Over the Venezuelan Labor Day weekend in 2001, I was able to return to my home town for the first time since I was 15 years old. Puerto La Cruz is an oil port on the northeastern coast of Venezuela, about 150 miles east of Caracas.

For you fellow Venezuelan ex-pats, I stayed at a lousy hotel on Paseo Colón. This is on the other end of the beachfront boulevard from the Vengref/MGO camp; not far from the Margarita ferry dock and the open-air fish market. If you visit, stay at the hotel located on the former Dorsey's Beach, at the farthest Vengref-side extension of the former camp.

Click here for links of interest to fellow Venezuelan oil brats/ex-pats and residents.

The Guaraguao camp is still intact, and amazingly well-maintained. Nobody seems to live there, although the club and dock are in use. There seems to be a political dilemma regarding whom and how to house in the camp. It's rather a dilemma for the government ownership, because the gardening and upkeep is costing a fortune.

The biggest surprise for me was the developed state of the Lecherias beach area, and El Morro. Public gossip relates that laundering Columbian drug money financed the construction of dense canals for condominia and resorts.

Linked on the left are 2001 pictures of the home in which I lived from age 5 to 14 years. Everything is much smaller than I remember it.
Dec 2004 news: Daniel Kohlhofer, R.I.P.
My 2001 full-day boat cruise stopped first at one of the local islets that has been developed for day visitors. We continued to La Piscina (The Pool) for a dip, and then went by Silver Island (itself fully developed with permanent beach huts.)
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