Day Ten: Isla Margarita

Today we were touching the top of South American, as we were a few miles away from Venezuela.

Now, having never been to the US, or South America, I was open to embracing whatever it threw at me, and boy did it throw alot!

Again, this was a morning excursion for 5 hours, which meant we could take in the vast majority of what the island had to show us. We were picked up in the port by one of the campest men most of us have ever seen, and he was brilliant!!

The island itself is very arid and dry, and full of desert-type landscapes and mountainous valleys, and very influenced by the US and all their oil reserves, so every few miles there is a nice big refinery, working away so that the caribbean has nice cheap petrol. By the way the most expensive petrol of all the islands we visited was the equivalent of 39p a gallon, although to be fair most of the islands top earners only earn £5,000 per year, so its probably fair, added to the fact that they don't have to travel that far to get the oil delivered!

First stop for us was the Tropical Gardens, which were simply magnificent, just to see cacti growing naturally was worth being sprayed by foul-smelling anti-mosquito spray (there was an epidemic apparently!), now at this juncture I must inform you that mom has a phobia of snakes, me of spiders, and my aunt of tortoises, so of course my aunt decides to book a trip that for 2 hours would leave us open to seeing these damn things up close and personal, bless!

The animal section itself was amazing, wildlife weren't kept there like a zoo, but just visited to be fed and hung around for a while, for example, parrots and monkeys!

So, once we'd had our fill of handling various animals (not us, of course, we just stood right at the back, away from everyone else, nervously looking round!), we hopped back on the bus and headed for our next stop, which was La Restinga National Park.

This is the islands main attraction, and contains thousands of acres of mangrove thicket. Now, for those of you not familiar with mangroves and how eerily-beautiful they look, take a peek at this:

The small boat journey took about 30 minutes, during which time we were shown where all the pearls were grown on these tree roots, which were then sold to the tourists back on dry land, but not before the boat zoomed back at over 60 miles per hour on choppy water, now that was hair-raising!

After that, we went on a long old journey to a Maritime Museum, which was interesting only because of the vast amount of stuffed marine life hanging on various walls of the place! After that, we were dropped off at the port to catch the boat again but not before our camp tour guide dropped a bit of a bombshell (no, one of the animals hadn't escaped!). Back in the 80's, our tour guide was nominated several times to give private guided tours to all the royal family at varying stages!

2 Words I never thought would be put into a sentence!

Well this week has been another busy affair with me, as we've still had loads of work in, so much so that I've been in work for the last 3 saturdays, which I don't mind, mainly because I get paid to do it, and also because it gets rid of alot of the work before I go in for my op in August. See, ain't I nice, thats commitment for ya!

There have been quite a few freebies floating round the city centre this week, firstly the Muller rice 'guys' have been handing out free muller rice pots to all passers-by, all apart from me that is, although that was firstly because I was in the wrong line to get them as I was coming out of Snow Hill station on thursday, and would have been distinctly un-British of me to scramble across lines of people to get a freebie, and secondly, on saturday afternoon, as I was coming back from work in centenary square, I wasn't even offered one, so screw you Muller Rice-people!!

Rant over, now onto my final thought for the day, and to another thing offered outside Snow Hill station (sounds dodgy coz it is). There were a bunch of people handing out leaflets for a new concept in dating, and obviously the desperate look on my face as I came out of the station screamed of singledom, they gave me a sympathetic look (the emphasis on 'pathetic') and handed me a leaflet. Its a good idea actually for those people who don't have time to prowl the bars and clubs, you register on this website and u can arrange lunch-dates with your chosen person, therefore not interrupting your hectic schedule too much. The only problem is that when they were thinking up the concept and wanted a catchy slogan, the words 'Love-buffet' should never have crossed their mind, yet alone be printed on thousands of leaflets advertising it!

Bless!