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LoS ROQUES a little slice of Paradise
story & photos m.wengler
A
s we arrived at Caracas airport, the devastating Hurricane Sandy was dragging a destructive trail on the east coast of the US. And because of these massive powers of Mother Earth, the weather situation was of course affected in most of the southern part of the Caribbean region, where we were going. It was raining heavily with powerful gusts when we landed, reminding me of the danish winter I had left behind. Not exactly the Caribbean image I had in my mind.
The airport at Los Roques
First sight that greets you on Los Roques
“Bones’n Jacks” Los Roques Flats
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t was my first visit to Venezuela, and Caracas is a town with a very bad reputation because of a significant crime rate. A town with serious poverty, not exactly a place you would recommend to you mother in law - unless you want to get rid of her of course!! We were picked up in the airport by the WWMF “meet & greet” crew and everything went completely smooth, but I would not have enjoyed to be on my own in this situation. Caracas is not a town for “weak souls” and I recommend that if you are planning a trip to this place, you should arrange some kind of travel agency like the WWMF to pick you up in the airport. Just to be sure and to avoid any kind of trouble. We were escorted to the respectable and exclusive Marriott Playa Grande hotel on the waterfront, 10 min. drive from the airport for a “one night in Caracas”. I got a room on the 12 th. floor with a brilliant view over the ocean and some very dark clouds in the distance from Hurricane Sandy.....I felt very privileged...
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ext morning the sun was shining from a clear blue sky, while we drove to the airport for our final destination - Los Roques - a little “slice of Paradise” only 35 min. flight from Caracas, “placed by God” in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by turquoise colored beaches......finally I could smell the coconuts and imagine the taste of a “dark Caribbean Ron”. It was my fist real tropical saltwater experience, so I felt pretty excited about every single aspect of this trip. Would I manage to catch a Bonefish or maybe even a Tarpon??..or would I be a total disaster??. No matter what happened, I was in an excellent company. Justin Maxwell the owner of WWMF - who had a lot of experience with this place and his fantastic wife Tania, who was “such a positive vibe” all through this trip. Life was good and......I was really feeling privileged.
Our excellent guide Carlos....Just another day at the office.
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felt dizzy, my stomach made strange sounds....I simply couldn’t wait to cast my fly into these turquoise waters. Our head guide Carlos was politely on a standby and after an agonizingly long 45 minute book in, see room, eat breakfast, fix our fishing kit, we were finally ready to hit the water. After a relatively quick attempt to entice one of dozens of large Tarpon which harassed a bait ball of minnows no more than 50 metres from the mooring we headed by boat to a small bay adjacent to the airstrip, just minutes away. This secluded spot, a mere stone’s throw from the hustle and bustle of the waterfront contained an incredibly dense shoal of minnows and amongst these cruised any number of Bonefish of around 3-7lbs. As the Bones scythed through the minnow cloud the grey mass would magically open up a few inches in front of the fish and then reclose moments after it had passed. I was in fly fishing heaven.......constantly feeling very privileged...
n o i t c a l erfu is w o p th ced n n i e t i r n e e p We ex where we w ter Paradise “ every ittle saltwa l g n i z a am
“
A school of jack’s , such a magnificent and strong little fish
“The World is yours�- interesting name for a boat.
M
y general fishing experience on these unique islands were absolutely fantastic. I have never caught so many fish before in my life. The ocean surrounding these beautiful islands is unbelievable, just so full of life. First of all there is “a carpet� of minnows all over the place, secondly the amount of Bones we caught were beyond my wildest imagination, I simply lost track of how many Bones we caught after a few days
Tania - always spreding possitive vibrations
fun lovin’ BONES fun lovin’ BONES fun lovin’ BONES fun lovin’ BONES fun lovin’ BONES fun lovin’ BONES fun lovin’ BONES fun lovin’ BONES fun lovin’ BONES fun lovin’ BONES fun lovin’ BONES fun lovin’ BONES fun lovin’ BONES fun lovin’ BONES fun lovin’ BONES fun lovin’ BONES
Barracuda & Horse eye Jacks
Los Roques power jaws
M
y first experience with some of the “Los Roques power jaws” was a Barracuda. A true sea monster which show absolutely no mercy to the bait. It’s ripped apart in a single bite, like a tiny “monster snack” served only to please this “saltwater pike”. We landed a couple of these scary looking creatures in a shot time, guided greatly by Carlos our brilliant guide. Amazing experience. Same thing with the Horse eyed Jack, pure power fishing. The take feels extremely powerful on a 9 -10 ft. rod, and when you hook in, you have to work for it. My rod simply “snapped” right over the rod handle, which was “a first time” for me, but I kept on dragging it in directly on the reel and got it into the boat, with some help from Carlos.
