We Took A Holiday!
September 4th, 2000
Written by Mark Hedrick
With the arrival of the new American site technician, we were finally able to take 3 days off the peninsula for the first time in 15 months. We thought we'd take a quick 15 minute flight to Aruba to celebrate our combined birthdays (Sep 2 & Sep 3), but flights were full due to school vacations.
Our next choice was Margarita Island, 80 minutes flying time from here with an obligatory short stop in Caracas mid way. I had been offered the Site Manager's job on Margarita and thought it would be another good reason to visit the island.
Al, the Site Manager helped us arrange the trip in 2 days and early Friday afternoon we set off for our flight, due to arrive at 8pm on Margarita.
The brightest canary yellow plane I'd ever seen awaited us..if the Columbians wanted to shoot down a Venezuelan plane..this one would be a good target! The plane left on time (much to our amazement), but our 'short' 30 minute stopover in rainy Caracas turned into a 3 hour delay in an unairconditioned airport...like that should have surprised us!
Tired, hot and hungry, we finally arrived in Porlamar around 11pm. The airport was just about deserted so we proceeded to the baggage claim area. Well after everyone had left WITH their bags, we were still waiting...it seemed they weren't there and we were starting to get very bad vibes already about this trip.
An airport attendant finally spotted us sitting alone staring at an empty carousel and went to check on our luggage. It seemed our bags were having a better vacation than us, having arrived 2 hours before us. How they got there and why we weren't on the same plane as our bags is a mystery!
Our hotel was actually pretty nice..they gave us a penthouse suite with a huge balcony and fabulous city and water views, a sitting room, kitchenette, bedroom with a king sized bed, and 2 bathrooms..1 with a bath! Unfortunately both bathrooms leaked water anytime we turned on a faucet anywhere in the hotel room..but what the heck..it was a palace! A small casino downstairs offered some good evening entertainment.
We wanted a hotel as far away from the beach as possible! We had had enough of beaches and wanted a city hotel. As it turned out, 'far' means about 5 blocks, but as long as we didn't have to fight tourists, that was fine with us. The pool area was all ours and a welcome sight. All this for under $60 a night!
Porlamar, the main city, is a free port and so shopping was fabulous and tax free. Al and his lovely lady were our hosts and tour guides, along with a friend of his Richard. He came to Margarita from New York 5 years ago to sell motorcycles and decided to retire there. He has a penthouse apartment on the other side of the island with magnificent views. They took us on a wonderful sight-seeing trip around the island and a great lunch at the Baywatch Internet Cafe. It's very green and lush and mountainous..all the things that our peninsular isn't! The radar site was located on Margaritas highest point and the road up to it was quite treacherous. The views are spectacular though!
It was Christopher Columbus, not Jimmy Buffet, who discovered this 400 square mile island just off Venezuela's northeast coast. Yet judging by the bleary-eyed, sunburned grins of the beached vacationers, Buffet would feel right at home.
Originally two volcanic peaks which were united over time by a sand bridge, Margarita is the largest of some 70 islands along this shoulder of South America. Huge by Caribbean standards, it's home to 300,000 Venezuelans who live in a place that could pass for paradise. Its beaches are long and sandy, its waters warm, its climate perennially sunny. Pearling has been a major industry here for a long time.
Food and accommodations are plentiful, good and cheap. A two-week vacation, including air fare, hotel, meals, drinks and live entertainment, costs less than a week at most Caribbean resorts. Popular with vacationers from Canada, Europe and South America, Margarita isn't well known in the US, even though nonstop flights are available from JFK International to Porlamar.
The modern and busy metropolis on the east coast is where most of Margarita Island's hotels and high rise condos are found. La Asuncion, the capital, is much smaller, a charming colonial village whose main street is paved in marble. A stone conquistador's fortress commands a grand vista of the island's peaks and valleys. El Agua, a long beach on the north coast, boasts excellent surf and a string of tiny restaurants and seaside cabanas. This is the tourists choice of beach and they flock to it!
Unfortunately we couldn't see ourselves living there..we have gotten used to the quiet life and it was a little too touristy and noisy for us. Tourists invade the island 7 months of the year and with that many people, they get a lot of robberies and traffic.
It's an ideal place for anyone looking to 'waste away again' on Margaritaville though! |
