December 28, 2007
Day 821
I wanted to go to nearby Corumba today, but I couldn't find any buses going there despite its close proximity. I think I've already mentioned enough how unpleasant the Venezuelan people are, so suffice it to say that I got the first eastbound bus out of town that I could find but it still took two hours to leave the bus station, making for yet another long day in the unrelenting heat of the Caribbean.
Once again, I didn't get to my destination of Carupano until dusk. Only then did I find out that the bus actually passed through Corumba on the way there, but I couldn't tell from my map beforehand that that was the route we would be taking. But that didn't really matter because different people had told me that both places were nice, so I just picked one and went to it.
My hotel owner was the first person I encountered in Venezuela who not only knew what he was talking about, but was also willing to share some information with me. Unfortunately, the prognosis was bleak. Once again, despite being located on a peninsula on the Caribbean, Carupano didn't have any nice beaches and was a boring town to hang out in, but still somehow managed to be far too dangerous to go walking around at night. "This is Venezuela," was his explanation for the dangerous streets. He practically forbade me to leave the hotel without calling a cab first, so I decided to stay in my room because everything closed at 6:00 anyway.
The owner mentioned Puerto La Cruz as a nice place to go, but I had just come from there, and it sucked. The other place he recommended me to visit was Isla Margarita, a large island nearby which was normally a vacation destination for the wealthy people of Caracas. I had heard the island was expensive and I was running low on cash (and as discussed previously, 60% of my money would evaporate instantly if I withdrew it from an ATM), but I just wanted to find somewhere nice to go for New Year's, and Isla Margarita seemed like my only decent option remaining. I'll head there in the morning.
