Feb. 22 Day 7
After a good night's sleep I got up at 6 and so went to the beach alone. It was very overcast so I couldn't see the morning sky but the waves were large and crashing nicely. The skittering crabs that Meg and Wendy mentioned were nowhere to be seen and I only shared the beach with one other person, a worker at the hotel who was raking the sand in the restaurant area. when I gave him a "buenos dies" he just grunted and looked at his watch, too early for tourists I guess.
Back at our beautiful lodge, we had breakfast and then piled into a bus for a short ride to our trailhead. We had to go through a few army checkpoint because we were only a few hours away from Venezuela and apparently this area had more traffickers than others.
We had an easy but sweaty walk through the rainforest of Tayronaka Park, seeing large golden orb spiders, some toucans and some howler monkeys along the well-groomed trail. The trail ended at a stream and we hopped into tubes and rode them down the river to our next stop. Two guys from the tube company swam along with us and pushed the tubes away from hazards so that we didn't get beached or get our butts bumped by rocks. Extremely pleasant and cooling after a hot hike.
We stopped at a centre with a small museum of artifacts of the indigenous civilizations that were here before the Spaniards, with pots, gold work, weapons and such. Our guide then took us to a hut and told us about how the first nations used coca leaves, some of their practices and religion and where they were located. We had a new group member who had left her seniors tour and joined ours. Guide eventually came and took her back and Meg speculated that it was more dementia than motivation that caused her to join us.
We had a 20 minute walk to lunch, which was an excellent pumpkin soup followed by red snapper. As we ate we saw some big iguanas up in a tree munching on leaves and some howler monkeys scurry by. We had one more stop on the way back at a local stall with indigenous weavings, which Meg was taken with an picked up a small (water-bottle sized) shoulder bag.
Back at our villa I had a swim and everyone relaxed in their own way in this luxurious place. Reading in the hammock, sipping beer, having a nice dinner with our group and playing chess in the Villa Margarita. Sweet.
After a good night's sleep I got up at 6 and so went to the beach alone. It was very overcast so I couldn't see the morning sky but the waves were large and crashing nicely. The skittering crabs that Meg and Wendy mentioned were nowhere to be seen and I only shared the beach with one other person, a worker at the hotel who was raking the sand in the restaurant area. when I gave him a "buenos dies" he just grunted and looked at his watch, too early for tourists I guess.
Back at our beautiful lodge, we had breakfast and then piled into a bus for a short ride to our trailhead. We had to go through a few army checkpoint because we were only a few hours away from Venezuela and apparently this area had more traffickers than others.
We had an easy but sweaty walk through the rainforest of Tayronaka Park, seeing large golden orb spiders, some toucans and some howler monkeys along the well-groomed trail. The trail ended at a stream and we hopped into tubes and rode them down the river to our next stop. Two guys from the tube company swam along with us and pushed the tubes away from hazards so that we didn't get beached or get our butts bumped by rocks. Extremely pleasant and cooling after a hot hike.
We stopped at a centre with a small museum of artifacts of the indigenous civilizations that were here before the Spaniards, with pots, gold work, weapons and such. Our guide then took us to a hut and told us about how the first nations used coca leaves, some of their practices and religion and where they were located. We had a new group member who had left her seniors tour and joined ours. Guide eventually came and took her back and Meg speculated that it was more dementia than motivation that caused her to join us.
We had a 20 minute walk to lunch, which was an excellent pumpkin soup followed by red snapper. As we ate we saw some big iguanas up in a tree munching on leaves and some howler monkeys scurry by. We had one more stop on the way back at a local stall with indigenous weavings, which Meg was taken with an picked up a small (water-bottle sized) shoulder bag.
Back at our villa I had a swim and everyone relaxed in their own way in this luxurious place. Reading in the hammock, sipping beer, having a nice dinner with our group and playing chess in the Villa Margarita. Sweet.
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| The beach just after sunrise. |
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| A gold piece at the museum. |
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| Iguanas! |
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