Open Top Jeep Tour

Jueves (Thursday), we got up early as we were doing an open Jeep tour around the island. What a wicked way to see the whole place! It's about 100kms wide, so we set off from the far NE corner where el Agua is, and started heading into the middle where the capital L'Asuncion is. We stopped at a little doll house first, with some awesome art and a whole upstairs of natural and cultivated pearls. Margarita is called The Pearl of the Caribbean, so they are well known for them. There were all colours there, white, black, pink, all different depending on where they'd grown - the depth, near coral, etc. All extremely beautiful, and extremely well priced too! ;)

We then got to an old fort set up on a hilltop over looking the capital city. Gorgeous views of the mountains inland and the ocean on the other. Another stop at an important religious site called the Valley of the Virgin with a nice white church before taking off on the highway to get to the middle where the two main islands of Margarita meet.

Here there us a Parc Nacional, and we hopped out of the Jeep and into a little 8 man boat to go check it out. It's a series of waterways winding in and out of these crazy Mangrove forests that dig their multiple roots right into the water. When we find a computer well have to post some of the videos I took going through some of the tunnels - super cool! We saw lots of birds and got to hold a red starfish! We were on the water half an hour, then back in the Jeep to head to the far SW part of the island - and to the beach!

I think I should take a second to mention the traffic and roads here. There are NO traffic rules, and driving on the highway is definitely nerve wracking! Theres also barely any signage, so you just need to know where youre going. Sometimes there's 1 lane, sometimes there's 4 depending how many people are beside eachother at any given moment trying to pass. Scary at high speeds for sure.

Were cruising on this highway when suddenly our guide turns off onto a 4x4 road in the middle of nowhere. We drop down the embankment and see a large shallow inlet infront of us, full of flamingoes!! Real life, super pink flamingoes!! There must have been over 300 of them just chilling there standing on one leg. Definitely never thought I'd see these guys in the wild in my lifetime, but there's another one to check off the life list!

After ripping along the highway in the beating sun for another 20mins, we arrived at Playa Punta Arenas, which is on the Caribbean side of the island. We had the best food we've had so far - can't go wrong with the fresh catch of the day! Cervesas all around, and then 30mins of free time to swim and hang out. We met the first other english speaking people there too, a family from Reno in the US. We told them we were from Calgary, the old guy said we must be rich, we laughed and said no way, then he cracked a lame Canada joke and that was that. Off to the next beach!

This one was accessible via 4x4 only, and man was it ever gorgeous! Untouched, incredibly soft sand, surrounded by red rock walls of the bay and a picture perfect blue sky. Ahhhh. To get in and out of there was an adventure in itself, bouncing around in the back of the open top Jeep as our guide tried to take us on the most wild ride possible. Super fun :)

Back on the highway, with a stop at a roadside cantina where they serve authentic Margarita coco locos with real coconut. Delicious! The last leg was then a long haul back to the main part of the island, but still on the opposite side of el Agua to Juan Gregio, where the infamous sunsets are over the quiant bay that faces west. We chilled here for an hour watching the gorgeous evening colours.

To wrap it up we had a scary, harrowing, super fast commute back in the dark through the mountains. Our guide had a date to get to :S we all cheered a sigh of relief when we got dropped back off at Hesperia, happy, exhausted, a little sunburnt, and stoked that we can now say we've seen the best parts of the whole island.

I should also mention we bought this tour on the beach, from a dude named Leonardo Da Vinci, whom we haggled with on the price. Ah, Venezuela :)