Last day in Venezuela.... can't believe we're heading home in the morning! We headed to Cumana on the 24th, but didn't make the afternoon ferry, and weren't too keen on showing up in Parlomar at 10 at night without a hotel, so we stayed in Cumana for the night. Not really much to say about the place - we found a decent hotel, an old guy bought us some beer at the hotel, we ate some tasty chuletas (ham steaks).... that's about the extent of it. Got up really early to go get tickets for the 7:00 am ferry - and arrived at about 6:15 to find a massive line up. Erika waited in line while I went off to get some empanadas for breakfast - she'd seen a little stand on our way to the terminal. So I go and stand in line for the empanadas, and the girl serving them is ignoring me, as well as the man standing beside me, and serving other people. So I catch her eye, tell her I'd like 2, and hand her some money. She waves it away and tells me to wait. I see more empanadas coming out of the pot, and see her putting them in a bag, and am rather hopeful that they are meant for me.... and then she hands them to a man who had been there about 20 seconds. This happened about 4 more times, and by now I was just p****d off, especially as she was giving them to people who wanted 6 or 8, and all I wanted was 2 measly little pieces of fried dough stuffed with chicken. I finally had to elbow my way in front of her, make her take the money, and stand next to her until she grudgingly gave me my food. Took a good 20 minutes. Ran back to the line, expecting to see Erika at the front or waiting for me with tickets... and she had moved about 3 feet. I thought maybe the ferry was full, and wandered up to the front of the line to see what was going on - the ferry wasn't full, they were still selling tickets for the 7:00 one, they were just doing it in the most inefficient manner possible - I still don't really know what they were doing that was taking so long. I'd watch people at the front of the line, and it took some of them 5 minutes to buy their tickets. We gave up the idea of catching the 7:00 am ferry, and started hoping for the 8:30, which we only just made (got to the front of the line as they were sounding the horn for people to get on the ferry). The wierd thing is that when we got up there, it took all of about 30 seconds, max, to get our tickets, another 20 to go through confirmation and get our boarding pass, and then we were good. Settled onto the ferry for 2 1/2 hours - very boring - much like sitting on a bus for a couple hours, except with less to see. Docked in Punta de Piedras, got our luggage, and hopped into a cab to Parlomar, where we happily found a very reasonably priced hotel. By the time we got ourselves to the hotel and found an exchange house that was both open in the afternoon on a Saturday and exchanged travellers'cheques, it was after 2, so we didn't bother heading out of town. Wandered about Parlomar for hours - it's a duty free zone, and a shopper's paradise - stores absolutely everywhere, selling absolutely everything. Had a fun afternoon checking out the streets and just taking in the atmosphere.

The next morning we gathered our beach stuff and hopped on a bus headed for Playa El Agua - we were thinking of going further, to a slightly quieter beach, but we'd have had to get off at Playa El Agua anyways, and it looked lovely so we decided to stay. Settled in at the end of the beach, where it was nice and peaceful and quiet, and lay on our towels looking out at the Carribean. The water was wonderful - warm and pleasant, with just enough waves that we could play in them but could also sit in the surf without getting knocked on our butts. I went for a walk down the beach - lots of beach bars, umbrellas, people hocking statues of the virgin Mary glud inside seashells, the requisite thongs and speedos. Bought some booze, sat in the surf and drank, met some nice people who shared their sangria with us, and had an overall sunny, happy, last beach day of the trip. Ended up catching a cab back to Parlomar, as the line up for the bus turned into more of a crowd for the bus, and I wasn't sure of my elbowing ability, and the buses weren't showing up, anyways. Both pretty wiped out by the sun, so went to bed.

Went to go buy ferry tickets in the morning, and were met with yet another teaming mass, and the information that we both needed photocopies of our id. Erika had hers, but I'd brilliantly thought to myself, 'hmm, I don't need to be carrying this about all day, I'll just leave it here in the hotel room', and so left Erika in an air conditioned internet cafe and trudged back to the hotel room. Got tickets for the afternoon, then spent the rest of the day in Parlomar, soaking up the atmosphere - will be very strange to go home, where things are orderly and quiet and calm. I've gotten rather used to people selling absolutely everything on the street, the constant yelling, the siren-car alarms that are always going off somewhere, the salsa and merengue and regueton that blasts from various doorways, vehicles, and street stalls....

The most interesting part of the day came when we went to confirm our tickets at the terminal for the ferry. Went up to the window, handed them over, and had the woman tell us that one was to Puerto La Cruz, one was to Cumana. Had a bit of a panic attack, and told her that we'd paid for 2 tickets to Puerto La Cruz, and that was where we were going and blah blah blah... at which she shrugged and pointed us to the confirmation window for Cumana. We gathered our stuff, and tried to figure out how we had possibly managed this, at which point I looked at the ticket to Cumana, and realized that it was actually our ticket over from a few days before, and I'd had it in my purse for some reason, and upon further looking, found the real ticket in my purse. We made our way back to the window, both quite embarassed and unable to look the woman in the eye, while she laughed and stamped the ticket and gave the boarding pass... and then I went outside and drank a beer.

Now we're in Puerto La Cruz, and we're heading back to Caracas in the afternoon... have a few observations from Venezuela, but we have some time in the airport tonight, so think I'll save it for then (am definitely not willing to admit that this trip is almost over!)