineering at its finest. Security - laugh or cry? Some of the security we come across in Venezuela is so bizarre we have to be careful not to laugh and some of it is just plain sad. For example: - when Jane bought a new phone Sim card in Margarita she had to give her thumb prints. - even the poorest wood and corrugated iron shacks have bars protecting their doors and windows. - when using an ATM you have to put in your last two passport numbers (meaningless because they don't link to the UK passport database). - on entering one bank we had to go into a 'revolving' one person entrance which also turned out to have a metal detection facility. So it was back out to empty pockets of change, put it in a locked wall safe, then back into the 'revolving' entrance. - one of the marina security guards carries a pistol grip 410 bore shotgun in a holster hung from the waist. The barrel is so long that in the time he'd take to draw it he'd be dead. One of the supermarket security guards has a pistol grip 12 bore with an even longer barrel. - when we pay at the supermarket we have to show our passports, understandable for credit cards but we also have to show them when we pay cash. The locals have to show their ID cards - we have no idea why. Trip to the interior: August 20th to 25th Venezuela is nearly four times the size of the UK, with considerably less than half the population. In the north east lies the Orinoco delta, one of the largest river basins in the world. In the south east are the Tepuis, flat topped sandstone mountains with sheer vertical walls, surrounded by tropical rain forest - the inspiration for HG Wells's 'Lost World'. The centre of the country is grass and wetlands (Los Llanos) leading to farmland and the Andes on the west side of the country. It is best to visit: the Orinoco and Tepuis area in the rainy season when the rivers are full and the waterfalls are spectacular; Los Llanos during dry season (January to March) because all the animals (including Anacondas) come to the remaining water holes; and the Andes at any time. The indigenous population are descendents of Carib Indians, driven from the Caribbean islands by white settlers. There are seventy Indian tribes, consisting of two hundred and fifty thousand people, speaking at least three different languages (that's languages, not dialects), living mainly in the remotest areas. The Venezuelans look down on the Indians as being poor and uneducated (sad but no surprise there) and the Indians look down on everybody who can't live off the rain forest (which is just about everybody, including us). Since August is in the rainy season and we wanted to meet the Warao Indians (Warao means "people from the canoe") we arranged a trip to the Orinoco and the Tepuis. These areas are so vast and inaccessible that Venezuela has not yet been fully explored. We left the marina at 05.30 on Sunday 20th for a five hour drive (over 200 miles) to a small landing place on the Orinoco near Temblador. The scale of Venezuela was brought home to us when in one fifty mile stretch we overtook just one car and saw only two going in the opposite direction. The scenery was initially scrub, then scrub and cacti, then wet lands (we were on the east side of Los Llanos), then grasslands. The scrub and grasslands stretched as far as the horizon, with each grassland field bigger than most UK farms. The only things occasionally breaking the vista were commercially planted pine forests, some containing a million or more trees. The only other commercial activities were the herds of cattle, sheep, goats, horses and the odd group of water buffaloes. Hazards on the road included huge potholes, vultures eating carrion, and cattle and Burros (mules) wandering about. At the landing stage we were met by David (a Venezuelan) our main guide for the next two days and a Warao Indian who drove the boat. As we were to find out, all the boats are driven by Indians, anybody who hasn't been brought up on the river would get lost within the hour. The boat trip took about fifty minutes (25 miles) heading down river to the Orinoco Lodge where we stayed two nights. The lower reaches of the river are tidal with the fresh water being pushed back and forth by the tide. Floating on the water are water hyacinths, some in huge clumps that can clog the boat's propellor. Our accomodation was a raised floor, thatched roof and mosquito netting walls, with two beds, shower and toilet. After we unpacked and had lunch we headed to a small Warao Indian settlement with four houses - all the Indians we met live off the rain forest and river although they do have a few handicrafts to sell. It was at this point we realised that it would be difficult to get to know the Indians because we can't speak their language and many of them don't speak Spanish - it is also good etiquette to ask permission to come ashore. The pictures will show the Warao houses far better than I can describe them but they are basically a raised wooden floor and thatched roof with no walls or furniture, hammocks are put up at night. Living off the forest was immediately apparent when we saw a young girl preparing (drop briefly in boiling water, then scrape the fur off) an Agouti, which looks like an overgrown Coypu. Generally we found the Indians to be either shy or reserved, or maybe they just don't really want us around but something happened that gave us an insight into what they can be like (perhaps if you can gain their respect). When we arrived at the settlement Mike jumped off the boat and tied it to a rickety wooden pier. Our Warao driver