After catching our breaths in Caracas for a day or two, we headed east again. This time with thoughts of visiting our buddy from Roraima, Harry, in Isla Margarita, and maby flying out to the paradisical islands in Los Roques. Since money is a way bigger problem here than in the rest of the world, our departure from Caracas was delayed about 6-7 hours due to waiting on a "parallell-marked" exchange to go through. Causing our original plan of getting to Isla Margarita the first day to be shelved as we arrived in Puerto La Cruz, the gateway to the Islas, way after sundown. Not wanting to stay in this noisy port-town we grabbed a por-puesto onwards to one of the tiny villages along the national park called Mochima, Santa Fe. Unfortunately, one of the many power-outs that haunts Venezuela had put its wrath upon Santa Fe right before we got there and turned the beach-pearl pitch black. Some yelling and door-knocking, as always, turned our luck around and we found a cosy, cheap little hostel right there on the beach and turned in for the day.
Theese small fishermans towns in Venezuela have over time become more and more touristy, therefor causing more and more of the fisherman now make a living by driving tourists out to remote islands and beaches instead of fishing. One of them got the honour of shutteling the two of us out to a area called the piscinas. A beatifull beach situated on an island of the coast. About the same second we stepped out of the boat, strange creatures started starring up the short grass field behind the beach. As it turned out, one of them was a snake, who strangely enough didn´d seem to care to much about the gringos entering his territory, and another was a bright yellow and green lizard who kept running around our "camp-site". Nice "compañeros".

We enjoyed the peace and quiet in our hammacks, with snorkelling in the coral-reefs around the beach and cliff diving with the albatrosses on a steep island sticking out of the water..
After enjoying beach-life to the full in Santa Fe it was time for a very different beach-life in Isla Margarita. The 4-hour long ferry-ride was a pleasant experience. Got in alot of reading, had a good look at the beautiful coast of Venezuela and we even saw some dolphins swimming around.
Our friend, Harry, was staying at a nice apartment on the 12th floor in a safe part of Porlamar with his completely crazy, 65-year old room-mate Norma. Already from day one we had a blast, spending the later parts of the day at what was going to be our regular bar: The ugly tuna. Not being the best Salsa dancers in the world wasn´t such a big deal, luckily.
The morning after we grabbed a quick breakfast and headed of to one of the extremely popular beaches on the island. Life here is a bit different than what we were used to, and the beaches are crowded, but picturesque, and have bars all along the beach-front. Had a great day with cool beers in the water, eating oysters and meeting locals and tourists. For the evenings excursion we did as the day before. Dancing at the Ugly tuna.
Our last day at the island Harry decided to take us to a close-by island called "Coche", where the sand is white as milk and the water crystal-clear. On the boat out we met a family of Venezuelans and ended up spending most of the day with them. Fortunately, the aunt turned out to be pretty well-off, and bought us food, beer and in the end invited us back to their apartement, were there was a pool in the stunning back yard. The luxury didn´t stop there though. They brought us out on an all expenses paid dinner at a nice resturant. All in all a great day, wich, of course, ended at the Ugly tuna once again.

Tired after thre e long days sipping beers in the sun, we were happy to set our feet back on the ferry, this time with Harry, and head for land!