Tarpon’s
Mangrove exploring
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ustin was anxious to get me into my first Tarpon, the rod was handed over and I proceeded to hook and jump just about every Tarpon in the school we were perusing ‌literally! But instinctive trout fishing striking techniques as opposed to the requisite strip-strike, a requisite to drive the hook home into a Tarpon’s bony mouth, resulted in an adrenaline-packed 15 minutes accompanied by a good deal of commentary on the LDRT (long distance release technique). In other words I was a total disaster...but I enjoyed every moment. These shots are from on of our Tarpon hunts.
A dead Barracude is a gentle Barracuda
Los Roques’n The Locals
In search for the local spirit
When you carry a camera on a fishing trip like this one, it’s always a choice between the rod or your camera, can’t really do both and achieve good results. But when you are surrounded by a combination of beauty and a very exotic atmosphere, it isn’t such a hard choice after all. Camera fist, fishing comes secondly. After a while we had caught an insanely amount of fish, and I knew I had plenty of good fly fishing shoots on my Hard Drive. That’s the moment where I get the need to explore some the local community. A need to meet the locals, see how their every day life is, shake their hands and just explore on my own. I love that feeling and Los Roques was defiantly a place to explore. So I went out by self with my tripod and camera focusing on shooting a bunch of pictures without any kind of flash equipment, just long exposures, to give it all a more authentic touch. First I was a little cautious walking around alone with an expensive camera, I don’t speak a single word of Spanish, and the price of my camera house could feed one family for a very long time. But everywhere I went I was meet with outstanding kindness and courtesy. It turned out to be an amazing experience I would not have been without. It’s a tuff life for these locals, compared to our western privileged life style filled up with all kinds of “material BS”, and it somehow struck me how it makes us all stressed up and constantly chasing new things, like a vicious circle - work, buy, throw out, work some more, buy some more... All of the shoots you see in this section of my Los Roques photo journey, is from these great exploring moments.....I can honestly say that after every “exploring stealth night and day mission” I went on, I returned to the posada with a feeling of being extremely privileged and very warm inside from all the positive response I had received from the local community.
huge smiles and a very positive atmosphere.
“I was meet with a unique local kindness, “
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went out on some “night exploring missions� for a couple of nights, as I mentioned earlier it was an extraordinary and really pleasant experience. I was invited into peoples houses, shooting the whole family surrounding the farther at the dinner table. I was greeted by huge smiles everywhere I went, I was invited to join the local Petanque match, I drank beers with the locals kids.....somehow I got pretty close to the local community, on these missions, just by showing a positive and humble attitude.
“The local wild bunch� shoot in the evening with a long exposure. I had a hard time trying to make them stand compleatly still.
“The purpose of our lives is to be happy” Dalai Lama
It’s not always an easy life for the locals on Los Roques, compared to our western modern living standards, but everybody was so extremely kind, smiling and friendly.......Despite I didn’t speak a single word of Spanish. I’m wondering......are we really that rich in our part of the world?, always stressed out, striving for new materialistic standards...
The local school kids asked me to take a shoot of them.......how could I say no to such a smiling crowd
The master chef in charge of the local school kitchen
One day I gave a little kid (5-6 yrs. old) a new cap I didn’t use (got it for free) and I can’t find the right words to express his reaction, the gratitude he showed me was overwhelming, he was such a cool little guy. All of these experiences made me think a lot about how we live our everyday life at home, how much materialistic junk we all surround us selves with and yet we have the highest alcohol rate in the world among our young kids in Denmark.....”something is rotten in Denmark” Shakespeare once wrote, and it’s still highly relevant.
