Santa Fé - Cumaná

We spent a second day on the beach at Santa Fé, me still chasing herons and constructing defensive fortifications and getting confused by the local vernacular (see how Katherine has turned me into a figure of fun? See? :-).

Santa Fé is, once you get through the slums around the main road, essentially a cute little village built right on the beach. Houses open straight out onto the sand, or even straight into the sea, and you often have to wade through water to get from building to building. The hotel and posada owners have a co-operative that pays to clean and light the beach, so it's much more pleasant than Puerto La Cruz. The only problem is the discernible tension between the 'ordinary' Venezuelans and those who make money off us tourists.

We left Santa Fé this morning and took a por puesto further eastwards to Cumaná, the thriving capital of Sucre state. We'll stay here for a day or two, and then, if all goes well, catch a ferry to Isla Margarita, Venezuela's most important Caribbean island.

I feel Katherine missed an opportunity to have a laugh at the expense of the Swiss. Señora Rita, bless her, was very, very Swiss. "Can we have the key?" I asked. "No, you will surely lose it." "No we won't." "Are you sure? Lots of people have lost it..." "We promise, we're very careful..." etc. Our room was, of course, spotlessly clean; their garden immaculate. They even had a little stone with a bouquet of little Swiss flowers painted on it by the front gate.

Anyway, you might hear from us again before we leave Cumaná, if not it'll probably be from Margarita. After that we're heading back to Caracas ready for our flight out on 6th to Quito, Ecuador.