16/07

Hi Everyone, I have completed what is probably the worst leg of the journey, three flights, back to back finally arriving in Caracas, Venezuela at 9.30 in the morning having travelled for what seems like an eternity.

I changed my first flight at Los Angeles and having no faith in the baggage handling systerm I took the trouble to make sure my main bag was not left whizzing around a carousel somewhere. It was fortunate that I did bacause having been told that the bag would go straight through, there it was sat on a trolley by the side of the conveyor belt. I was just about to point this out to a member of staff when another came in and realised that the trolley was in the wrong place. A lively discussion then ensued between the two of them and then the trolley, my bag and several others were whisked away. Being able to do no more I left and walked to Terminal 2.

Check in was one of the scruffiest places I have ever been to and considering that Virgin and Air France fly out of here I was not too impressed. However Avianca staff were good and re-checked my bags for me, so I had done all I could.

The departure lounge was not much better than check in, but does have an even worse P.A system, it was more what you would expect from a back water Greek Island, and I´ve seen a few that are better than L.A. believe me.

Once on board the situation improvedand I had a very nice young lady sat next to me who was majoring in anthropology and was impossibly talkative. She was en-route to Venezuela with her college group, bet they wouldn´t have kept an old geezer awake as she did! Eventually she fell asleep and left me wide awake throughout the following 5 hours.

I arrived at Bogota with 50 minutes until my next flight, I was whisked through to the flight with 30 minutes to spare, no problemo! The flight to Caracas (and certain death or so I had been told) only took 1 hour 45 mins where upon I chickened and got into an ófficial taxi´ who only fleeced me 50$ for the privalige of having more than one near death experience! I missed oput on getting my money exchanged on the black market at the airport and anyone going there should take advantage of this as I was offered a good exchange rate, better than the Bureau d change!

I arrived at the hotel having been taken round roundabouts the wrong way, ignored traffic islands and no right turns, nearly hit several pedestrians and stopped in the middle of a four lane freeway to have a conversation with a mate, gone over kurbs and forced several other people off the road.

All good clean fun in Caracas, it gets dirtier at night. The other members of the trip arrived in drips and drabs and eventually there were five of us. We waited for the main group to arrive and then were relocated to another Hotel which had water, unlike this one! All was well then, err, no actually, I needed more money to pay for certain things regarding the trip and went to find a cash point, now you should all be laughing at this point because Venezuela is not exactly up there with Banking and technology but my instructions stated that this was possible so off I went. In company with one of the others I disappeared and was due to be back at the Hotel for 4.00pm to be transfered to the 2nd hotel.

We returned to discover that the Truck, our gear and the remainder of the group had disappeared, we were left with an address and name of the hotel. Wonderful, have you ever been Caracas? Well it was an interesting experience but we got there, then it rained and rained and rained. Well it was not the best of starts but it could have been worse, it could have been that we were 100 yards across the road where someone was letting loose with a rifle out of a first floor window, just firing into the street below. Obviously just having a chat with his Mrs I guess!

The following day we set off in the truck called Elle, en route to our first location. About 6.00pm we arrived at a remote beach btw Puerto de Cruz and Canura on the Carribean Sea, west of Trinidad and Tobago. There was now 8 in our group, 4 boys and 4 girls, plus two staff, Franz and Dion. Our accommodation was a shelter with a variety of single, double and bunk beds all together. There were also several other grougs from Europe and beyond, and interesting situation if ever I´d seen one!

I think I raised the average age by some 10 yearsbut there you go, it was their gain and not my loss.

As I have said the camp is multi-cultured but mainly European. The Boys have noted that the Scandi girls dont seem to have too many inhibitionsand poor old Lee has been caught out on several occasions by multi naked bodies. I have been to the same shower on 2 occasions but clearly act as a repellant rather than a magnet! it may have something to do with Lee being an aweful lot younger, fitter and probably more appealing than me, or perhaps I had better leave the binoculars behind next time.

The girls are a good groupand 3 of them have been together for a month already, we are all British apart from Peter who comes from Denmark, Franz is from Finland and dion comes from N.Zealand.

the food is very good here, the boys got together last night and we all went to a nearby bar for pre-diner drinks or sundowners, we resumed after diner in company with Dion and, oh dear, we had a very good night!

19/07

a day at peace with everyone, I have not been feeling too well and have been recovering from whatever bug it is I picked up. Again I really couldn´t face breakfast and only had a small amount of cornflakes and half a cup of coffee. We then hit the beach and swam in the Carribean, it was family day so I left after a couple of hours and returned to my bunk not feeling very good. I am just trying to remain fully hydrated - no with with water I mean!!

20/07

Kayaking. The whole group of us went out sea kayaking. Lara (20) and I had a double. I have now called her LaLa as she never stops talking or swearing for that matter. She doesn´t look like a TeleTubby but the rest of the group have cottoned on and she is now LaLa!

Kate and Liz had the other double whilst the boys has singles as did Martina, I acted as parental control to LaLa. We went through the usual pains of steer this way and steer that way but by and large I thought we did okay as it was in the sea. It was exeecingly hot though and we stopped for lunch on an offshore island. The girls were done up like Nuns in headscarves and hats. They preferred to be called Saint this and the Virgin that. it´s the first time I´ve witnessed any Virgin wearing an Hermes headscarf whilst kayaking, Classy girls those two I can tell you.

If they were Saints and Virgins, we were now Virgin on the Impossible, LaLa was getting into the steering until she lapsed through talking too much. We put the kayak back in the water and it was her job to put the rudder down, I thought girls were supposed to be able to multi-task? The next bit was pretty tough and the rear crew was not pulling much weight. I had already decided that enough was enough and a good dunking was in order, flack or no flack. The day went off well but it was so hot and we were all feeling it. After lunch we headed back towards the shore whereupon I told LaLa to paddle faster for the beach. At the last minute I jerked the Kayak and in she went, quite brilliant Winnie - Fantastic and everyone on the beach thought so too!

See you soon,

Chris