Venezuela beach holiday
| country: | Venezuela |
| location: | Caribbean Coast |
| departures: | We offer a complete tailor made service allowing you to decide what to do |
| price: | From £630 (6 days) excluding flights. Price includes return flights from Caracas to Carúpano, transfer to Hacienda Bukare, 5 nts Hacienda Bukare, all meals, daily transfers to Paria beach with refreshments, hammocks and sun-loungers. We can arrange flights from the UK. |
| vouchers: | Gift vouchers can be used with this holiday |
the amazing things you'll be doing
The Paria peninsula is our favourite part of the coast. Here one of our longest serving guides has converted and extended an old cacao hacienda, or chocolate farm, in the lush hills behind the best beaches. Named after the bucare tree, which shades the finest cacao plants, Hacienda Bukare offers simple but comfortable accommodation in an attractive, relaxed traditional style. There are just four guest bedrooms with private balconies and a small but refreshing swimming pool.
A warm host, and an excellent cook himself, our guide has trained talented local ladies to provide a very good standard of cooking for the hacienda’s appreciative guests. Always full of energy, our guide is providing training and advice to others in the region to start up business in eco-tourism, and bringing together small cacao producers to export direct at fair trade prices. Cacao beans from Venezuela, and from this Rio Caribe region in particular, are ranked among the finest in the world.
His most recent innovation is to set up a small facility in the village with specialist machinery imported from Scotland to refine the cacao beans that he and his fellow farmers grow, producing fine quality chocolates and truffles with sumptuous flavours.
A stay at Hacienda Bukare is an excellent way to round off a visit to Venezuela. The plan below assumes you are coming from Caracas, but direct transfers are possible from Puerto Ordaz, Ciudad Bolívar, Maturin, other parts of northeast Venezuela, and Margarita. (Please note we are a UK based company and are only able to help with flight arrangements from the UK.)
A warm host, and an excellent cook himself, our guide has trained talented local ladies to provide a very good standard of cooking for the hacienda’s appreciative guests. Always full of energy, our guide is providing training and advice to others in the region to start up business in eco-tourism, and bringing together small cacao producers to export direct at fair trade prices. Cacao beans from Venezuela, and from this Rio Caribe region in particular, are ranked among the finest in the world.
His most recent innovation is to set up a small facility in the village with specialist machinery imported from Scotland to refine the cacao beans that he and his fellow farmers grow, producing fine quality chocolates and truffles with sumptuous flavours.
A stay at Hacienda Bukare is an excellent way to round off a visit to Venezuela. The plan below assumes you are coming from Caracas, but direct transfers are possible from Puerto Ordaz, Ciudad Bolívar, Maturin, other parts of northeast Venezuela, and Margarita. (Please note we are a UK based company and are only able to help with flight arrangements from the UK.)
day-by-day itinerary
| Day 1: | From Caracas to the Paria peninsula. Fly from Caracas to Carúpano (1hr), to be met and driven to the hacienda for 5 nights full board. Rest of the day free by the small pool, or to explore the hacienda and learn about chocolate making. |
| Day 2-5: | Hacienda Bukare. Daily trips to the beach are included. On some days you might choose instead to go exploring on one of a variety of other excursions at extra cost. |
| Day 6: | Return to Caracas. Driven back to Carúpano for the Caracas flight. |
how this holiday makes a difference
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In 1998 our guide was keen to set up this guesthouse with his family. He had been guiding with us for 5 years, and we had continued to support him with guiding work while he trained in hotel management. He and his father acquired this run-down cacao farm in a village on the Paria Peninsula in Venezuela, a beautiful location but which was well off the beaten track so far as foreign visitors were concerned.
They started to put the farm back into production, growing the best quality ‘Rio Caribe No 1’ cacao beans for which the area had been world famous, and converting the hacienda to a guest house with four guest rooms. We visited them when the work on the hacienda was nearing completion, made suggestions, and thoroughly checked the area. Back in London we created a logo for them and began to promote the guesthouse and the Paria peninsula to our customers. The guesthouse has now become a local success story, giving work to local people including some very talented lady cooks! The cacao farm was able to attract microfinance support from the Chavez government to set up a refining plant employing local people to roast and grind the beans and convert them into high-quality chocolate, thus capturing the value-added that would otherwise be earned by importers in Europe and elsewhere. Employing only local people, this enterprise has helped the local economy and directly benefited the local people whilst giving visitors the chance to learn about chocolate farming and stay in a beautifully run guest house. We take delight in actively promoting this hacienda. This is indeed a wonderful place and a real example of how responsible tourism works at its very best. |
Tourism can be good and bad for destinations & local people. We carefully screen every holiday against our criteria for responsible travel. 'Look behind the brochure' to find how each holiday makes a difference (see left). We don't claim to be perfect - there is no global accreditation - but we've led the way since 2001 and screened 1000's of holidays. We invite every traveller to write a review about their experiences and responsible tourism. This valuable feedback is sent to the people who run the holidays. We keep a very close eye on it and take off holidays that don't live up to our standards. |