World Happiness Report 2019

The annual World Happiness Report is out again and March 20th is the International Day of Happiness. The report measures six key variables supporting well-being: GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity, and absence of corruption. I first saw this in the news in 2016 and have checked it out every year for Happiness Day. It's interesting to see how the rankings change for the countries I've lived in.

Choroní and Chuao

We spent a long holiday weekend at Cacaoni Lodge in Choroní with a beach day and a day trip to nearby Chuao. What holiday? Oh, doesn't everyone celebrate the birthday of Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar Palacios Ponte y Blanco? Simón Bolívar is da man! Well, as long as I get a day off for him.

Choroní is about 3 hours from Caracas with the last good bit of it over curvy mountain roads from Maracay through a beautiful National Park area. Playa Grande is near town but the lodge took us and half a dozen other guests to an exclusive beach by boat. We also toured the cacao/cocoa plantation in nearby Chuao which is a town accessible by boat. Choroní has a mountain road but Chuao is completely blocked off by the mountains.

Salto Ángel Overview

We finally visited the natural crown jewel of Venezuela about 2 months prior to departure. That's Salto Ángel, Angel Falls, or Kerepakupai Meru in the native Pemon language. It's also the inspiration for Paradise Falls in the Disney Pixar movie Up. This post will serve as an overview for the other blog posts about the trip. I took so many pictures and it's such a big experience that it needs more coverage. It's really worth digging into this trip as an amazing bucket list experience.

Ara Merú Lodge

Our last night in Canaima was spent in Ara Merú Lodge because Waku Lodge didn't have room for us. Ara Merú had the opposite problem. We were told we hit them on a Monday between tour groups so we were actually the only guests. This allowed them to treat us to breakfast on the top of their observation deck to see the Canaima Lagoon and falls. Waku Lodge is right on the water so they have better views but this place does their best to make up for their location. It's a really nice and new place. They even have their own waterfall covering their vehicle entrance (above). We didn't spend much time at either lodge with all of the excursions so this place is worth consideration.

Kavak Gorge Waterfall

The fly over for Angel Falls is a flight to Kavak or Kavac. We were so focused on the bigger parts of the trip and getting to fly over Angel Falls that we actually didn't know what we were going to do there. We were told to wear bathing suits for another waterfall but we didn't know the setting for it. Spanish Wikipedia translates it to the Caves of Kavac but it's more of a gorge and grottos thing. We had to swim in this tight gorge to get to the waterfall pictured above. Most of these pics are blurry because once again the waterproof camera kept fogging up and couldn't handle taking pictures in the heavy mist. It was waterproof but not great for taking pics in that environment.

Flying Around Angel Falls

We boarded this small 6 person plane for a flight out to Kavak (more on that in the next post) and flew past Angel Falls on the way there and back. I was "co-pilot" going and my wife got that seat coming back. Our flight took is back over the long day trek from the previous day but of course this was much faster. We flew low over the river and close to the falls next to the lagoon before getting a little more altitude. Angel Falls is set back in the tepuy (table-top mountain) so we made hard banking turns in what was essentially a canyon on the way out. The return trip had us doing the same but then pulling up above the mountain to see a little of the flatter top. It was a great way to see the area but you only get a quick look in a noisy plane so the boating and hiking is an essential experience.

Angel Falls and Back Again

The previous post has lots of Angel Falls pics. The next day's morning light was better so there will be tons of pics in this post too. The trip back to Waku Lodge was only 2 hours because we were heading back downstream. I can't share enough pictures or words to convey the majesty of this area and the tepuy (tepui, mesa, or table-top mountains). Tepui is Pemon native language for "house of the gods" and they are special mountain forms. Their striking cliffs and waterfalls popping out everywhere were magical at times. Angel Falls is the grandest and tallest single drop waterfall in the world, but it ended up being the main crown jewel in an otherwise amazing area. 

Trip to Angel Falls

This is the view at the top of Salto Hacha where we boarded a boat to start the long trek to Angel Falls (Salto Ángel). The camp near Angel Falls was about 4 hours of boat riding, hiking, and a restroom adventure (more on that later). We had lunch at camp and then went on a 3 hour round-trip hike up to the overlook (mirador) closer to the bottom of Angel Falls. The return from the overlook had us hiking in pouring rain and increasing darkness to nightfall. Surprisingly the river was lower so we had to wade across the smaller bit of the river in the dark to reach the boat for a bigger river crossing and back to the comforts of camp. Dinner was on our covered patio which was the only shelter. There were restrooms and a trickle of a shower to wash off the dirt but that was about it. They strung up hammocks for us after dinner. We slept on the covered patio as the rain lulled us to sleep. It was an awesome experience!

