Saturday, September 11th, 2004 - We joined a social group from Caracas called a "Hash" on a
wonderful trip to a local beach... the group met up and departed at 8:30am for Los Caracas beach
(top right of the map below). There was a caravan of about five cars and a school (party) bus..
(click any picture to get an enlargement)
Many of us hadn't ridden in a school bus for a
long, long time. It was interesting that, as the beer flowed, the adults
acted more like children than the kids did.
As we head out we saw the beautiful Avila mountains.
With the beauty also comes a dose of reality... this is a sample of the many "barrios" surrounding the city.
We pass through a tunnel and came out on the
other side of the Avila range.
The 1st city we came to was quite busy; this vendor was selling very skimpy suits!
This area was devastated by a bad storm almost 5 years ago; the area has not yet recovered.
We passed many beaches as we traveled along
the coast. The ones closest to Caracas looked nice, but they are polluted
& the areas were not too safe.
It took about an hour to drive along the coast to Los Caracas beach.
We expected to see damage from hurricane "Ivan", which passed by here 3 days ago... but the place looked really nice.
The beach is a National Park and the facilities looked quite nice.
They are working on a big swimming area, which should open up sometime in the next year.
We were pleasantly surprised by the beach area ...
... the clean sand and the little structures we could rent.
The waves looked great & were big enough for body surfing.
The beach had shelters to rent; on the left were family "huts".
The units on the right were already taken.
In the middle we found a group of empty ones and took them over.
It took a little while to get settled in. The sun was becoming quite hot, so lots of suntan lotion was required.
The water felt very nice and the kids spent
the whole day swimming and boogie-boarding.
Nope, this isn't our boat... but the driver lost his skier a long way back.
Nicole listening to story?
We heard a little excitement behind us and the locals pointed up into a tree... there were three iguanas running around!
At about 2pm the group was
circled up to go for a walk.
The little girl would rather swim than go for a walk.
The organizers (a few local gals) told us a little about the walk.
We head up into one of the valleys of the Avila Range.
We follow a river which cuts down the middle, and ....
... is used by the locals as a nice swimming area.
We enter a facility that looks like a monastery.
A few guys come out of the church to look at the gals in the group.
We later discovered this is the police academy; they kept the place looking really nice!
What's this ... a monkey?
After he realized we had no snacks, he decided to just watch the people.
The run/walk took us across a river and then back along the beach.
When we started, the weather was cloudy with a little rain. By the time we got back to the beach, the sun was in full force; it was hot & humid.
At the beach camp we found two coolers of ice cold beer waiting!
Then the group convened again to thank (toast) the hostesses.
Oh yeah, for those conscious about calories, the gals led a round of aerobics
... which attracted
much attention from the on-lookers!
With that, we say goodbye to Los Caracas and a wonderful day at the beach... and guess what, we can sleep in tomorrow because it is only Saturday!