Smiling young soldiers infront of the local military base
Huge smiles at the local breakfast stand right outside our posada
One of my favourite bars located 10 meters from the shore break.
It should have said : “los que quieran patria vengan conmigo” Which means something like : “Those who love the homeland, join me” Then this political slogan has been wonderfully changed by the locals to something like :
“Those who love (with) me”
....and again wonderfully changed to :
“Those who love to fish, come with me�
The local “discoteca”
Every evening we enjoyed the most exquisite sun set,....no need for a television
From 28 July 1954 – 5 March 2013 Chavez was the President of Venezuela from 1999 until his death in 2013. He was formerly the leader of the Fifth Republic Movement political party from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when it merged with several other parties to form the United Socialist Party of Venezuela which he led until his death in 2013.
Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías
Following his own political ideology of Bolivarianism and “socialism of the 21st century”, he focused on implementing socialist reforms in the country as a part of a social project known as the Bolivarian Revolution, which has seen the implementation of a new constitution, participatory democratic councils, the nationalization of several key industries, increased government funding of health care and education, and significant reductions in poverty, according to government figures.
Under Chavez, Venezuelans’ quality of life improved according to a UN Index and the poverty rate fell from 48.6 percent in 2002 to 29.5 percent in 2011, according to the U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America. Born into a working-class family in Sabaneta, Barinas, Chávez became a career military officer, and after becoming dissatisfied with the Venezuelan political system, he founded the secretive Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200 in the early 1980s to work towards overthrowing it. Chávez led the MBR-200 in an unsuccessful coup d’état against the Democratic Action government of President Carlos Andrés Pérez in 1992, for which he was imprisoned. Released from prison after two years, he founded a socialist political party, the Fifth Republic Movement, and was elected president of Venezuela in 1998.
Chávez was a highly controversial and divisive figure both at home and abroad, having insulted other world leaders and compared U.S. president George W. Bush to a donkey, and called him the devil. Whereas he was derided by the US media, others called him a progressive democrat, saying the US tries to undermine and de-legitimize his government in Venezuela. Chávez died in Caracas on 5 March 2013 at the age of 58.
Los Roques’n The beaches If you wish to have a couple of “non-fishing days” then Los Roques have some of the most beautiful beaches in the world., surrounded by crystal clear turquoise water. A guided Kite surfing tour on your own little island for a day could be an option, if you are into some “fun in the sun”.
The Madrisqui - Just one of the glorious beaches around the archipelago – Taking a dip should be mandatory
Lobsters
Los Roques style
Lobsters are a priced delicacy. So when Justin and Tania asked me if I was up for a “lobster farm lunch”, I couldn’t resist. Despite the obvious simplicity of the surroundings of this place, we were treated to an exceptional four-course feast with mussels, lobster, and a variety of assorted fish. Hmmmm......I only have one word.....delicious!!!
Ohhh yes.......fresh caught lobsters, una cerveza frĂa, and a hammock.........c’est la vie
Accommodation
Posada Acuarela
Our stay at the Italian owned posada Aquarela was brilliant in every way, nice rooms, superb Italian inspired cuisine based on sea food, of course - what else would you expect with such a natural resource of fresh caught fish right outside. We were also blessed with a crew of really good and very experienced guides and all of these factors put together provided a fantastic atmosphere and superb frame for our stay at Los Roques. I can honestly say that I enjoyed every moment in this nice and very charming posada.
If you are thinking about planing a fishing trip to Los Roques, then think fast, and get going before this unique place changes into a “Mc Donald infected insignificant tourist burned out� place like I have seen it happen to so many other places on this amazing planet. It is a true little paradise, so far without any significant western influence, which was a really refreshing and interesting experience...not to forget...the fishing is beyond anything you can ever imagine.
You burnt my soul with your insane beauty. You changed my personality, with your warm atmosphere. You made me realize how poor my rich life is. Your existence is a gift. How will I ever forget you....
Hasta la vista Dear Los roques
WEB info’s www.wherewisemenfish.com WWMF facebook page
Fly fishing isn't just a sport it's a state of mind...