Venezuela - 28 March, 2002

.

Travel Distance

Leg 3 Total:

11,605 km

Leg 2 Total:

12,140 km

Leg 1 Total:

Galapagos:

771 km

Grand Total:

33,526 km

We were originally going to make an early start into Caracas, but we are told by the locals that that would be very foolish.  It is the start of the Easter holidays, so the traffic will be horrific.  And even worse, they will be closing off the inbound lanes into Caracas and making them all outbound lanes.  We might as well wait until after lunch.  So we spend the morning hanging around, cleaning our gear and repacking it.  This way we do not have to worry about it when we get to Caracas.

We leave at 10 AM and drive a short way to the local town.  Here we stop for almost two hours to have a bite to eat.  We grab some rolls at a cafe and then stroll through the streets.  The place is packed - everyone has shown up for the long weekend.  The traffic is terrible.

At noon, we decide to head off.  At first, the traffic flow is great - in our direction.  We zoom along, while the oncoming lane is bumper-to-bumper.  We make good progress, then we abruptly come to a halt.  The traffic is bumper-to-bumper in our lane also.  This comes and goes in waves as we make sporadic progress towards Caracas.  Finally we make it to the highway, and our pace picks back up.

We reach Caracas at 3 PM, arriving at the Dragoman joining hotel.  But we will not be staying there.  We decided to splurge for our last two nights of the trip and stay at the Hilton.  We had found a great deal on the internet (they must be empty over this long Easter weekend), so we grabbed it.  There was some trouble checking the rest of the group in - the hotel had given away some of the rooms, but they did sort something out after a while.

Then we piled back into the truck with Flip and Mike (the drivers) and a couple of other passengers and headed off.  Flip was heading out of Caracas to take care of something, and they were kind enough to offer to take us to the hotel and drop us off.  The streets were empty - literally deserted.  Once there, we had a heck of a time unloading all our stuff and dragging it all the way to the reception - the truck was too tall to drive into the entrance way.  It was sad to say farewell to everyone and to the truck, but we were ready to move on.

We checked into the hotel - they upgraded us to the Executive Floor - and it was a great welcome.  They gave us a nice room, which we settled into.  It was then time to go to Happy Hour at the Executive Lounge.  With all the free drinks and snacks, it as like back at the Marriott in Rio during Carnival.  We spent almost three hours there and in the end decided not to go out.  There is nothing near the hotel, so we decided to enjoy our hotel room.