blogs Home
Avoid "La Casa del Lobo" but not Venezuela    

Except for the incident I wrote about on the first day, where a kid ripped a chain from my wife's neck, the Venezuelan people have proven to be the friendliest and happiest of any country I have visited. Maybe the fact tourism is almost nonexistent here has something to do with that, but I think just a little. When we ask for directions, we often have a crowd of people trying to help us. On numerous occasions people offered to drive us or offered us food just to be helpful (I know because we accepted all of the offers). At the zoo we got back stage access, but perhaps because of the camera (more about this in the trip report).

The only negative experience after about a month was at a German owned and run hotel (I am dual German/US citizen so am not picking on anyone). One morning I was using the computer for hotel guests, and someone started screaming at me, that I was in his office, that he knew is was me, and on and on. I later learned this was the acting manager, who has a volatile personality, but still have no idea what he was upset about. An hour later we had to leave; nothing to do with this incident but the hotel had suddenly filled up. We had to cancel our plans for the day and were on the street looking for a new hotel. This hotel, "La Casa del Lobo" in Puerto Ordaz, did not take our names or passports, which I think is bad for security. Then the manager would not give us a receipt. They also have a Orange-winged Macaw, which is in violation of Venezualan law, so I reported them to the Venezeulan Biodiversity office. Hopefully the poor parrot was released.

Syndicate content