Salto El Sapo y Salto Hacha

The first amazing experience in Canaima was the falls (salto) of El Sapo (toad) and Hacha (ax). We took the boat across the lagoon and our indigenous guide took us on a hike to show us the local environment. He then lead us to, under, and through the falls in several spots. I emphasize through because we've never been wetter as the falls pulverized water into us. I had a waterproof camera but it fogged up and the lens was frequently covered in spray so some of these pics are a bit psychedelic.

Waku Lodge

Parque Nacional Canaima has several lodges to stay in and the best one appears to be Waku Lodge. They seemed to have the biggest presence right on the water across from Salto El Sapo and all of the excursions were well done. As usual, click on the pictures for a bigger version.

Colonia Tovar Supplemental

Captain's log, supplemental. The away team ventured back out to Colonia Tovar for another visit a year and half after the initial landing party hired a driver to get there. We noted it was a nice spot for a little shore leave so we returned 3 months prior to departure from this strange planet of Venezuela.

We didn't have our car yet back then even though it was 3 months after arrival. I could drive us this time so we were free to take the trip at our own pace. Colonia Tovar hasn't changed much as a nice weekend getaway spot since that first time, which is a great thing. It's a little German alpine village two hours west of Caracas so I hope it can keep its character and charm. Check out the previous post and pictures here.

We stayed at a different hotel so these pictures should be different. We also drove a little past the town and a little higher up to to Pico Codazzi at 2,429 meters (7,969 feet) to see what's on the other side of that mountain top. It was this view...

World Happiness Report 2018

The annual World Happiness Report is out again and March 20th is the International Day of Happiness. The report measures six key variables supporting well-being: income, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom, trust, and generosity. I first saw this in the news in 2016 and wrote about it then. It's interesting to see how the rankings change for the countries I've lived in and will live in next.

The top 10 is dominated by Nordic countries. Sweden is #9 and about the same as the previous 2 years I've looked at this since I lived there. The U.S. slipped from #13 to #14 last year and slid further to #18 this year. It's not a good trend so we definitely need to work on those key variables contributing to everyone's well-being instead of mostly benefiting the rich and well-connected. We could learn a few things from the countries above us on the list. That's assuming happiness is a shared goal in American society and the metrics for this report are the right ones. Wasn't there something about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness at one time in our history? It's worth looking at more deeply.

Top 20

1 - Finland, 2 - Norway, 3 - Denmark, 4 - Iceland, 5 - Switzerland

6 - Netherlands, 7 - Canada, 8 - New Zealand, 9 - Sweden, 10 - Australia

11 - Israel, 12 - Austria, 13 - Costa Rica, 14 - Ireland, 15 - Germany

16 - Belgium, 17 - Luxembourg, 18 - U.S., 19 - U.K., 20 - United Arab Emirates

Sietemares

Sietemares is an ecoposada & spa beach resort on the Venezuelan coast about 2 hours drive from Caracas. It's a wonderful weekend getaway with all-inclusive meals & drinks, an infinity pool, massages overlooking the ocean, and 7 beautiful private coves with interesting rock formations all along the coast.

The bar and dining are outside and covered. There are plenty of shade or sun spots. You could sit or lay out by the pool or the ocean. It's easy to relax how you want to there. The ocean is a little rough for swimming and the protected area by the resort is small. However, the beauty of it all makes it more interesting for us compared to a nice pristine beach suitable for swimming.

Los Roques

A 3 day weekend in the Los Roques archipelago!

It's approximately 350 islands, cays, and islets in a total area of 40.61 square kilometers. The archipelago is located 128 kilometers (80 miles) north of the port of La Guaira. It's awesome to see and relaxing to be. There's very few people overall because you have to fly out to Gran Roque in a small plane and take a small boat to any of the other little islands. It's not made for having a ton of tourists so it's a special place to visit in Venezuela. It's also a bit isolated from everything going on in Venezuela.

I highly recommend La Gotera with their beautiful seaside porch for dining and hanging out. It looked like they had one of the best setups of any of the other posadas there. The gourmet food was outstanding and everything was wonderfully done. They really took care of us.

I took lots of pictures so I think I'll just let some of them speak for themselves. Click on the pictures for larger versions or scroll through to at least take a quick look at this beautiful place.

Caracas - Year 1 Review

It's been just about a year so it's probably time to take a look back from this halfway point. I knew there wouldn't be as much leisure travel from here like I did from Stockholm. We took short trips to Aruba and Curacao since they're so close and affordable flights were available. We only managed 2 trips inside Venezuela. There was the nearby Colonia Tovar for a night and the nice beaches in Morrocoy for a long weekend.

Our first R&R was back to Stockholm. Cost-construct actually covered the flights so that was a nice affordable vacation. R&R is a good little perk for serving at a hardship post. The usefulness of it increases in places with lower flight availability. A lot of the flights out of here are expensive so going to the U.S. or Europe was equally expensive when we did it.

