La playa

The only way we are going to have a boring weekend here in Caracas will be to lock our door, close the curtains, and sequester ourselves inside. There is always something going on! This past weekend the PE teacher of perpetual motion Linda organized a day to the beach near Higuerote (she is the same one who organizes the Avila hikes and has never been seen moving slow- amazing energy). We hemmed and hawed about going and looked to have missed the boat so to speak until a car was offered to borrow for the 80k drive. This might have been daunting if I had not cut my teeth on the F1 streets of Doha.

We loaded up- a caravan of roughly 12 teacher cars, got petrol (less than a dollar to fill a tank- seriously!), and took off. Our leader Linda has a small yellow car and within moments I saw a small yellow car flying up the right side of the road! Knowing Linda has high energy I assumed she must also drive with mucho gusto so I fell in line behind her not wanting to get left behind. It was at that moment that I realized there are more than one yellow cars in Caracas (which is actually a popular saying here) and had to pull off a (in my mind) incredible swerve into oncoming traffic- going the wrong way- Hollywood style rally to get back to the flock. (Don’t worry mom it was Sunday morning and the roads were pretty chill)

After that the rest of the drive was quite relaxing and then we had our first glimpse of the Carribean- nice little sea if you ask me. To get to the beach we were going to, you climbed on a boat, paid a few dollars, and started motoring. Lisa and I felt quite smug having bought 2 beach chairs and an umbrella the day before- especially when we arrived at the beach to find a vast sea of  beach chairs and umbrellas for our use. Other highlights: watching the kids play in the waves, a huge flock of bright red ibises flying over, fresh fish grilled for lunch, 50 cent beers, and sitting in the sun. What a great day- I think we may have return- plus if we go again it will be someone else’s turn to drive.

Some of the barios on the way out- they build on every nook of every hill- quite amazing.

You can take the lifeguard out of Colorado but you can't 

The view- see we did use our chairs!

This was a pretty busy day for this beach- we were told that there are others that get packed with partiers. Venezuelans love the playa it seems.

Our neighbor Mike seemed to have a hard time relaxing that day- too high strung I guess.

AAAAGGGHHHH photobomb! I swear right behind these bellies is a darling picture of Luca, Lisa, and Wilder playing in the surf. Darn telephoto