advice on -Venezuela Vacation April 24-May 3, 2009

Alex,

I have been to Coche and Margarita. Great spot.

I would get out of Caracass ASAP. (the backpacker place I stayed at armed guards).

Night life in Margarita is fantastic!!!

For kiting and close access to Margarita night life - stay in El Yaque.
But for the best kiting, catch the ferry across from El Yaque to Coche, where the wind is more consistant, and you have the flattest water you are ever likely to kite on.
The wind here is offshore, however there is a group of boats what will follow you and rescue you whenever you need it for $5. these guys are amazing...
they get your kite, rollup your lines, and take you back to the beach.
I have seen them follow guys out for miles and then bring them back.

The problem in Coche is that there is **** all nightlife... but after kiting for 8 solid hours you probably wont feel like it. .....
The ferry to El Yaque takes about 1 hour.

I would also recommend a trip to Los Roques if you can spare the time.
beautiful spot.

enjoy mate. its a good place to go.
I recommend the froggie place for late nights and pretty ladies.

Hi,

We did Venezuela last feb, my biggest tip... Take US dollars in with you, the official exchange rate was around 2 Bolivar to the USD (ATM withdrawals, credit card or hotel exchanges), but if you change it in the street (ask other tourists, or you'll no doubt be approached in the street) the excange rate was anywhere from 4-6 depending on how good your spanish was.

We booked flights from Caracas to Porlamar at the check in desk when we arrived, we acutally paid some dude that approaced us about 30USD(probably too much, but we were hungover, don't speak spanish, and airport staff didnt speak english), he carried our bags all the way to the domestic terminal and arranged the flights for us at the desk, can't remember how much the flights were, but they were reasonable by aussie standards, including the hit for excess/oversize baggage which wasn't a prob on QF or AA. There were 2 airlines Aerospital and Conviasa I think that operated to Porlamar on Margarita. Have a look at www.amadeus.net and that'll give you all the options. Our little mate even excanged some of our USD at a car rental place to get us started... think it was about 3:1 there.

Taxi from Porlamar airport to El Yaque was as advertised in Lonely Planet, just got dropped near all the hotels and organised accom(it's a small town prob 1km end to end), it was holiday time for the locals so all the cheaper accom was taken, we stayed at El Yaque Paradise which was at the nicer end of whats avail and think that was about 40USD a 100ish bolivar per nite per person. This hotel also sells tickets for the boat to Coche.

El Yaque is where the nitelife is, and heaps of bars for food etc along the beach, food was ok, fish, chicken, rice, pizza but nothing flash... cheap tho. There's a kite school at the end of the beach, but I thought kiting El Yaque sucked, really gusty, crowded and choppy water.

Coche was awesome, there's a kite school there www.cochekitesport.com the guy that runs it is good value, and a cool place to hang out(cold beer). The wind blows off shore at the main beach so the water is like glass. They have a party every week or so... but that is the ONLY nitelife on coche. You can't get money on coche so take it with you(same goes for chicks), there's a couple of ATM's but they work 1 attempt out of 50. We stayed a few nites at Coche Paradise, around 50 bucks a nite all inclusive, it was ok, but we ended up moving to Posada Oasis up the road, rooms were similar quality, and paid 7 bucks a day incl breakfast and transfers 5km to kitebeach...(lonely planet phrase section came in handy here cause they only speak spanish and understood a bit of my very bad high school italian) you can do a downwinder from there to kitebeach and they'll pick u up at whatever time you arrange, some days we did 3 or 4 downwinders. At nite we ate at the posada or got a group together and got a cab into town(5-10bucks) where there are 3 places to eat, Pizza shop, Chicken shop, and the Seafood shop which was a winner.

Lots of ppl that were there for months at a time stayed at the posada, and went to El Yaque or Porlamar for a day or 2 to shop or party, quite a few stayed at El Yaque and commuted across each day to kite... first boat gets there about 10, last boat leaves around 6ish... its free if you stay at the paradise hotels, and about 10US otherwise i think.

We didn't get crook guts, but quite a few did, prob best to take some medication just in case...the local doctor handed out some kind of pills but who knows what they were, ppl were out of action for bout 3 days.

Have fun!

Definitely El Yaque, the wind will be cranking every day that time of the year. The wind comes in early in the day with possibility to kite first thing in the morning.

When I stayed there (4 years ago) the main beach was reserved for windsurfing from 10am to 5pm so you’d have to go upwind slightly or get dropped off by boat to some upwind sandbars. Did a down wind windsurfing trip to Coche where the wind is offshore and water super flat as mentioned. At the time if you stayed at Paradise Hotel the ferry to and from Coche was free if not it was only about $5US.

Porlamar at night is a fun place to go but keep your wits about you.

Holiday vibes was one of the best I’ve been to with a real laid back Latin feel to it. Have a good trip

Its alright for someeee
Have fun alex

S-W-E-E-T thank you everyone for your help... i'm searching these sites...

Thanks for the advice Vic - I'll take your advice.