watched him tie the knot with great interest. He was obviously impressed because he mentioned it to David, our guide, who mentioned it to Mike. Mike then showed David how to tie a bowline which, for some reason, highly amused our driver. Later, when we stopped the engine and drifted to watch the sun go down our driver came up and showed he too could tie a bowline. Mike then tied another type of knot, then our driver tied another one and so on (one of the Warao knots was very complex and we hadn't seen it before, we were seriously impressed). Our driver was now having fun and although he and Mike couldn't talk to each other they were behaving like kids with a common interest. Later that night we hoped that our driver had gone home and told everyone that "maybe those gringos aren't quite as stupid as we think, at least one of them can tie knots". At dinner the first night we had a surprise when a Tapir came charging into the restaurant, apparently it knows when mealtime is and will eat absolutely anything in vast quantities (it's a seriously big animal). Also, somebody found a small scorpion which Mike allowed to run up his arm - at one stage he thought it had gone up his sleeve but it had just disappeared round the back of his arm. The following morning the jungle came alive with the dawn chorus and birds we didn't recognise (we don't have a Venezuela bird book) were flying everywhere. I slept through the loudest part which Mike couldn't believe because there was a kestrel squawking on a branch not ten feet from my head. On our second day we stopped briefly at the place we visited the day before to look at a dugout canoe they were building. They cut out the log but leave a fairly narrow opening at the top. Then they set fire to the inside and the top opens out - quite amazing. We then headed over fifty miles downstream to pick up a Warao to act as a forest guide. His house (see picture) was literally in the middle of nowhere so no school for the kids, no healthcare etc. In residence were his wife, his son or daughter and their spouse, four kids and a baby, three parrots, a cat, a dog and a pig. We went back up the river a mile or so and turned off into a tributary where we saw a flock of Birds of Paradise. We then stopped by a 'False Coconut' tree. The fruits do look similar to coconuts but inside are seeds and a sweet fleshy fruit. Before the tree flowers there are long pods hanging down and if you nip the end off and hold the pod up a most amazing flower appears (see picture). We then stopped at the riverbank, donned wellies and climbed through the mud into the jungle. Our guide showed us: the bark they use for treating fever; the bark for smallpox; the type of palm used for roofing and how to lay it; the type of vine used for binding the palm; the type of vine used for crab pots; how to slice off a piece of ant nest that you then rub your hand over and put on your body to repel mosquitos; the type of liana that holds drinking water (just cut it and hold to mouth); a type of nut that also holds drinking water that is slightly bitter; a fibre net that encases an inedible fruit but the covering is used both as a net and to make fire; the palm used to make canoe paddles; the palm that Palm Hearts come from. To get the palm heart means chopping down the tree and it was interesting that after we ate the heart he planted a cutting to replace the tree - but this was not a cutting as we know it, it was five feet long and ten inches in diameter! You might think that we walked for hours to find those things but they were all within fifty yards of each other. It was almost as if every other plant has a use. Apparently the Warao can live off four types of palm tree plus a bit of fishing and hunting. The palm tree that they make most use of they call the Tree of Life. To the Warao the forest is obviously Tesco, B & Q and Boots rolled into one without the checkouts. Then it was back to the Warao's house for lunch and a visit to their 'rather interesting' toilet - you really don't want to know. Fortunately lunch was provided by the Lodge so Agouti wasn't on the menu. In the afternoon we stoppped at a large Warao village (one of only three) of some one hundred plus houses. We weren't sure we would be allowed to land because a lady had died in childbirth the day before and the village was in mourning. They very kindly gave us permission to land and we walked around and found they had electricity for part of the day, supplied by generators donated by the government. Given that all the houses were the same design as those in the forest, spaced about eight feet apart, it was odd to see the occasional refrigerator. In the village was a huge building around ten times the size of a house and we asked what it was for. Apparently it is the church, the Warao are Protestant, but there were no religous symbols visible. We found the village very interesting because it showed that some Warao want to move into more modern times but some don't and they want to stay in the forest. Whatever route they all choose we wish them well, they are a quite extraordinary race. On the way back to the Lodge we stopped for a spot of fishing - Mike caught a Pirahna. David showed us its vicious teeth and that it will bite anything put in its mouth - seeing it take chunks out of a leaf sends shivers down your spine. It was with great sadness that we left at 08.00 the next day for the trip back up river. There we met a car that took us 150 miles to Ciudad Bolivar where we had lunch before having a lazy afternoon watching monkeys and a Toucan. That