Laura, Tom, Hugo and Jo (amazingly!) managed to get to Venezuela in one piece and have survived their first week! Here are their tales so far…

Day One:

“After walking around and being told to follow strange men for nearly an hour in Caracas airport Tom and Laura managed to find Jo and Hugo  sitting on the floor in the domestic airport waiting for them.  The  four of us then waited longer than expected for the flight without  being told of any delay; we were introduced to the relaxed Venezuelan  attitude towards time keeping straight away! During this time in order  to pay our airport tax we had to exchange some US dollars in the lift  of the airport with a local. After finally getting to Barcelona, Hugo  had to wait for half an hour for his bag and we all contemplated
leaving him there. We left the airport to find Carlos waiting for us Jo’s bag being tied to the roof with a piece of string to make space!

Unfortunately on our drive to Playa Colorada whilst Tom was sleeping in the most awkward position, Carlos accidentally ran over a stray dog.  After arriving at Jakera Lodge we were given a meal and then shown to our ‘penthouse’ apartment where we slept for ages.

Week One:

Our first week involved early morning hiking, a few trips to the local town Puerto La  Cruz, some rock climbing on Jakera’s climbing wall, surfing,  Thai boxing and kayaking. On the more serious side of things we had intense Spanish lessons with Antonio, our very entertaining teacher. Whilst Laura is going to do Spanish at university the others had not encountered Spanish much before. However we have all made good progress this week and Laura has reviewed some of the basics. It is a lot harder to concentrate in lessons though as the temperature averages 30 degrees.

Our volunteer work started yesterday after visits to a small island called ‘La Piscina‘ in Mochima National Park. Our aim is to document the damage to the coral reef and ultimately protect it. We plan to do this with posters and photos which we took today (although Laura and Hugo´s cameras both broke!).

Life at the camp is relaxed, all the staff are very friendly and always up for a good time. It is nice that everyone helps out to cook and clean up every meal. Pedro the chef is amazing, and we haven’t had one bad meal. It is hard not to love Max and Paddy, the camp dogs, even if Paddy smell does smell funky.  We have had no serious illness or injury so far apart from Laura’s lethal splinter, Hugo falling over and also smashing a door on Tom’s foot!

All in all we are having a wonderful time and look forward to the coming weeks.