Stop! This is not your typical travel book on Venezuela; you won't find traditional reviews of restaurants, endless descriptions of places to visit, or rated accommodations. It's much, much more. An inspirational story about risk taking, Visions of Venezuela is about following one's muse, living life on the edge, experiencing every day as if it was your last. Everyone at one time or another has asked, "What if?" then returned to their regularly scheduled, myopic lives. Not this newlywed couple! Meet the Havilands, Joe and Alicia, who honeymooned on the windswept, palm tree punctuated Isle of Margarita in Venezuela and loved it so much that they went back to the same place to live and teach a year later. They were courageously living their dream: Venezuela or Bust! So, imagine if you will, this castaway couple selling everything they owned, including her beautiful emerald green Mustang convertible, putting their stuff in storage, and taking off to a foreign country, more than 4,000 miles away from their home, on a wing and a prayer, with their life savings and no job(s) waiting. That's what this companionable couple, both educators, did so daringly. Without any planned income and only a rented place to stay temporarily in Porlamar on the Island of Margarita, they threw caution to the wind and set sail on an adventure that made their family and friends marvel with delight. Little did this middle-age dynamic duo know that this was just the tip of the iceberg; it represented a new beginning of worldwide travel that would change their lives irrevocably, reeling them in hook, line, and sinker. It's a modern day Robinson Crusoe tale, couples-style, but instead of encountering cannibals, captives, and mutineers, Joe and Alicia met up with a plethora of unforgettable, compassionate people (both island natives and expats) and unexpected adventures that left them craving for more. It's a picture-perfect collection of entertaining anecdotes for both jetsetters and armchair travelers alike. Written in a sociable, conversational narrative, Visions of Venezuela is a must read, taking readers on a vicarious island tour de force. Fasten your seatbelts, turn your trays to the upright position, and prepare yourself for takeoff. This is your passport to travel into the lives of richly rendered characters, where you'll sight see the goings on of everyday island life on Margarita in this sybaritic symphony for the senses. Hear the barking dogs of Porlamar. Taste the gamey rooster soup from a road side stand. Smell the Caribbean lapping at your feet. See the shoeless, shirtless boy flamboyantly flying a homemade kite down a volcanic-red dirt road. Feel the warm, life-sustaining rain on your sun-kissed skin. And so much more. Leave your persnickety life behind, and take a much-needed vacation, one chapter at a time. You'll find the destination worth it, each and every time you pick up Visions of Venezuela to read. By book's end, it might even challenge you to make your own voyage of self-discovery and quite possibly land you in a faraway exotic place, where nothing is ordinary and anything can happen.