night we spent in basic accomodation again before boarding a Cessna 206 at 07.45 for a one hour, 120 mile flight, to Canaima. It was at the camp that we met our travelling companions for the trip into Tepuis country. There were three English girls, an Irish man and girl, two German men and one girl, an Italian man and girl and a Swiss man - they were fantastic company over the next two days and we were very lucky to meet and spend time talking with them. Canaima and the surrounding area has been a national park since 1962 and covers seven and a half million acres of rain forest and vertical faced mountains. The park is stunningly pretty but it also has an air of mystery, almost menace, with the hidden, inaccessible mountain tops. We set off up river at 10.30 our objective being a camp oppoosite the highest waterfall in the world, Angel Falls. The Falls were only discovered in 1937 and the discovery was made by Jimmy Angel, an American pilot who was flying round the area. We had been warned that the ride up the river would be wet so we had changed into swimming costumes and wet weather jackets. After twenty minutes we had to leave the wooden canoe and walk for thirty minutes round some rapids while our driver and guide, both Kamaracotos Indians, worked the canoe up the rapids. Then it was a straight run to Angel Falls with a 45HP engine, on a heavy wooden canoe, with thirteen people on board fighting a current of five knots or more. The first half of the trip was fairly smooth but then we hit rapids and there was water flying everywhere, needing regular bailing. The views were spectacular as we passed different sized Tepuis and we stopped for lunch at a small (by Venezuelan standards) waterfall where we were attacked by a swarm of what appeared to be biting flies - we didn't hang around too long. We arrived at the camp around 15.30 after a five hour trip covering around 25 miles up the rivers Carrao and Churun. This camp was really basic with one open plan sand floor, a thatched roof and hammocks strung up only a few feet apart. For some reason there was no water in the toilets or basins most of the time so washing was done in the river which is an amazing red/brown colour from the Tannin in the trees. Dinner was chicken that our guide prepared and cooked over an open fire. The bad news about the camp was that there was no alcohol available but being the self-sufficient people we are we opened the rum we had brought along in a small plastic bottle. This could be the reason I had to go to the loo in the middle of the night and the reason for what happened next. Neither Mike nor I had slept in a hammock before and when I got back in my hammock it swung one way and bashed into one of the Irish girls and then swung the other way and bashed into Mike. I think I set about twenty hammocks in motion. Thank goodness it was dark so noone could see my red face! The following morning there was a serious hike/climb through the jungle to reach an area near the base of the Falls. The problem with living on a boat is that while we have good upper body strength we don't walk much, so it was a touch of grit your teeth, ignore the muscle pains and get on with it. We were also the oldest members of our group by a reasonable amount - but we got there! It was a pain/gain scenario because the view of the falls from the bottom was awesome. The water drops straight down over three thousand feet and you can see it breaking up into the fine spray that hits the bottom. There is so much energy released that the water creates a wind down the valley, typically five to ten knots but gusting over fifteen - so you get wet again. In fact we spent the best part of two full days wet and only dried off to go to bed. We left the camp at around 13.30 for the return trip to Canaima, getting soaked yet again and spent a pleasant night at a camp in Canaima, we had to get the rum out again. We also had an interesting foray to buy a few beers - in torrential rain - the 'shop' was a lady's house which we eventually found (no signs of course) outside which said lady plus friend and daughter were playing bingo under an awning. The following morning it was up early for breakfast and a short boat ride and twenty minute walk (with aching legs) to the Sapo waterfall. This fall is about fifty feet high and five hundred feet wide and we walked, having stripped to swimming costumes, underneath it!! The noise, the spray and the wind were phenomenal, so bad that the German girl (wearing contact lenses) was temporarily blinded and given the dangerous position she was in Mike had to help her through. In the early part we also had a tourist helicopter flying with rotor tips about ten feet from the falls adding to the mayhem. Then it was back to camp for an early lunch and then a short walk to the airport to fly back to Cuidad Bolivar - what we hadn't counted on was a pilot who thought he was Biggles-on-speed. When we took off we flew low past Sapito falls that we had just walked under, which was a major surprise and then instead of climbing away he flew down the winding river just above tree top height. We couldn't believe it. He then proceeded to climb out alongside a Tepuis so we had a big drop-off on our starboard wing and a mountain not far off our port wing. And he wasn't finished yet!! When we got to six thousand feet he turned round and with hand signals asked if we wanted to go up and down a bit. We all said yes and the next moment we're in a power dive pulling (Mike reckons) about 2g when he pulled the nose up, then we went up and over the top pulling