Santa Elena: Enjoying the Views

One of the greatest pleasures in life, either when you travel or when you live in Cornwall, is to draw back your curtains in the morning and pause for a few seconds as you take in the wonderful views. Now when you stay in 'budget' accommodation around the world, you're more likely to see concrete, garbage and rusty iron than herds of wilderbeast roaming majestically across the savannah, but this morning, just for once, our hearts missed a beat as we realised what good luck we've been having on this expedition. Take a look!




Can you see the guava tree in this shot?

Sometimes travelling can be one big problem-solving excercise. Take this, for example: Caracas is so dangerous (due to La Inseguridad) and so tricky to negotiate with large backpacks, we were seriously scared as we planned our journey through the city last week. Just imagine our amazement and delight to find out that we had purchased tickets which would deliver us not to the expected bus terminal La Bandera, but to the Terminal Oriente, exactly the place we needed to be for our onward connection. So the problem wasn't just solved, it merely evaporated!
Our next major worry was just how, exactly, were we to find our way safely back across Caracas on our way to the airport and onwards to Cuba. The problem was compounded by money issues: don't forget we can only use the cash we are carrying (to get the best exchange rate) and that there are expensive taxis to consider (the airport is at Maiquetia, 26 km away on the northern coast) and there is a hefty departure tax to pay just to leave the country, but we're not quite sure just how much this is going to be. So the logistics of this problem were, quite frankly, huge. Should we try to arrive on a night bus and then go directly to the airport, or should we try to stay overnight in the city and then travel onwards? All this is further complicated by the fact that muggings, express-kidnappings and fake taxi drivers are commonplace here. What to do?
Well, it turns out that Cubana de Aviacion have changed the time of our flight from midday to an evening departure. Problem solved immediately: night bus, taxi to the airport with plenty of time to spare. Somebody up there loves us! Oh, but wait, just hang on there a cotton-picking minute....
This means that we'll be clearing customs in Havana sometime after midnight, with no airport bus, and nowhere booked to stay. Out of the frying pan.....