Uswetakeiyawa Beach

 

We took an Uber about 30 minutes north to Uswetakeiyawa Beach. It has a few swimmable areas, but we're more interested in walking barefoot on the beach instead of swimming so this one is perfect for us. There were lots of big crashing waves on rocks, which caused us to take thousands of pictures. Well ok, I only took about 150 pictures and here's about 50 of those. We do have to show some constraint, don't we?

Jūrmala Latvia - Beach in Winter

 

Is that a white sandy beach? Well, the snow is white over a sandy beach, so technically it is a white sandy beach. Going to the beach is a popular activity in Latvia all year. Snow doesn't stop the strolling or sports. It's odd to dig your car out of the snow to go to the beach, but it's still a good way to get some socially distanced fresh air. Here's a previous Jūrmala post with warmer and more crowded times.

Latvia Coast - Užava & Liepāja

Our third day of slowly exploring the Latvian coast had us staying in a riverside AirBnB in Užava. There's a beach there where the little river meets the sea, so that's a fun thing to see at the sea. We finished the day in Liepāja and stayed at a nice boutique hotel next to the big city park along the coast. We probably missed all sorts of things in this town because of our short stay. We followed the recommended walking tour on the map and that was it since we had one more destination on our agenda before heading home. We could see coming back here for a longer visit if we run out of other things to explore near us in Latvia.

Latvia Coast - Pēterezera dabas taka, Oviši, & Ventspils

We pulled off at random spots to check out the nature during our drive from Kolka to Ventspils. That tactic turned a one hour drive into a surprise adventure day since we didn't have a set itinerary. Pēterezera dabas taka (pic above) was a nice nature trail through the wooded hills and by a small lake or large pond. Oviši had many dunes and smooth rocks along what looked like a dried up riverbed next to the beach. This post ends with some pictures of Ventspils before we went a little more south to our riverside AirBnB in Užava.

Latvia Coast - Mērsraga bāka & Kolkasrags

You're probably not thinking about heading to the beach when you think of a Baltic Sea country like Latvia. However, you should think about it since there are some really nice sandy beaches here. The weather isn't hot and sunny for very long, but these beaches are also great for a stroll even when it gets cooler. I had a nice long midsummer break from work so we drove along the coast and checked out some of the different kinds of beaches.

We've had several days without any cases of COVID-19 and the national emergency is over here. There's still guidance to keep 2 meters apart from each other and restaurant tables inside are still spaced out. We didn't see too many people in our travels but it was easy enough to keep some distance and spend some good times outside in the fresh air. It was a wonderful break from the earlier lockdowns.

Paphos Cyprus

We continued the European winter escape plan to Paphos (Pafos) Cyprus. Many Europeans and some Americans like to vacation in one big 3-4 week break if they have that kind of vacation time available. I prefer taking a week here and there over a season or throughout the year. Summers in Latvia are the best time to be here so winter is the better time to plan vacations.

February is the off-season in Cyprus with some resorts and restaurants closed for the season and some places under renovation. Our hotel was mostly full of other northern Europeans seeking some sun so even the off-season is somewhat busy. Some parts of town felt closed, but overall it was bustling enough. It felt comfortable instead of crowded which is what I imagine the summer season is there.

Jūrmala Latvia

The Majori train station in Jūrmala gets you to the heart of this Baltic beach town near Riga. Google says the drive from Old Town takes about half an hour which is the same as the train. The train costs €1.40 each way so we're happily living the public transit life here. We arrived in Jūrmala and stumbled upon a traditional Latvian dance festival so that was cool. This beach town looks like a fun place to hang out even without a special event. We've heard Jūrmala is the place to be during the summer here and we agree!

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.

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.

Curaçao

I forgot to post pictures of Curaçao with everything going on lately in Caracas. We still managed to do a lot in about 2 days even though the trip was aborted early. It was just a 30 minute flight to get there but because of the timing we had to take 2 flights and spend the night in Bogota to get back!

The beaches appear to be smaller than the wonderful wide beaches we had in Aruba. We stayed a weekend in the area of Eagle Beach to Divi Beach on Aruba and didn't leave much other than downtown but it was very nice. In comparison, Curaçao seemed more interesting for other things if you're not after the most perfect beaches. It has more character than the area of Aruba we stayed. Aruba felt more American commercialized and we were fine for a weekend relaxing without a car. Curaçao felt more like the Dutch Caribbean and you definitely need to rent a car to get around and see some stuff. They're both cool destinations for slightly different reasons. Here's some pictures to compare to my post about Aruba.

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.

Gran Canaria

We're taking full advantage of opportunities to take vacations. I had leave from my previous job and saved more during 5 months of mandatory training. We've taken short weekend trips so it may look like we're on vacation a lot, but this was only our second full week of vacation since Dec 2013. My office has another IMS which gives me the luxury of taking time off as long as he's working. I may be the only one in the office at a future smaller post so I'm taking advantage of this while I can.

We headed south to the Grand Canaries to escape the Swedish winter and soak up some sun. The Schengen Area lets us travel around participating EU countries without international border control. It was as easy as flying around the US when we flew 6 hours to a Spanish island off the coast of Africa. I thought this might be the southernmost Schengen Area destination but Wikipedia lists EU's southernmost point as the French island of Réunion near Madagascar. This job definitely gets me looking more closely at world geography in a hands-on way.