Venezuela 2006

So Alaina and I caught a cheeep flight down to Isla Margarita, which is off the Northeast coast of Venezuela. It was great fun.






Some interesting facts about Venezuela:

• -The National Guard, La Policia, and the Army are not all the same thing, but almost
• - All of the above can be found patrolling streets and stopping traffic toting fully automatic weapons
• - 120 in a 40 is totally normal
• - Passing head on and missing by 10 feet is pansy, 5 feet is more like it
• - Open alcohol in cars is allowed, and in fact encouraged, in this part of the world
• - Rum is provided in most stores, along with coffee, for those who need a nip before their next bout of driving
• - 24 Litres of gas (that's 6.3 Imperial Gallons) costs 1$ US. That is not a typo.
• - Generally cars do not have seatbelts, especially in the back seats. Basically if you smoke someone and you're both doing 120 (that's a combined speed of 240 km/hr, you're F'ed anyway, seatbelt is only going to prolong a death that could have been mercifully instant
• - Even though the island has made literally billions from tourism, I ran into 2 people in the industry that spoke conversational english, the rest spoke less English than I do Spanish
• - I like Jethro Tull

Follow the links in the right margin to start at Day 1, since it has already been archived by the blogger. . . Pura Vida.