PEARL FISHING AT PLAYA CUACUCO
Thursday, 19 April 2007
After delivering Jens, Barbara and two Swiss guests to the ferry at Punta de Piedras on Tuesday, we use Jens’s car to run some errands today. A shopping trip to SIGO (ugly) has been rather long overdue, we pick up my new visa and drive on to the garden centre in La Asunción to pick up 21 bags of potting soil to fill up all the new planters we have on the patio. We still have to hit Playa el Agua in the faint hope that the flash memory we left sticking in a computer at a cyber-café there last week might not have walked off with subsequent customer.
Given that the weather is perfect (it’s always perfect here) and that Kathleen has not seen much of the island, we decide to take a side trip and have lunch at Playa Cuacuco (between Pampatar and el Agua). Cuacuco has nothing like the tourist activity that Playa el Agua has, Margarita’s best-known beach. Cuacuco is also very shallow for quite a long way out and so, although there is lots of wave activity, you are still in shallow waters and there is no surge at all, which for some people can be a little intimidating. It’s just a nice cosy, clean and safe beach with a local atmosphere and a few cheery little beach restaurants amongst coconut palms.
After ordering a fish lunch we are approached by Walter, a young Columbian who is one of the pearl sellers on this beach. Every beach and tourist focal point on Margarita is busy with sellers of pearls and other jewellery. Kathleen doesn’t really like shopping of any sort and trying to select jewellery is an agony. But, because the prices are so attractive (a fresh-water pearl choker runs at about $15, longer ones correspondingly dearer), we decide to stock up a little for Christmas and birthdays in the family. Pearl fishing Margarita style.
The other day, Jens and Barbara bought some medium sized pearl chains and had them tied together to make quite long chains. Jens also had two small white pearl bracelets made for his little girls. The pearl seller will went off, sat down somewhere and rearranged the pearls on ths spot.
As always, if you get involved with the sellers, you can enjoy the experience and they can always find something to fit your taste. The prices are all about the same whichever seller you decide to deal with. Of course, you can haggle. I reckon if you are getting real pearls, even if low quality ones, how much haggling do you need to do if it’s only going to cost you $15? But, on the other hand, you have to play the game a bit just for form’s sake and to show some respect for the merchant.
Walter and I dicker. We are buying several chokers and he quotes me the sum of the individual prices. I scoff politely and make a reasonable but not aggressive counter-offer. He doesn’t want to budge so I turn the tables on him. “OK, then! Give me your best take-it-or-leave-it price,” I tell him. Now he’s the one with the dilemma. If he gets it wrong he might lose the sale. He rubs his chin and mentally calculates. Of course, it would have been better to start with this approach because my offer price is still on the table. He is not going to be stupid enough to go below that. But he will have to come down a bit.
Sure enough, he names a price and the deal is done. He pulls a zip-lock-type bag from his backpack and the merchandise is packaged and delivered. Just at that moment, the waitress brings our lunch of fried red snapper (pargo) and catalina. Walter withdraws to the little group of young sellers under the palms no doubt to brag about his deal.
After a swim, we take a slow scenic drive up the beach road from Cuacuco to Playa el Agua. We make a brief stop at the cyber-café where the manager had been keeping the flash memory for us. We putter along the coast road some more until we reached the Dunes, that otherworldly hotel and time-share complex along the coast. Kathleen had never been there either. So we pop in there to check out the book exchange (mostly just beach junk) and to have a free drink at the beach bar (if you go there, just drive up to the entrance barrier like you belong there and they will normally just open the gate. They don’t charge for drinks and cocktails at the beach bar.) The guests are mostly English and Continental Europeans. I listen to one loud and outgoing Brit but, beyond recognising that he was speaking in Thames Estuary Speak, I am almost completely unable to decipher what he had to say. How about that! Spanish is now easier for me than Cockney!
Thursday, 19 April 2007
After delivering Jens, Barbara and two Swiss guests to the ferry at Punta de Piedras on Tuesday, we use Jens’s car to run some errands today. A shopping trip to SIGO (ugly) has been rather long overdue, we pick up my new visa and drive on to the garden centre in La Asunción to pick up 21 bags of potting soil to fill up all the new planters we have on the patio. We still have to hit Playa el Agua in the faint hope that the flash memory we left sticking in a computer at a cyber-café there last week might not have walked off with subsequent customer.
Given that the weather is perfect (it’s always perfect here) and that Kathleen has not seen much of the island, we decide to take a side trip and have lunch at Playa Cuacuco (between Pampatar and el Agua). Cuacuco has nothing like the tourist activity that Playa el Agua has, Margarita’s best-known beach. Cuacuco is also very shallow for quite a long way out and so, although there is lots of wave activity, you are still in shallow waters and there is no surge at all, which for some people can be a little intimidating. It’s just a nice cosy, clean and safe beach with a local atmosphere and a few cheery little beach restaurants amongst coconut palms.
After ordering a fish lunch we are approached by Walter, a young Columbian who is one of the pearl sellers on this beach. Every beach and tourist focal point on Margarita is busy with sellers of pearls and other jewellery. Kathleen doesn’t really like shopping of any sort and trying to select jewellery is an agony. But, because the prices are so attractive (a fresh-water pearl choker runs at about $15, longer ones correspondingly dearer), we decide to stock up a little for Christmas and birthdays in the family. Pearl fishing Margarita style.
The other day, Jens and Barbara bought some medium sized pearl chains and had them tied together to make quite long chains. Jens also had two small white pearl bracelets made for his little girls. The pearl seller will went off, sat down somewhere and rearranged the pearls on ths spot.
As always, if you get involved with the sellers, you can enjoy the experience and they can always find something to fit your taste. The prices are all about the same whichever seller you decide to deal with. Of course, you can haggle. I reckon if you are getting real pearls, even if low quality ones, how much haggling do you need to do if it’s only going to cost you $15? But, on the other hand, you have to play the game a bit just for form’s sake and to show some respect for the merchant.
Walter and I dicker. We are buying several chokers and he quotes me the sum of the individual prices. I scoff politely and make a reasonable but not aggressive counter-offer. He doesn’t want to budge so I turn the tables on him. “OK, then! Give me your best take-it-or-leave-it price,” I tell him. Now he’s the one with the dilemma. If he gets it wrong he might lose the sale. He rubs his chin and mentally calculates. Of course, it would have been better to start with this approach because my offer price is still on the table. He is not going to be stupid enough to go below that. But he will have to come down a bit.
Sure enough, he names a price and the deal is done. He pulls a zip-lock-type bag from his backpack and the merchandise is packaged and delivered. Just at that moment, the waitress brings our lunch of fried red snapper (pargo) and catalina. Walter withdraws to the little group of young sellers under the palms no doubt to brag about his deal.
After a swim, we take a slow scenic drive up the beach road from Cuacuco to Playa el Agua. We make a brief stop at the cyber-café where the manager had been keeping the flash memory for us. We putter along the coast road some more until we reached the Dunes, that otherworldly hotel and time-share complex along the coast. Kathleen had never been there either. So we pop in there to check out the book exchange (mostly just beach junk) and to have a free drink at the beach bar (if you go there, just drive up to the entrance barrier like you belong there and they will normally just open the gate. They don’t charge for drinks and cocktails at the beach bar.) The guests are mostly English and Continental Europeans. I listen to one loud and outgoing Brit but, beyond recognising that he was speaking in Thames Estuary Speak, I am almost completely unable to decipher what he had to say. How about that! Spanish is now easier for me than Cockney!
posted by rjb @ Friday, April 20, 2007
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home