It's Christmas Day and we arrive into Caracas just after midnight. After collecting our bags we experience the first quirk of Venezuela - the dollar black market. Luckily we had done a bit of research beforehand so are not surprised when an airport official asks us if we want to exchange dollars at a rate of 1:50. As the official rate is 1:6.7 this doesn't seem too bad! We exchange some money and wait for our airport pickup. We get taken to our hotel along with two venezuelans from Isla Margarita and see some nice fireworks on the way. We settle into our hotel and enjoy our first proper sleep in 42 hours.

The following day we are dropped off at the airport and wait in the Aeropostal queue. We try to see if our 12pm flight is on the board but can't see it so Suhanya asks the lady behind us in the queue whether she is on the 12pm flight to Puerto Ordaz and she says "Si". After waiting in the queue for an hour we head to the check in desk and give the lady our passports. We tell her that we are on the 12pm flight to Puerto Ordaz. She informs us there is no such flight. She can't find us on the system either and suggests we speak to the staff at the Aeropostal office. We try explaining our situation but struggle to communicate in Spanish. Suhanya goes to check another airline, which does have a flight at 12pm, to see if we are on their system. While in the queue she hears some kids speaking English and so asks if they know Spanish too, their father does and so Suhanya explains our situation to him and asks if he would mind being our translator with the Aeropostal people.

By this time Phant has also managed to download the email correspondence, confirming our booking with them, to his phone. The email mentions Ascerca airlines so they tell us to try them. We queue up again to see if we are on their flight, but we aren't and are told to try Conviasa airlines next. We are pretty stressed at this point as time is running out. The queue for Conviasa is huge so Phant waits in it while Suhanya goes to their help desk to try and speak to someone. They don't quite understand, but it seems like we can still buy a ticket from them if all else fails. Suhanya then spots a guy with dreadlocks and instantly assumes he speaks English. Fortunately, her assumption proves correct and we now have another translator to help us. Once again we explain our situation and he tells us that he is in the same position!

We give our passports to the check in clerk and our names are on a list, however, the tickets have not been paid for and so we have to buy new ones from Conviasa for our flight. Tickets in hand, we check in our bags along with the dreadlock guy and his wife before going through security to our gate. We thought we were going to be late for boarding, however, when we arrive at the gate there is a long queue and no one has actually boarded yet. We end up waiting for half an hour but finally we board the plane and are able to relax!