Here's a very small map of this year's new travels:

Santa Teresa Rum Factory

We joined a group trip to the Santa Teresa Rum Factory for a tour, rum tasting, and lunch. It's just a 2 hour drive from Caracas so it was a good day trip. The rum tasting served to prove that more expensive rum tends to taste better. That's exactly how they should determine which rum is more expensive. It's just weird if better tasting rum was cheaper.

We ended up buying the mid-range Selecto because we preferred it over the 1796 Solera at half the price, though price isn't much of a consideration when buying local good. So much for prices dictating tastes. Selecto seems to be a bit rare outside of Venezuela so good luck finding it. We also got an orange blended and a coffee blended rum to try even though they weren't a part of the tasting.

I learned that their basic Gran Reserva rum is blended from aged rum of 2-5 years because Venezuelan law requires 2 year aging for it to be called rum here. The cheap stuff from other countries may only be aged 6 months. If there's one thing you get from living in Venezuela, it's plenty of exposure to rum and opportunities to try it and learn about the differences. So far, Diplomático Reserva Exclusiva is our favorite. The funny business with exchange rates and locally produced goods like these rums make them pretty cheap for us.

Pictures weren't allowed in some parts of the active production areas but here's what I got everywhere else.

Morrocoy National Park

Morrocoy National Park is a protected island and marine preserve on the Caribbean coast of Venezuela. It's about a 4 hour drive from Caracas. Part of Falcón state, it’s known for its mangroves, island beaches and cays like Cayo Sombrero. It was one of the two cays (really small islands) we relaxed on over the holiday weekend, along with the even smaller Cayo Pescadores.

We stayed in a really nice posada (lodging) in the park with their own docks. Breakfast and dinner were served outside by the docks. The facilities at La Ardileña Posada were great but there were some typically Venezuelan things going on. A little later in the morning they'd shut off the water to the rooms to conserve their water tank. The electricity suddenly went out at the end of dinner on our last night for about 5 minutes. We could see the stars fairly clearly until they got the generator started and restored the lights. We're starting to get used to electricity not always being available or the water not being available and/or clear so it wasn't anything unusual to us now.

Colonia Tovar Venezuela

Could you have guessed that Venezuela has a German alpine village founded by immigrants in 1843? Colonia Tovar is about 2 hours away from Caracas so it's a great weekend getaway. It's a nice retreat from the tension of living in a high crime city. Tovar is the kind of village where people gather at the town square on a Saturday night and walk home after the party.

Tovar has a variety of restaurants with decent German food. There's plenty of the local German-style Tovar beers which is also a good brand to get in Caracas. There's lots of interesting little shops and food market stands with fresh produce. We also stocked up on fresh baked bread which we haven't seen in Caracas.

Tovar is higher in the mountains so the temperature was in the 60s F. We didn't plan for it, but we were there for the first lighting of the Christmas lights in the town square so that was a happy accident. It wasn't enough to make it feel like a wintry Christmas, but it wasn't an entirely tropical Christmas feeling either. Here's some pictures:

World Happiness Report

The World Happiness Report 2016 Update is published. The editors argue that happiness provides a better indicator of human welfare than income, poverty, education, health and good government measured separately. Roughly 3,000 respondents in more than 150 countries were asked to evaluate their lives on a ladder where 0 represents the worst possible life and 10 represents the best. For the world as a whole, the distribution is very normally distributed about the median answer of 5, with a population-weighted mean of 5.4. It's a simple concept of being higher or lower on a happiness ladder but it needs to be simple to measure people of so many different nationalities and mindsets.

I'm from the United States which is ranked #13 with a score of 7.104. I currently live at my first foreign service post in Sweden which ranks a little higher (#10/7.291). Supposedly I improved my happiness environment by moving to one of the top 10 countries but it wasn't a huge jump in position. It doesn't feel like a drastic change but I do think people here seem a little happier. It also depends a bit on the seasons here. The top 10 is dominated by Nordic countries despite their cold and dark winters. Maybe the survey is taken in the summer when everyone is enjoying the long days filled with sunshine and pleasant weather.

2nd Tour is... Caracas!

I received an email from my Career Development Officer (CDO) announcing my 2nd tour. Next summer I'm heading to Caracas Venezuela!

This was #22 on my list of 42 choices. It was a medium choice out of the high, medium, and low categories we had to tag on the list. It's a 20% differential post with a COLA currently similar to Stockholm since the COLA here has been dropping. This means there's a 20% pay raise to offset the somewhat harder life there compared to the 0% differential Sweden. There's also 2 R&R trips with paid airline tickets to Miami (or equivalent pricing somewhere else) for the 2 years there so that'll provide some nice breaks.