I’ve seen Venezuela and lived!

With my, let’s call it significant, Milestone Birthday approaching like an express train in the hands of a comatose driver, the subject of holiday destinations was, once again, being bandied around the Hayes household.

If memory serves me right, we both fancied the Caribbean in some guise or other and, being the birthday boy, the final destination decision was to be mine. Er, perhaps ‘final destination’ isn’t quite the right term for someone rapidly nearing the Big Five-O but you know what I mean. Now, I love to do extensive research before relinquishing my hard-earned readies so out came the brochures and the PC was lovingly fired up. For what seemed like weeks I was listing the pro’s and con’s of various islands, airlines and hotel groups before coming to the conclusion that we we’d be going wherever my significant other decided, as usual.

She spent five minutes whimsically flicking through a brochure and firmly declared, ‘We’re going to Aruba and we’re staying at the Tamarijn resort on Druif Beach’. So with my weeks of research now just serving to contribute to our bin man’s bad back, we made all the necessary arrangements and waited.

A week before my big day we boarded our Boeing 767 bound for sunnier and warmer climes. It was October and the weather was just turning chilly enough to increase my desire to leave these shores, if only for 14 nights, all-inclusive I might add.

After 10 hours of boredom, cramp, in-flight movies, dodgy food, sleep and vodka we landed in paradise in what must have been an unseasonably hot spell. Nowhere could be this hot normally. Turns out it’s always this hot. Phew.

The first thing we noticed on our ride to the hotel complex was the amount of airborne wild life, it looked like a scene from Avatar. The air was literally black with dragon-flies, big ones too. We were a little worried, as we are not fans of bugs in general, by the sheer numbers of them. I couldn’t remember, do they bite, sting, suck or just pick you up and carry you away to be feasted on later by their insatiable offspring. Obviously they turned out to be harmless because I am still here to tell the tale.

On arrival at the complex we were whisked away to our block by a very chatty, friendly local on a golf buggy. The topic of conversation, yes you’ve guessed it, bugs. Mosquitoes this time. They are active throughout the day, they carry Dengue Fever and, apparently, love sweaty, bloated, milky-white skin. Our driver seemed to delight in warning us that we’d get eaten alive unless we bought some of the local repellent. I was half expecting him to tell me that his brother just happened to own a pharmacy and could get us a good price but, in truth, the guy was genuinely looking out for us. I tried to tell him that Boots 50% Deet could stop a buffalo at 20 paces but he was adamant that only the local stuff would work. Suffice to say he was proved right, we got bitten but managed to avoid the dreaded Dengue Fever. After day one we were practically bathing in his recommended lotion and it stunk but we felt safer.

Another shock awaited us as we arrived at our home for the next 2 weeks. I started to unpack and the wife went onto the terrace to have a look round. Within seconds she was shouting my name, banging on the terrace door and pointing rather nervously at a palm tree just outside our room. When I went to look for myself I was more than a little surprised to see a 2 metre long iguana sat in the tree looking at us. My first thought was, could it take my whole foot off in one bite? Not while I’m in here it can’t and anyway it would probably eat the wife first due to the fact that she was the other side of the glass with only a cigarette lighter and a, hastily removed, shoe for protection. Funnily enough they weren’t hostile either and would even eat fruit from our hands. Or they would have done had I been blessed with the foresight to pack my gardening gloves.

We were floating in the sea just outside our room one day and an American guy said to us, ‘See that misty mountain out at sea on the horizon, well that’s Venezuela and you can’t normally see it. You’re very lucky’.

I must say that being in paradise with my beautiful wife, surviving the voracious hoards of deadly creatures and being able to see Venezuela, I did indeed feel very privileged.

Written by: Peter Hayes