about 1.5 negative g, lifting us out of our seats. Then he did it again! I've never pulled negative g before so it was quite an experience and Mike, of course, was in his element (having flown aerobatics and done quite a few jumps from this type of plane). At Cuidad Bolivar we were picked up by another driver to take us back to Puerto La Cruz, there was some serious rain and road flooding so it was a slow trip (although watching a DVD of pop videos from the 60s and 70s on the car screen (!) helped pass the time) arriving around 19.15, having taken four hours instead of the expected three. We were pretty tired by then as we'd been on the move for the best part of six days but we had a fantastic time and saw some truly amazing things. Odds and ends - World news. Sometimes we go weeks without seeing or hearing any news but since we've been in Venezuela we've had an always-on Net connection, so we've been able check the BBC Web site. The news has been: more killed in Iraq; more killed in Afghanistan; Arabs and Israelis at each others throats; more killed/starve in Africa; Bush slams North Korea, Iran and Syria; Blair is not wholly truthful. In other words absolutely nothing has changed since we left the UK - sad or what, Mike reckons the world's politicians and religious leaders should be given a good kicking (well, that's not quite what he said). Anyway our eyes lit up when we saw that a Commons Select Committee had submitted a report on the NHS - that sounded good, progress at last. Then we read it was all about hospital parking and phone charges. Oh well. - Making lfe easier. We are always looking to make life easier when we are sailing. Sometimes we come across improvements by accident and one thing that slightly bugged us was water bottles that roll around the cockpit even if you jam them in a corner. Then we discoverd Vittel - it comes in square bottles! - Arctic temperatures. We decided to replace our air conditioning unit, we bought it second hand in Trinidad and it was playing up. We gave it to a kids charity that repairs and sells them. The new unit is more powerful but it takes time to cool the boat (which is sitting in a water temperature of 80 degrees F and air temperature up to 93 degrees F). Mike fitted the new unit late afternoon and we turned it to maximum fan at the coldest setting. We went out that evening and when we came back the temperature in the boat was perfect. During the night we began to feel cold and Mike got a blanket out, it's not often we see a blanket. When we got up in the morning I think the boat was colder than our fridge, we couldn't even stand on the wooden floor for more than a few minutes - we had to get the moon boots and fleeces out!! We started to warm the boat up but I was still wearing my fleece in the early afternoon! - Restricted white crystals. For some obscure reason sugar is often rationed in Venezuela to two bags per checkout receipt. Considering the idiots at the EU stuffed many Caribbean economies when they stopped subsidising Caribbean sugar and the Caribbean islands are awash with sugar we can't quite understand the shortage in Venezuela. So there we were with a policewoman (in uniform) in front of us in the supermarket queue, she looked into our basket, saw we had no sugar and asked us to buy two packets for her (she already had two). It's the first time we've been asked to do something 'illegal' by the police. She gave us some money and Mike surreptitiously slipped her the sugar and her change outside the supermarket, the onlookers were obviously intrigued seeing a package and cash passed to a police officer... - Financial matters. Mike generally takes an interest in the economies of countries we visit and he'd like you to know that Venezuela's current account shows a $25,360,000,000 SURPLUS. OK...I didn't think that would be of much interest. Makes you proud to be British though knowing that the UK's current account shows a $57,610,000,000 DEFICIT, that really shows President Chavez how to run a country. - Well it made us laugh when we saw it again. When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ballpoint pens would not work in zero gravity. To combat this problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and many millions of dollars developing a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to over 300C. The Russians used a pencil. Trip to UK I spent three weeks in the UK from mid September to early October - most of the time taken up with helping my mother move house. I did manage some time (albeit short) with Mike's parents and Angela, his sister, also a day at the Boat Show catching up with Dan and the LateSail crew and as a family we had a lunch in Essex where I caught up with aunts, uncles and some of my cousins - great fun. Unfortunately I didn't have the time to get to see anyone in London - hopefully next time. Where next? One of the problems of planning where to go is that there is so much choice - you could spend years just cruising in Venezuela and still not see it all. Originally we were thinking of continuing west, via the Venezuela out-islands (reputed to be the prettiest in the Caribbean), to the ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao). However the islands are best seen in lighter winds and we're coming to the windy season. Therefore we're thinking of heading east (upwind, upcurrent, nightmare), ultimately to visit the Trinidad carnival. Then head west again, stopping on mainland Venezuela so we can visit the Andes and possibly Peru. As usual all plans are written in the sand at low tide.