Venezuelan Adventures: From Caracas to Morrocoy, Coro and Valencia

17 years ago that we visited Venezuela for the third time. We spent two weeks travelling in the country. Our itinerary was as follows:

By rental car:

• Stay in the Morrocoy National Park
• Stop in the Venezuelan desert – Los Médanos de Coro
• Short visit of the city of Coro
• Visit of the city of Maracay
• Stay in Valencia, the capital of the Carabobo state

By plane: (read about these adventures in the 2. part: From Valencia to Angel Falls)

• Visiting the lagoon of Canaima
• Visit to Salto Angel – the Angel Falls that are the highest waterfalls in the world with nearly 1000 metres of free fall.

Our trip in review

Looking back I sometimes wonder what could have happened to us during all three trips when we went alone by car though the huge country. We did not speak any Spanish and the local population does not speak English well. Luckily we never got into trouble and I have to admit that all trips were probably the most adventurous ones we did so far. It was so worth it. We met wonderful people. It was a once on a life time experience!

Today it breaks my heart to see what has become of Venezuela: the economic disaster that the Chavista government has caused and also having turned the country into a de facto dictatorship. Back in 2007 we already saw strong signs for what was to come afterwards.

But let´s look back now on our wonderful adventure in an incredible country.

Driving from Caracas to Morrocoy, Coro, Maracay and back

In the first week we rented a car and after having acclimatized for a weekend in the capital, Caracas, we headed to the direction of Morrocoy National Park, an area we got to know already during our 2004 trip.

Morrocoy National Park

The park is situated in the Falcon state by the Caribbean coast. The sea is incredibly blue. It is a wonderful experience to spend an afternoon on one of the many islands along the coast. Local fishermen will bring you there for little money. For example you could go to Cayo Muerto (the dead cay) and get picked up at an agreed time. We were completely alone on the island and enjoyed the purest Caribbean feeling one can get.

We stayed for a few nights in a resort in Tucacas where a couple of parrots loved to check out our belongings.

The city of Coro and its desert

We did a day trip to Coro, a town founded in 1527 by the Spanish. But then taken over by the German Welser family – a rich banker family – who named it Neu-Augsburg. They received the province of Venezuela back then from Emperor Charles V. to explore it and found cities. Thus Neu-Augsburg was the first German colony in the Americas.

To get to Coro we drove about two hours from Tucacas. The highlight on the trip was crossing a desert, the Médanos de Coro. It was the first time that we walked through a desert in our lives. The massive sand dunes can be as high as 40 meters and can be found in an area of 5 km by 30 km.

Maracay and Choroni

After the relaxing days in Morrocoy we continued to the city of Maracay. There we met up with a former colleague of Michael. Susanne was Venezuelan born. But her German parents emigrated in the 1960s to Venezuela and have spent all their lives there. We stayed a night in their house. I loved to listen to the stories of Susanne´s mother from the time they emigrated. It took four days to travel to Venezuela back then. Communication with Europe was very difficult. There was no telephone and letters took ages to arrive at their destination. The reason for the emigration was that Susanne´s father was an engineer in the oil industry. He got a very lucrative job offer in Venezuela back then. Susanne herself was married to a Dutch guy. Thus she used to live in the Netherlands where she worked with Michael in the same team. But her daughter who grew up in the Netherlands decided that Venezuela was much more attractive to live in. So, she told her mother she would move to her grandparents. In the end also Susanne went back to Maracay and we were able to meet her there. We do not know how they are all doing today as we unfortunately lost contact over the years.

Close to Maracay there is a popular beach called Choroni. We drove there and enjoyed the lively bay full of locals. Many Caraqueños – people from Caracas, the capital – spend their weekends here.

Our last stop of our road trip brought us to the city of Valencia which we also knew as our friend Miguel was living there. The most funny experience there was while walking in the local shopping mall Sambil we got tickets to a fashion show that we attended that evening. I guess as we were foreigners we even were allowed to stay till the end of the after party. So we even got to know the models. We returned the car in Caracas and continued to the Angel Falls – the highlight of our trip.

Continue reading…