Costs pp: Bus from Coro 35, another option is shared car 80, double room with ensuite and cable tv at 'Si Hay Habitacions' (haha, there is no name on this place but just that sign in the window) 80 it is on the right side half way down the main street just past the school. Island tour 60.
The road followed the sea for some of the way to Tucacas but not as much as we expected it to. The bus dropped us at the wrong place and we had to catch a shared car back about 10 minutes to Tucacas. It is a little off the main road and is a very busy little spot, looks like its starting to boom as there are new malls there and lots of apartment type buildings being built.
Kent sat with the bags and Carol went searching chatting with the locals on the way until she found a nice room at a reasonable price in a place that didn't even look like a guesthouse from the outside. It had a kitchen and all but we didn't end up using it. Our room was great, clean with a comfy bed and cold water ensuite.
We were looking to camp on one of the cayos (small islands) just off the coast but the next morning when Carol went to buy a permit at the Park she was told that camping was no longer permitted except for during Carnival (starting Friday) when it will be permitted. This is crazy as all the locals will come and completely mess up the islands without a care then head home again. Better to have a few monitorable, responsible campers you would think.
Kent is not a beach person he says and Carol headed out on a tour offered of a few islands which she bargained down to 60vef.
Carol: I was with 4 other people, 2 guys from Buenos Aires and a father and son from Denmark. The boat was to take us to see 4 or 5 islands, it took us to the first island and dropped us there for an hour while it headed back and took some other tourists somewhere. The island was small and the only thing to do was to swim or lie in the sun both options were great. The sand on these islands is pure white and the sea clear and blue, not warm but just off warm, enough to cool you from the sun, perfect. When we were picked up we headed off around some other islands and were taken past a place where birds live etc. The next stop was at another small island where we were greeted by a guy up to his waist in the ocean with his eski floating beside him and he was ringing a bell... Yes he was selling icecreams! Darn it! Even way out there!
We made a decision to forgo seeing anything else and asked our pilot to take us directly to our end destination Cayo Sombrero, reputed to be the most beautiful of the cays. There we were dropped around 2pm and picked up again at 5pm. It was lovely there, except for another bell ringing icecream seller, white sands, cool breeze, cool clear ocean. I spread my lavalava and lazed, wrote in my diary, swam and lazed some more. Believe me it has been a well earned day off, I really enjoyed my day and it was good for both of us to have time by ourselves. I arrived back in Tucacas rested and brown and happy.
Kent had a good day watching tv and doing stuff on the netbook, he has all sorts of ideas on the go and is using a CAD program to design them. In the evening we walked a long way to find food as it wasn't that cheap and walked back to the guesthouse in the dark. Later Carol was talking to some Argentinians at the lodgings and three of them had been robbed at gunpoint coming back at 2am. They had been told it was dangerous but discounted it, they are also from BA which is a 'dangerous city' and we guess they have become complacent.
Next stop back for a night with Freddyfelipe in Valencia.
