The sands of time pass slowly in Venezuela’s Los Roques
But Los Roques, an archipelago of hundreds of islands and rocks, and a national park, is not widely known about outside Venezuela.
Los Roques is beautiful and unadulterated, like a castaway island in a cartoon strip, with green, glassy lagoons, quiet coves and miles and miles of pristine, soft, white sand. Apart from the islandsâ physical beauty, their great glory is that theyâre uninhabited.
Los Roques is what the Caribbean was like before tourism. Tourists who take the 45-minute flight to Los Roques from Caracas, Venezuelaâs capital, can set off from their accommodation in the morning, and have their lunches delivered to them in a cooling box, while they idle the day away on their own deserted island.
The place is devoid of cruise ships. It has one town, of 1,600 people, on Gran Roque, which doesnât have paved roads. There are no cars, except for water trucks and battered golf carts; no big hotels, nor chintzy boutiques selling T-shirts and beach gear; no noisy bars, just the deep blue sea, and, for some reason, many Italians among the 60,000 annual visitors.
Visitors are billeted in posadas, which are like small guesthouses, or renovated fishermenâs huts. None of the buildings on Los Roques are higher than a storey. Many have direct access to a beach. Breakfast can be taken outdoors, under beach grape trees.
It is tailor-made for a honeymoon couple. But there are not many activities beyond snorkelling, windsurfing, and fishing. Children can run amok, but beaches offer little shelter from the sun, so for a more family-orientated beach holiday, Isla de Margarita, a 30-minute flight from Caracas, is the spot. The island has dozens of incredible, sandy beaches with tree-lined shelter along its 106 miles of coastline, and duty-free shopping.
The temperature on the island never becomes unbearably hot â 81°F (27°C) â as the 50-odd beaches are bathed by a refreshing offshore breeze. Its winds make the island a haven for windsurfing and kite-surfing, particularly the beach at El Yaque; there is also good surfing at Parguito, while the bohemian party set cavorts around the beach bars of El Agua. The waves on most of the beaches make for great lolling-around. The seaâs currents, however, are deceptively strong.
The island, with mile after mile of coral reef, lends itself to excellent snorkelling. A day trip, with the local fishermen-cum-diving-guides, to one of the neighbouring islands that surround Isla de Margarita, is wonderful. Aboard a small, wooden peñero â the traditional local fishing boat, painted in rainbow colours, and measuring about 30 feet â youâll be whisked out to sea over the surf on a white-knuckle ride. On arrival, the diving justifies any sea-sickness, as you can while away an hour or two floating amongst an underwater kingdom with fish of every colour and shape.
Isla de Margarita has a proud separatist history. In 1814, it became the first Venezuelan territory to rid itself of Spanish rule, and it was on the island that SimĂłn BolĂvar, the man who brought independence to large tracts of South America â including Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia â was confirmed as commander-in-chief of the new republic, la gran Colombia. In all, he commanded rebel forces in 35 victorious battles.
The legacy of the countryâs old colonial ruler is evident in the architecture on Isla de Margarita. Away from the resorts and the islandâs hillside barrios (shantytowns), its more fashionable houses have that distinctive, cool, alluring brick-and-tile-work of the Spanish colonial residence. The islandâs villages are in the old colonial style, too, with a main plaza and cathedral predominating. Some 95% of Venezuelans are Catholic. To paraphrase Billy Connolly, a saunter through the villagesâ market stalls will make you think that youâve never seen so many religious trinkets you didnât want to buy.
Most of the islandâs 420,000 residents live along the coast, which surrounds a lush, green, mountainous interior; but you donât have to hack through the islandâs foliage to come across the regionâs wildlife. Harmless lizards and iguanas amble in full view, the slowness of their movement in step with the islandersâ casual shuffle.
Venezuelans are laidback and extroverted. âMañanaâ doesnât translate as tomorrow; it denotes some indeterminate time in the future. They point at things and pass on directions with an insouciant shrug of their lips. They have a familiarity with each other that is beguiling. My wife is Venezuelan. One of her friends is called La Gorda (the fat one) by everyone, including her husband. Exuberance is their default mood. During election time on the mainland, candidates wave, clap hands, give the thumbs-up, clench fists, or clutch their hearts dramatically on profile photos. But status anxiety is at record levels in Venezuela.
There is a craze among young, working-class men, for instance, to get fake dental braces for cosmetic purposes. Anyone with the wherewithal to have them, even if theyâve been put onto teeth with glue, in a back alley shop, must be a good catch. Venezuelan women are preoccupied with physical appearance. According to the Venezuelan Society of Plastic Surgeons, 40,000 get breast implants every year. Mannequins in shop windows have big boobs, tiny waists and sculpted rears.
Teenage girls seeking to become the next Miss Venezuela (the country has won more Miss World competitions than any other rival) go to extraordinary lengths to keep their weight down, including putting patches on their tongues to prevent them from eating solids.
The country has been blessed and cursed by oil. It has the biggest oil reserves in the world, outside of the Middle East. It costs less to fill a tank at a petrol station than it does to buy a bottle of water, but the countryâs gushing oil geezers have led to endemic corruption. Money drains out of Venezuela into offshore accounts. The countryâs elite flies to Miami for weekend shopping sprees.
The poor â stoked by Hugo ChĂĄvezâs divisive, socialist revolution, which began with his election as president in December, 1998, and continues under the stewardship of his successor, NicolĂĄs Maduro â have become increasingly agitated. Violence has soared. Middle class couples donât wear their wedding rings, for fear of being robbed. Locals in Caracas say that traffic lights at night-time are âa suggestionâ. Posters along streets warn people: âDonât pay kidnappers,â while assuring potential victims that 95% of kidnapped people return alive.
