Margarita Day 137

Just back from a lightning trip over to Venezuela - the small island of Margarita in fact. This tiny island boasts a fantastic, all-inclusive resort where we spent three nights in tropical luxury. You may ask yourselves - Did we need a resort holiday at this point in our lives? The answer is probably not but there it is. We made a decision not to go around the Caribbean, as we had originally planned, as the children are quite settled and we have all had our fill of travelling for the time being (yes even me for now!) But a short trip to somewhere Martin and I had never visited seemed the right thing to do so there we were. Hmmm am I justifying this to you at home or me here - am not sure!!!

So how was it? In a nut shell - fabulous. Nine swimming pools to choose from including a Maxi-sized pool with water guns and elephant slides, a pool for Zac with two immense water slides and just for me a bar pool so I didn't have to get out of the water to get my rum. We did do a few other things including canoeing on the lagoon to see the huge flock of pelicans roosting in the middle. Zac and I went cycling every day and saw some very strange owls that seemed to nest on the ground in holes! Martin was a happy chappie as the sea boasted big waves so he was out on the water doing his thing for some of the time.

The main attraction however was the wildlife - and not just the owls. There were great big long iguanas everywhere and Zac was forever bothering us to go lizard hunting - often using the hotel towels as a capturing device to throw over them (this seldom worked and is not recommended I hasten to add!) We all got very good at lizard spotting and it became a daily ritual for the four of us to go into the scrubland to find the biggest ones we could - some of them must have been around 5 foot long. The hotel staff must have thought we were all mad. The climate and geography of the island it quite different from Trinidad - drier, sandier and less jungle-like which I guess must account for the lizard population - and also the locals cannot favour iguana as a delicacy as they do here otherwise they would all have been eaten which is the fate of many here I fear.

And so after a short few days we headed back to Trinidad and school and normality for us for now. That is until we head off again...