WOTW#4

Word of the week: apestar (to suck, as in the vulgar American youthism “It sucks that WOTW is actually Word of the Whenever the Hell You Feel Like It”, not the more standard “Go suck a lemon, dude; I’ve got other things to do than to be a Blogger-sponsored Spanish-English colloquial dictionary.”)

Luis knew before I even told him about the week. There I was, hanging out in the posada, waiting for him to get off of the phone, and before I had a chance to say hello or what’s up or anything, he asked, “¿Qué tal Morrocoy?” How’s Morrocoy? And then, without missing a beat, he spit out “¿Apestó, no?” before laughing and slapping me on the shoulding. Yeah, Luis. It sucked.

Parque Nacional Morrocoy, located in the northern state of Falcón, is well known for its islets, islands and cays, its many coral reefs, its white-sand beaches, and its variety of wading and water birds, like ibis, herons, cormorants, pelicans and flamingos. Ever since I saw photos of Morrocoy and later read more about it, I had my heart set on going there and loving every minute of it, even though, after going, I still have no idea what a cormorant is. Not hiking to Los Nevados was my chance to finally get there, to my personal idea of paradise.

*Ian’s Rule No. 1 for not having a vacation totally, totally apesta: Don’t ever build something up as perfect or paradise-like in your mind. Especially don’t do that and then actually go there. You will be disappointed.*

So we got on a late bus last Sunday and headed off to Valencia, where, after arriving at 6 a.m., we transferred to the bus going along Route 3 to Tucacas and Chichiriviche, the southern and northern gateways, respectively, to Morrocoy. Despite a not-so-wonderful Lonely Planet review (This is a hot, ordinary town on the Valencia-Coro road, with nothing to keep you for long.), we decided to stay in Tucacas due to its proximity to a bunch of the cays to which we were most interested in traveling.

*Ian’s Rule No. 2 for not having a vacation totally, totally apesta: Don’t choose to go to a place that the books say are bad. They are. They’re not lying. Sometimes they’ll make something okay sound great, but never, ever is something better than they say it is. It’s not a movie review, people.*

Anyway, we arrived at the highway-side bus stop at about 8 in the morning. It was cloudy, but no worries: it was our first day of a week at the beach (don’t want to burn too much!), and it was early in the day. Tucacas didn’t have much going for it, though. It seemed downright ugly, with two restaurants and 10 liquor stores on the main street. One of the posadas mentioned in the book didn’t even have a sign with a name; it just had “Sí Hay Habitación” posted over barred windows. Great.

*Ian’s Rule No. 3 for not having a vacation totally, totally apesta: Trust your first impressions. Don’t drag out a crappy time by hoping for paradise to appear. It’s lost and gone forever, friend.*

We decided to walk all the way through town and down to the entrance of the park. After crossing a bridge, the road plunged into the middle of scrub brush and swampland. Sadly, there was garbage of all sorts everywhere. The crabs and the lizards, the pelicans and the crocodiles, all of them had to deal with human waste. Beer bottles, potato chip wrappers, plastic crates, condom wrappers—if you didn’t know, you’d think “national park” translated to “landfill” in Spanish. It was that bad, and when we arrived to the main beach, the only one in Morrocoy connected to the mainland, it also was trashed. The weekend tourists had come and gone, but their mark awaited us Monday morning.

Just like the book had said: The park is a popular destination for Venezuelan beachgoers, who come en masse on holidays and weekends and leave the islands badly littered. Unfortunately, we put too much stock into the next line: You can still enjoy deserted and apparently virgin beaches on weekdays. Virgin like Miss Venezuela, apparently.

***

So, we end up in Posada Las Palmas, or Posada de Carlos, or, as it says on the street, “Sí Hay Habitación”. It’s run by, you guessed it, Carlos, who was friendly enough. Everyday he organized tours of the park for Bs. 25,000, or $10, per person. By looking at the pollution on Monday, we missed out. Tuesday would be the day for the tour, and Wednesday we’d go to the one cay that had impressed us most during the tour. Above all, we’d soak in the sun and relax. Ah, yes.

Monday we hung out and did nothing. Brooke had a killer headache, so missing the boat trip was okay. But we were inside the posada a lot, too much, and the little gnat-like puri puri there were eating us alive. It wasn’t fun.

*Ian’s Rule No. 4 for not having a vacation totally, totally apesta: If you start getting bitten by any sort of mosquito-like insect, buy more repellant. Otherwise, you will run out. You will continue to itch.*

Before we went to bed, I ran out to the panadería across the street to get Brooke some crackers and, at her urging, some food for myself. Sick of bread and cheese, I naturally got a slice of pizza with ham. Bread, cheese and ham—the Venezuelan staple, and a blog post for another time.

