Photo's Isla Margarita
Not technically checked (1)	Not technically checked (2)	Bicycle	Porlamar (1)	Porlamar (2)
The wrong beach	Ulta-light airplain

General
For the shore of Venezuela there's the island which belongs to  Venezuela behoort. At the other side of the shore of Venezuela you find the Dutch islands Aruba, Curacau and Bonaire. (Yes, Holland still have these "colonies").  You can compare Isla Margarita with a more quit version of the spanish disco cities  "Lorret da Mar". Isla Margarita is a perfect spot for beach, sun and disco lovers.

The hotel
When you're Dutch and travel to Isla Margarita, you proberbly travel with  Q-international. This organisation has about 20 busses for the customers and they all get quite full. I had booked the cheapest hotel at  Q-International. The  bungalow was looking good and was extremely large.  ( 6 persons could fit in without a problem). The complex had a swimming pool and they also had an amusement program which they repeated every two weeks. I booked all-inclusive and the food was resanoble. Unfortunately they didn't have fresh juices, only cola made of sirup. The location of the hotel was very bad. The neighboor was a petrol storage. I'm sure when one of those large silo's get on fire, everybody in the resort will get killed. After the petrol storage was the  "beach". The other side of the complex was surounded by land and far away we could see a road with a lot of trafic.

But fortunately every day a free bus went to porlamar and the  El Aqua beach. The bus left at exactly 10 AM. (It was gone 1 minute past ten!) When you missed the bus you could take a cab for 1 dollar to Porlamar. (petrol is cheap, because of all the oil in Venezuela)

Beaches
All beaches have nice white sand. The beaches at the south get all the garbage of the ships who are laying at the shore of Venezuela. You can't sunbath there. They don't have to place warning signs, your noise is warning you. (see photo).
At the west part of Isla margarita the sea is a little bit wild, which makes it good for surfing, but not for swimming. These beaches do have a lot of facilities, like umbrella's, water scooters, people who sell things, ultra lights etc. etc.  The northern part of the island is more quit.

Porlamar
The biggest city of Isla Margarita is Porlamar. It's strainge, but you can hardly find outdoor cafés in Porlamar. There're plenty of disco's restaurants, bars and shops. Gentlemen have to pay a small entrence fee for disco's. In disco's they play  pop, salsa, merengue and popmusic which they changed into a merengue. Some female visiters will go with men for payement...

Price level:
Q-international wrote in theire brochure Isla Margarita is a shopping paradise. I didný notice it. Prices were equal with Holland, maybe a tiny little bit less. Don't change your money in Holland, because you get an awful rate. Buy your  Bolivars in Venezuela at the airport. they accepted dollars everywhere and I supose now they also will accept the euro. For traveller-cheques hotels gave the worst rate and banks or shops (yes they change too if you ask them) give the best rates.

The traffic:
Most Dutch I spoke with thought the Venezolans "drove like madmen". I don't agree. Roads and  cars are in very bad condition and therefore people don't drive fast. Because of the holes in the road it's normal to go from one side of the road to the other. exhaust pipes and bumpers hang on iron wires or just a piece of tape. The radio's are playing merengue (loudly) and for the window you see lot's of accesoires hanging.

The weather
During the day it's about 28 Celcius, which is very nice. In the evening, between 6 and 9 PM it usually rained for about an hour. The temperature in the evening was about 23 Celcius. Temperature of the sea is nice too, about  26 Celcius..

Excursions
After the one week tour through Venezuela I didn't make excursions at Isla Margarita, but you can have excursions. I supose it's nice to visit the mangrove forest of la Restinga.  I made a flight with an  ultra-light airplane from the beach El Aqua to Porlamar, which was a nice experience.