Many cars are fitted with bulletproof panels or tracking devices, in case of hijack. Restaurants carry prominent signs telling its patrons âit is prohibited to carry firearmsâ.
Caracas has one of the highest murder rates of any city in the world. The Venezuelan Observatory of Violence put the number of homicides nationwide at 25,000 for 2013; up from 4,550 murders in 1998, the year ChĂĄvez came to power. How the charismatic former president militarised Venezuelan life is unsettling. Soldiers are the most prominent sight when you arrive at airports. My wifeâs two younger sisters received military training in their convent school. This included lessons about guns and grenades, drill practice, and demonstration in how best to crawl on their bellies in a war zone.
It is a shame. Caracas, which has a population of 7m, isnât a postcard-beautiful city. It has too much concrete, and the worst kind â dilapidated and crumbling, from its heyday in the 1970s, but itâs so overrun with foliage that it has a strange allure to it, and, of course, the mighty Avila Mountain overlooks the city.
Itâs higher than Rio de Janeiroâs Sugar Loaf and is home to 200 species of bird. Caraqueños say the Avila regulates the mood of the city. Itâs their lung. Sometimes it looks sad and dark, other times stunning and bright. People personify it in conversation, and talk about it regularly, like the way Irish people wonder what the dayâs weather will bring.
Venezuela has so much to offer tourists. Itâs a vast country, with huge contrasts. It has the Andes Mountains, the Amazon jungle, cowboy country in Los Llanos, and the incredible Orinoco River coursing through it, but a visit to the country is incomplete without a trek to see Angel Falls, the worldâs highest uninterrupted waterfall.
Words canât do it justice. Itâs 19 times higher than Niagara Falls. Part of its charm is its remoteness. Most Venezuelans have yet to see it, as itâs so expensive to fly there; itâs 1,000 miles from Caracas, in the heart of Canaima National Park, which is bigger than Munster. The other route to it is by water, which involves a boat ride up the Churan River.
The waterfallâs surrounding wildlife is a biologistâs dream, with every hue of exotic bird, on a par, apparently, with the Galapagos.
As with many of Venezuelaâs spectacular tourist spots, the waterfalls doesnât have an interpretative centre or cafes at their base, only boulders for sitting, natural pools of clear water for bathing, and the dense, dark jungle as a backdrop.
Itâs best to visit during the rainy season (May to November), because the river will be high enough to navigate if youâre going by boat, and to ensure that the waterfall isnât just a trickle. The only word of caution for the tourist is that youâre at the mercy of the weather gods as to what you may or may not see. Some days, it can be shrouded by cloud; other days, when the winds whip up, itâs hard to see for all the mist in the air.
It was âdiscoveredâ by an American aviator, Jimmie Angel, who happened upon it in the late-1930s by accident. ChĂĄvez tried to re-name it in 2009, according to its indigenous roots, as Kerepakupai VenĂĄ (âwaterfall of the deepest placeâ), as it springs from the wonderfully named Mountain of the God of Evil.
It takes about 13 or 14 hours to fly from Dublin to Caracas, Venezuela, via London (www.britishairways.com), Paris (www.airfrance.fr), Frankfurt (www.lufthansa.com) or New York (www.aa.com). Air fares start at about âŹ800.
Venezuelaâs beach hotels are just as youâd imagine a Caribbean resort to be like â airy, with lots of tropical plants and over-hanging trees, and finished with lovely tile work. Visit www.journeylatinamerica.co.uk for a vast range of package options, or if you make it to Angel Falls, check out Jungle Rudyâs, a really cool, 14-bed hostel opened in the 1950s by a Dutch adventurer (www.junglerudy.com).
Venezuela produces some of the best coffee in the world, and its empanadas (fried bread stuffed with chicken or meat) and arepas (white corn cakes) have the taste of more about them.
The style of your holiday in Venezuela could be determined by whether you can find someone on the ground to access the countryâs black market for currency exchange. You have to travel with euros and exchange when you get to Venezuela.
Norwegian coastal voyages on Hurtigruten ships on specified dates in August and September are available on a two for one offer with Project Travel. Six- and 11-night trips, including flights, are pitched from between âŹ1,540 and âŹ1,826. Details on www.Project-Travel.ie or on 01-2108391.
Galwayâs Hotel Meyrick has teamed up with Wild Atlantic Adventures to offer two nights B&B plus one evening meal and a day of sailing on a 200-year-old Galway Hooker with lunch at âŹ249, or âŹ30 less for a half day adventure. Visit www.hotelmeyrick.ie or call 091-564041.
Chef and food writer Paulo Tullio accompanies enthusiasts on a Travel Department trip to the south of France in October staying in Cannes with visits to the local market and participation in a cookery class. Cost is less than âŹ800 for the four-day trip. Details on www.traveldepartment.ie
With departures from Dublin and Cork, the Jewels of Karnataka tour offers a different take on long haul guided tours. The 11-night tour is priced from âŹ1,800 and it takes clients off the beaten track. In part itâs a full board job and travel is anytime between now and September; www.incredibleindia.ie
Kruger Park will be one of the highlights in a South African October special from Cork-based Focus Travel. The October 13 departure (14 nights) is priced at âŹ2,495 with Dublin or Cork departures and features visits to Soweto, and Robben Island. Tel 021-4320898 or visit www.travelfocus.ie
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