We woke up the next morning and immediately I knew something was wrong. I had to run to the bathroom twice in 10 minutes, and I started to have flashbacks of some crappy, crappy times. Anyway, I got it together enough and was waiting for the boat captain to arrive at the hostel to take us on our tour of the park. Brooke was raring to go. It was 9:50. A minute later, I was on my knees in the bathroom, puking up Pepto-Bismol chewables like there was no tomorrow. I was a sweating, pink-liquid-emitting nightmare. And I wasn’t going to see any tropical cays that day, either.

So, to review: after two days in Morrocoy we’d suffered one killer headache, one bout of diarrhea and one instance of vomiting and hadn’t spent any time at a tropical beach, sunning, snorkeling, or generally enjoying ourselves. My idea of a vacation!

There was always Wednesday, right? And even if things didn’t go well, we could always head to Chichiriviche, the other town near Morrocoy, or just split and head to Coro, a colonial town three-plus hours away that is near a desert-like series of sand dunes and more beaches. But first, we’d wait to go on our tour of the cays.

***

So Wednesday came, and so did the rain. We woke up to clouds and waiting for the boat captain in a downpour. The day before, while I was in bed with a fever, I could see the beautiful blue sky outside my window all day long. Not a cloud in sight. But that was Tuesday, not Wednesday.

We were supposed to leave at 10 but didn’t set out till 11:30. We toured around the inlets off the bay and watched birds flap and flock over our boat. We ended up at a gorgeous beach called Playuela, and the damnedest thing happened: the sun came out. Brooke and I played in the water. We walked on the beach. We even took pictures. And then, 15 minutes later, it ended. It started to rain again.

The boat picked us up later, and we got to see another beautiful beach and visit another great cay. But there was no sun. There was coral, there was stunning greenish-blue water, and there were fun little crabs in tiny little shells, but there was no sun. It still was the highlight of the trip.

That night, we packed up and went to Chichiriviche. It couldn’t be as bad, right?

*Ian’s Rule No. 5 for not having a vacation totally, totally apesta: Don’t ever assume that a vacation couldn’t get worse. It can always get worse.*

When we got to Chichiriviche, we weren’t surprised that it was ugly. It was essentially a smaller Tucacas. But there were restaurants, and a promenade overlooking the bay, and nearby cays, and places to buy gelato! (Inexplicably, there were many Italians in Morrocoy. It must be a package-deal thing.) Our posada was cute, and Aurelio, the Spanish owner, was very nice. We even ate some delicious, fresh red snapper for dinner. Things were looking up. We would go to Cayo Sal, the biggest of the nearby cays, the next day, get tan, and maybe go back to Cayo Sombrero on Friday. Our vacation was just starting.

***

We woke up and noticed the water in the bay was brown. Well, reddish-brown, actually. Not greenish-blue like everywhere else. No matter, we thought: on the other side of the cays, the side facing the Caribbean, there would be waves, clear water, etc. We got a boat and went to Cayo Sal. Once again, there was no sun, but we were convinced it would come out later. Besides, we had to get to the other side of the island.

To do that, we had to go through the giant salt marsh in the middle. And we thought the mosquitoes were bad before. Anyway, we had been assured there was a beach on the other side. There was. It’s just that the beach had more trash than sand. All of it had just washed up into this moon-shaped beach, so we didn’t stay long. The sun still wasn’t shining.

We attempted to walk around the outside of the island to get back, instead of walking back through the marsh. There have been better ideas. We tramped across coral and garbage for about an hour, then had to sludge through shallows full of blue-orange crabs. Finally, the water was too deep to keep wading through, so we had to walk through the island anyway, and get devoured by puri puri all over again.

An hour before the boat came to pick us up, the sun broke through the clouds. As if it mattered at that point.

*Ian’s Rule No. 6 for not having a vacation totally, totally apesta: Get while the getting’s good.*

So we promised ourselves that we’d leave Morrocoy if we woke up Friday and it was raining. It was, and we did. Back to Valencia, back to the gross Big Low Center (actual name) to find an overnight bus. We somehow found one, one that was going to El Vigía (a town an hour away from where we live) at 10:30 at night. Because of Carnaval—remember that?—everyone was going west to Mérida. So, we had about nine hours to kill. Where better to end our trip than at Valencia’s biggest mall, Metropolis?

***

I could go on and on, of course. About the stupidity of the mall, about the annoying teenagers in the movie theater, about the Chili’s-style restaurant called Memphi’s, about the torturous ride home. But it’s too much, really. We just wanted a vacation. From what, who knows? Just a little vacation.

Of course, Luis had another way of looking at all of this. “You know you could have taken a four-wheel drive up the mountain to Los Nevados, right? You didn’t have to go up in the teleférico. Then none of this ever would’ve happened.”

*Ian’s Rule No. 7 for not having a vacation totally, totally apesta: Don’t leave yourself open to potshots from your friends after complaining about the awful vacation. You know why? They’re usually right.*