http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2010/may/30/los-roques-venezuela-beaches Paradise on the Roques in Venezuela Sun, sea and sugar-fine sand – Venezuela's little-known Los Roques are the stuff of holiday legend. And it's all thanks to a presidential snub by Hugo Chávez Sunday 30 May 2010 Busy doing nothing ... the magnificent beach of Cayo de Agua, Venezuela. Photograph: Richard Broadwell/Alamy Thank God for Hugo Chávez, president of Venezuela. Laugh at him showboating at the UN about the evils of America, sending impoverished Londoners cheap fuel for their buses, telling off his fattie compañeros for eating too much. But love him for his little idiosyncratic ways, because they are keeping safe one of the Caribbean's best-kept secrets. Three years ago he took his weekly Aló Presidente TV roadshow to Los Roques, an archipelago a half hour's flight from Caracas. The live show has no script. Chávez just talks, and sometimes sings, about whatever comes into his head. He makes up gags, insults and nuclear defence policy. Venezuelans joke that he must have a bucket under the desk because he will talk for hours without a break. Los Roqueños didn't give him the chance. Twenty minutes in they started pelting him with tomatoes. Chávez pulled the plug and stropped off, telling the ingrate locals the islands would be getting nada in way of government help for their impertinence. And certainly no cash for attracting tourists. So that's why the islands have fallen off the tourist map. Caracas airport did nothing to dispel the gnawing sensation that my girlfriend and I weren't going to find our way to Los Roques. It was a holiday weekend and there was chaos in the terminal. The whole of Venezuela seemed to be on the move, most of them trying to check in flatscreen TVs the size of a multiplex. The departure board bore witness to a Venezuelan diaspora – there were flights to Miami and Houston, Moscow and Havana. But there was no sign of a flight to Los Roques. Finally we discovered a tiny doughnut concession/airline desk tucked away in a corner of the terminal, surrounded by a crowd of shouting Venezuelans: check-in. I found the crush oddly reassuring. It meant safety – it meant a biggish plane, not the deadly single-engined Caracas-Los Roques hoppers I'd been warned about since booking the holiday. Gran Roque’s airport check-in. Photograph: Richard Eilers for the Observer Two dozen of us were bussed out beyond the new Airbus 320s, ageing Boeing 737s and terrifyingly doddery DC9s, to a tired but sturdy turbo-prop. After 30 minutes a necklace of islands appeared in the dark-blue water. Specks of sand and shrub, ringed by turquoise lagoons. There was no sign of an airstrip, but the plane banked sharply and fell steeply towards the sea. We skimmed a few metres over the masts of a couple of yachts and dropped on to the tarmac on the island of Gran Roque, the archipelago's big smoke. We were confronted on the ground by the full force of Chávez's police state – a dozing sniffer dog which only raised an eyelid when one arriving tourist tore open a packet of crisps. A man appeared with a trolley and took us to our posada (a small guesthouse) nearby. Minutes later we were stripped of our luggage and stripped of our clothes, down to our cossies. Then we were put on a speedboat, taken to a desert island and abandoned. Castaways. Nothing but us, a huge stretch of empty beach of the softest, whitest sand and a blue, blue sea. And the sun canopy, chairs and cool box our guesthouse had kindly provided as our desert island luxury. Holiday hell at Caracas airport had been turned into tourist heaven in two hours. We laid out towels on our seats, sat down, surveyed the scene for a few minutes, did a few oohs and aahs at our good luck and then looked at each other and whispered: "What the hell are we going to do now?" Carolyn pretended to read her book. I splashed around in the water. Then we dived into our cool box, pulling out drinks, crisps and sandwiches like excited children on a school trip. I went for another swim while Carolyn fell asleep. And then we looked at the empty beach again and perfect sea and looked at each other. We weren't going to be picked up by the boat and returned to our posada for another four hours. We whispered: "What the hell are we going to do now?" Then we looked at the empty beach and perfect sea again. And finally we got it. The speedboat came back on time, but far too early… Colourful houses in Gran Roque. Photograph: Richard Eilers for the Observer We didn't see another British person all week. Los Roques only really registers on the tourist radar in one country outside Venezuela. Italians discovered the islands a couple of decades ago and bought houses in Gran Roque. Some were turned into posadas and more Italians came. Now there are a couple of dozen posadas to be found on the fishing village's unmade, sandy streets of brightly coloured buildings, almost all run by Italians. We were staying at Posada Albacora, with three guest rooms and a roof terrace where we ate fantastic island food with an Italian flavour: zucchini carpaccio, marinated barracuda and a mango mousse. From below came the sounds of Caribbean street life. Our meal was punctuated by power cuts; a late-night wander to find a mojito was conducted by torchlight. Each day we had our choice of islands to explore. Our favourite was Crasqui, which was only 20 minutes or so from Gran Roque. We didn't have it to ourselves but that was part of the fun. We got to see the Venezuelans at play. It was the perfect place to witness three Venezuelan obsessions: booze, BlackBerrys and boob jobs. Spoilt over the years by the riches from its oil reserves, until recently Venezuelans were the kings of bling. Giant American cars, from 1970s red Corvettes to brand-new black SUVs, rumbled through the streets of a country where filling up the tank costs little more than the price of a beer. But Chávez's policies have started to squeeze the middle-classes, putting a dampener on their party and making them more than a little resentful. Take telephone salesman Enrico, our neighbour one day on the beach at Crasqui. Our small cool box was full of food, water and the occasional beer. Enrico's giant cool box was full of ice. And bottles of Scotch. It was barely 10am and Enrico, splendid in his leopard-spot Speedos, was guzzling from a half-pint mug of ice and whisky. He boasted that Venezuela was the third biggest consumer of Scotch in the world and said his bottle had cost nearly $100 – I didn't recognise the brand, but that didn't stop me accepting his generosity. Then he wandered off down the beach, to send an urgent email. A couple of days later, I saw him with a table of friends in Gran Roque. They weren't saying a word to each other; each was furiously stabbing away at their BlackBerrys, only stopping occasionally to rip a few lobsters apart. Enrico introduced me to his girlfriend and explained just what he'd spent on her breasts. It seemed rude not to look impressed. He pointed down the beach and explained how all Venezuelan women have had plastic surgery – even if some can only afford one breast at a time. Even the shop mannequins on the island were surgically enhanced. On the beaches, men took pictures of their girlfriends and wives. Completely unselfconscious, the women rolled in the sand and the surf, striking porn-star poses. Enrico cussed when I mentioned Chávez. "He's ruining our lives," he cried. "All the money's going to his cronies now." I don't think El Presidente can count on the Los Roques vote quite yet.