VENEZUELA and T&T 2009

We arrived in Coro yesterday morning at 6.30 in the morning, and were greeted with a blast of hot air in the bus station - a welcome change from the icy temperature that the night buses seem to be so fond of. Coro is a small, hot city in the northwest of the country, the first capital of Venezuela and one in which the colonial roots are still very visible in the architecture. We took a taxi 'La Casa de los Pajaros' or ´the House of the Birds', a small and unique posada that is owned by an architect and is a beautiful building made up of two airy courtyards filled with plants and rooms placed around, brightly coloured wall paintings and a kitchen with a tree growing out of the floor. It also had a tortoise.

After we had showered and changed, and feeling very much like brand new human beings, we set off exploring the city intending to spend the day in a 'museum spaz'. Sadly, this did not occur as easily as we had hoped as two of the museums were undergoing refurbishment. Next to the disappointingly bare Museum of Ceramics, we found the House of Windows - an old colonial mansion that housed a collection of items preserved from a Sevillian family who moved from Spain in the nineteenth century. Our favourite room contained a tall, four poster bed that had steps to climb onto it and was surrounded by a dark red material. We did not like it as much once the bat, the latest incarnation of the house's previous owner we decided, flew at our heads... After our narrow escape from the bat, we continued our exploration of the town admiring the old mansions with their light, airy courtyards before returning to our posada to eat and discovering some incredible, trashy thriller novel on the shared bookcase, which we MUST finish before we leave tomorrow evening...

This morning, we woke up early with the prospect of a day trip around Falcon state. Our guide, who we still don´t know the name of despite spending nearly 11 hours with, drove us north to the Peninsula Paraguana into a unexpected desert area lasting about 30 kms and consisting of endless sanddunes. After spending some time wandering around on the sand and feeling slightly as though we were in Dubai rather than Venezuela, we returned to the car and continued our journey north. Our next stop was the shrine of Anima de Guasare, a small building with an inside festooned with photos of cars, families, children, houses and graduation ceremonies. Apparently, in 1912 during a period of famine and drought a family died on this spot on their journey from Punto Fijo to Coro. Now, many people visit this site to ask a favour of the spirits of the family, promising to leave a gift of a candle or a photograph of their request should this favour be granted.

Once we had left the crowded building, we drove a short way until we reached a nature reserve called Montecano that contains several species of plants found nowhere else in the world. We walked for about an hour along a trail that led us through trees strung with a plant called barba de palo, a kind of funghi or algae that creates a symbiotic relationship with the plant that it grows on. These trees gave the whole area the feeling that we were walking through the setting of a fairy tale, or an elven glade in 'Lord of the Rings'. We left the reserve and set of to Pueblo Nuevo for lunch, our guide delighting us when he not only found out the name and singer of our favourite reggaeton song, but also bought us the pirate copy of a whole CD!

From lunch, we got back in the car - not nearly as bad as the jeep from Los Llanos, especially as there were only two of us, the seats faced forwards and there was aircon... We drove for about forty-five minutes until we reached the coast and a lighthouse at the northern point of Venezuela. From here, we took the same road back a little until we stopped at the strange, pinky purple lake we had passed on the way up. The salt lake, pink from the amount of sodium in the water, is home to many flamingoes, who come here to eat the large number of shrimps that get trapped here every morning by the retreating tide. The lake is incredible - the pink water contrasted with the bright blue sky and all around the edge there were large, white salt crystals in chunks. We spent a long time attempting to take pictures of flamingoes through a pair of binoculars, but to no avail. Afterwards, we set off to the beach for a short swim before heading back to the posada.

Tomorrow, we will spend the day in Coro before getting the night bus to Caracas for our final day in Venezuela. We are both excited to see Nelson again.

Love Alice and Hannah.