Laguna de Cariaco 07/19/07

Doug and Diane on Salacia know the inns and outs of Guacarapo and made friends with one of the home owners who lives in Caracas, she gave them the key to her vacation house and they take care of it whenever they are in this anchorage, so we sat with them many hours in the shade of the patio chatting away and learning more about this little place. Guacarapo is a quite little village and it seems at first there are no stores until you walk through town you realize that every other house has something
to sell, although it's mainly just the basics. For fruits, vegetables and meats you have to take a porpuesto (truck with bench around the truck bed and room to load as many people in the back as possible) into Cariaco which I enjoyed more so than the trip from Medregal as we traveled with the locals. Two houses down from theirs is a Bodega (liquor store and also used as the local bar), there are always several guys hanging out for hours and drink 37 cent beer, some all day long. Miscellaneous like
soda crackers, pasta and sodas are also available and ice but every time we try to buy some we're told "manana" (tomorrow). Yes, we're definitely in the land of manana. Manana means definitely not today but not necessarily tomorrow either. So he referred me to the next store, from there to the next and next, this is how I found out that they actually do have stores in the village. In one she would either come out with frozen ice in coke bottles, the other in plastic bags and the only one that usually
sells cubes said "manana, so Sid for now is drinking his rum and coke at room temperature. Apropos temperature we're still amazed how cool it is, only around noon till two it's hot and siesta comes in handy, the rest is pleasant and between four or five it can even get cool. The water temperature is a refreshing 77. We especially enjoy sitting on deck in our beach chairs when the cool gentle night breeze is blowing and watch just as the sun sets how every local in town comes out the doors and mingle
in the streets, well most of them in front of the Bodega. A chit chatter starts everywhere as the town comes to live. When you see and hear this it doesn't seem that there is any political problems in this country, all you hear is happy laughter, kids play and dogs bark, a very cozy atmosphere. This lasts for about one and a half to two hours and then it's quite for the night. It's so quite you could hear a mouse fart. There is no haze lingering either, every day the view is crystal clear and you
can see for miles and miles, very picturesque.
We finally had the water leak under control, the pump from the water maker broke and Sid fixed it. After an hour of running the water maker today we pumped many gallons of water out of the bilge again, even more so than before and when Sid checked the pump the water came out of the pump like out of a hose. He replaced it with a new pump and bilge is dry again. After that little episode we pulled anchor and followed Salacia up the bay passed Muelle de Cariaco up to the Laguna de Cariaco where the
river flows into the Golf. The river is on the eastern end of the Golfo de Cariaco and an incredible place to explore by dinghy for this is the home of plenty of herons, cormorants, pelicans, parrots, ibis and we even heard pink flamingos and storks. The Laguna has an open view into the Golfo de Cariaco with lush mountains in the background but the rest ist surrounded by tall mangroves and brackish water. Tomorrow first thing in the morning we'll explore the river and even reach a point where the
water is fresh and not brackish.