Margarita is the country’s main Caribbean holiday destination and is popular with both Venezuelans and foreign tourists. The island’s reputation for picture-postcard, white-sand beaches is well-deserved. Some parts are crowded but there are undeveloped beaches and colonial villages. Porlamar is the most built up and commercial part of the island while Juan Griego and La Restinga are much quieter.
If you book a place to stay in advance, it is possible to enjoy the island even on a budget during high season. If you don’t reserve ahead, it is almost impossible to find accommodation for under US$25-30 per person a night (at the official rate). Despite the property boom and the frenetic building on much of the coast and in Porlamar, much of the island has been given over to natural parks. Of these the most striking is the Laguna La Restinga.
The western part, the Peninsula de Macanao, is hotter and more barren, with scrub, sand dunes and marshes. Wild deer, goats and hares roam the interior, but 4WDs are needed to penetrate it. The entrance to the Peninsula de Macanao is a pair of hills known as Las Tetas de María Guevara, a national monument covering 1,670 ha. There are mangroves in the Laguna de las Marites natural monument, west of Porlamar.
Other parks are Cerro El Copey, 7,130 ha, and Cerro Matasiete y Guayamurí, 1,672 ha (both reached from La Asunción). The climate is exceptionally good and dry. Roads are good and a bridge links the two parts. Nueva Esparta’s population is over 377,700, of whom 85,000 live in Porlamar. The capital is La Asunción.
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