We are back from our trip to Venezuela. The trip really started on 10-23-10 a Saturday. We left home around 12 noon to head up to Bountiful where we were going to spend the night. We met up with our friends Curtis and Niyi at Cafe Rio and had a great lunch with them and the kids. After that we went the airport and bought the lap child ticket for Penny and then to Grandma's house and hung out there the rest of the nigh. Sunday morning we woke up at 5:30am and got ready and drove to Uncle Rex's house who was kind enough to take us to the airport. Everything at SLC went smoothly, and in fact the flight to Atlanta was fairly uneventful. After a two hour layover in Atlanta the real nightmare began. I think the problem was that we didn't really have a good plan of what to do in case of a meltdown. About 2 1/2 hours into the flight Eva decided that she did not want to be confined to the small space that was our seats and started to try to escape to the aisle. Not wanting to cause a scene in the aisle knowing that I would have to put her back in her seat I just wrestled with her for about 45 minutes while she screamed at the top of her lungs. I can't think of A time where I was more frustrated. However, We made it to Caracas and off the plane. V's sister Irania was at the airport to meet us. We stayed at a nice hotel call the Eurobuilding that was really close to the airport. We ordered room service Sunday night since we were waiting for Jeff Mariu and Kamila to arrive from Montreal Monday night. The breakfast in the lobby Monday morning was actually really good, and we spent the rest of the day recovering from the stress of the previous day. Jeff and Mariu arrived late Monday night and after spending some time with them we went to bed. Tuesday morning we got up early, had breakfast and went back to the airport. V, Mariu, Irania and the kids were flying to Puerto Ordaz and then heading to their families houses, Jeff and I were flying to Margarita to windsurf. The girls flight was a bit before ours so we went to their gate with them and saw them off. After celebrating our freedom for a while we headed to our gate. The flight to Margarita was good and we arrived and had a friend of a friend with a taxi pick us up. It was about a 15 min. ride to our hotel, The Hotel California, It was also a fairly nice place and we went to our room and got settled. Later that night we went over to the beach, El Yaque, and looked around for some place to rent the windsurfing stuff for the next day. We had dinner at our hotel restaurant which turned out to be a mistake. I ordered some spaghetti and meatballs thinking it was a pretty safe choice, however when I got it, it was nearly inedible because it was so salty. I was so hungry I managed to eat some of it, but when the manager came by (we were the only ones in the place) and asked how it was I told him it was way too salty, he was nice enough to take it and give me a pizza without charge. I made another mistake of ordering a pizza with red sauce, the same as with the spaghetti and has a salty pizza. The next day we had the complimentary breakfast in the same restaurant and headed out to wind surf.
It was a good day to begin to windsurf because there was only a slight wind. We found a place to rent the equipment and my lesson began. It was a bit more complex than I originally thought but after two hours I got to a point where I could get up and going know how to steer. The bad thing about the light wind was that it was kind of boring after you picked up the basics. So we called it quits and had lunch.
Later that afternoon Jeff taught me a pretty fun card game and then I watched the world series game on TV in our room. The next day there was no wind at all so we decided to go snorkeling. We took a boat out to a little island, and then another smaller boat to a point and started there. Now let me start by saying that I have been snorkeling in the Bahamas and Hawaii, both of which were awesome. So when I got into the water and saw no coral and only one type of fish (that wasn't even very pretty) I was rather disappointed. Plus the fact that the snorkel gear was too small and wouldn't cover my big face, made it all the worse. We left for Upata the next day to meet up with the wives and kids.
To make an already long post a little shorter, Over the rest of the vacation we hung out with V's family, had a birthday party for Eva, Penny and Kamila and Also went to a ranch for a few days and did a little horseback riding.
It was really nice to meet the rest of V's family, even though I don't speak all that much Spanish, they were all fun to hang out with and get to know. On the down side it was so probably about 95 degrees and almost 100% humidity. Very hot!
The trip back home was quite a bit better than the trip down. We managed to keep the kids somewhat occupied and they even slept a little.
I will say that my trip down there really made me appreciate how good we have things here, and needless to say I was very, very happy to be home. Here a few pics from the trip... Coming soon)