Windsurfing in Venezuela
[!](http://www.venezuelatuya.com/margarita/yaqueeng.htm)
_Update: [pictures are up](/gallery/Venezuela+Windsurfing)!_
I spent the last week and a half on vacation on the island of
[Margarita](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isla_Margarita), off the coast of
Venezuela. We went for a
[wedding](http://registry.weddingchannel.com/wedding_websites/PersonalWebsite.action?view=gr&occ=572658073) -
the bride grew up there - and stayed to windsurf at
[El Yaque](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playa_El_Yaque), a beach that's famous for
windsurfing and kitesurfing.
It was a great trip. We drank and ate too much, we barely remembered our high
school Spanish, our keys got stolen, we drank the water and got the runs, we
wore sunscreen and got sunburned, our windsurfing rigs tore up our hands and
feet, we barely escaped
[Chavez](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Ch%C3%A1vez) and his [armed
thugs](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2935780.stm), we sat through eight
hour layovers...and still, we had a blast.
I'm not going to do a full trip writeup, but I will post some things I noticed
as we wandered around the island and talked to people. This was my first trip
to South America, so some of these are probably common to many Latin
countries. Also, Chavez and the political instability are a big enough topic
that I'll devote another post to them alone.
- People often wrapped their checked baggage in saran wrap to discourage
theft. There were booths at the airport that offered to do this for a
nominal fee.
- People were generally very outgoing, forward, and physical. There wasn't
much concern for physical space or other minor etiquette matters.
- I didn't notice a lot of overt machismo among the men. I did notice lots of
its latent effects among the women, though. They tended to try to be
traditionally feminine, at least physically: long hair, thin waistlines,
heavy makeup, etc. Strikingly, the locals said that the _majority_ of women
have breast implants, usually paid for by Venezuela's public health care!
- Very few people spoke English, and we didn't see many signs that included
translations in any language other than Spanish. English is much more
frequent in other developed countries, so the lack of it in Venezuela was
interesting.
- Most people immediately assumed I spoke Spanish. Happily, I do, but I was
always surprised whenever anyone struck up a conversation. The accent is
pretty standard - not Mexican, not Castillian - but they tend to drop the
letter s at the end of words.
- Venezuela is near the equator, so naturally, the climate is very tropical,
warm and humid. The soil was dark orange and mostly clay. Oddly, we also
saw a lot of cacti (!) near the beaches.
- The landscape on [Margarita](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isla_Margarita)
felt mostly rural, kind of country getaway, with a sprinkling of third
world. Margarita is a popular vacation spot for upper class Venezuelans, so
that made sense.
- The [Venezuelan bolívar](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_bol%C3%ADvar)
is pegged to the dollar at 2150:1, but inflation is roughly 16%, so the real
(black market) exchange rate is around 5800:1. We changed most of our money at
convenience stores, which gave us rates of 5000:1 to 5500:1.
- On our first day at El Yaque, we met a couple other guys from California who
were kitesurfing. Coincidentally, one works at Google, in Mountain View. The
other owns a kite surfing shop in San Diego,
[Calikites](http://calikites.com/). They'd taken three weeks of vacation,
bought tickets to Caracas, and winged it from there.
- The crowd in El Yaque was very European, as were the business owners. We met
lots of Germans, French, Italians, and Brits, as well as a few Swedes,
Swiss, Australians, and Belgians. Oddly, though, we didn't see _anyone_ from
Asia, South Asia, or Russia.
- In the last few years, El Yaque has become very popular with the spring
break crowd. The beach can get so packed that you have to walk down into the
water to get anywhere! Thank god we were there during the off season.
- Many of the international people were on extended vacations, some for months
at a time. We got a strong feel for the beach bum lifestyle: ride during the
day, party at night, get up and do it again. Many people just flew
somewhere, hung out and surfed for a few weeks, then headed to the next
place that was supposed to have good wind. Not so bad, all things
considered!
