Morrocoy National Park

October 1999-

Rob had planned on leaving Caracas in November and our trip to Morrocoy was to be our last adventure together. The following weekend would be Rob's despedida (going-away party) and then he would be off for Merida. Tom, Rob, and I left Saturday morning and got to the town of Tucacas around noon, not exactly early but the best we could muster after a night out on the town. Tucacas is where I went for the open water dive portion of my SCUBA course. Past Tucacas we parked along the coast and found a boat to take us to the Cayo Sombrero, where we were planning on camping for the weekend. Tom was negotiating the fare for the boat ride when we were informed that all people camping on the island had to obtain a permit from InParques. This required us to go back to Tucacas (about 15 kilometers), past an InParques station (where they did not sell the permit) to the main InParques office for the park. Once in Tucacas the InParques officials instructed to go to the local Banco Union and deposit 3000 Bolivars (US $5). With our receipt in hand we went back to the InParques office again to receive our permit for the (now half over) weekend.

Once we finally got our permit the three of us headed past hordes of kids screaming at us to stop and board their boats. They had the lowest prices, secure parking, blah, blah, blah. I am not one for the hard sell so we went back to where we originally we going to leave from. From there we took a short boat ride to Cayo Sombrero and set up camp. All of the boats stay to the south side of the key so we headed straight to the reef on the north side. Once settled we did the normal beach things throughout the weekend: ate some food, went swimming, played paddleball, lounged in the hammock, and snorkeled. Although we were on a reef the snorkeling was lackluster.

Tom had been complaining in Guatopo the previous weekend about having to eat tomato and cheese sandwiches for dinner so I made it a point to do more preparation. I brought my camp stove (good warm-up to use it before Roraima) and we made Top Ramen with hard-boiled egg and bell pepper. Not gourmet, but still hot and tasty. We had hummus and pita for starters while the soup was cooking and then ate cookies for dessert. A three course meal! While we were eating Rob dropped a piece of trash so I shined the flashlight under the picnic table so he could pick it up. This is when I noticed a hermit crab crawling around beneath our table. It was pretty big and kept us entertained for a little while. Later when I looked around with the light we realized that there were hermit crabs everywhere. Tom had never seen one before so I showed him how they go from home to home and put two of them together and tried to make them fight (for education purposes only of course).

Tom brought his tent and his sleeping pad but Rob brought nothing to sleep with so I gave him my sheet. Rob slept in the tent with Tom because sleeping outside in the open meant braving the mosquitoes. I had brought along my trick new mosquito net to put over my hammock so I did not have any problems. Just before going to bed we saw lightning off in the distance so I bundled all my stuff up in trash bags to keep it from getting waterlogged. The boys were not prepared for this so I let them put their valuables (cameras and passports) in my bag and they put everything else in the tent. We got a little rain around midnight, enough to require me to change my sleeping arrangements. I went in the tent and promptly got bitten by mosquitoes. There was no room for me anyway so I headed back to the comfort of my hammock. The rain passed quickly and was followed by gusts of wind for the rest of the night.

Sunday we had until three in the afternoon before the boat was coming to pick us up so we just relaxed. I forgot the yogurt for breakfast but we still had grapes, apples, and juice. We horsed around for the whole afternoon, swimming and playing games. Only five or six groups had also spent the night on the key and even during the day it was not very crowded. Once back to the mainland we packed up the car and headed back to Caracas for another week of work. The trip back passed quickly thanks to good music and excellent conversation with my boys.