Los Roques archipelago

Los Roques is an archipelago of about 350 small islands and sandbars scattered across the Caribbean Sea, located roughly 130 km (80 miles) north of the Venezuelan coast. Gran Roque is the only permanently inhabited island, hosting a small airstrip, a handful of unpaved streets, and closely built houses painted in pale yellows and pastel greens.

Spanish ships charted these waters in the late 1500s, while native groups had previously come here to catch turtles and gather sea salt. The government declared the area a national park in 1972, establishing rules to protect the reef and nesting grounds from overfishing and unchecked development.

The name comes from French pirates who sheltered here in the 1600s, calling the rocky shores "les roches". Today about four hundred fishermen and their families live on the main island, setting out early each morning and returning to the dock with their catch in the afternoon.

Small propeller planes fly here from Caracas in about forty minutes, landing on Gran Roque where visitors pay a park fee at the airstrip. Most travelers take boats from there to the outer sandbars, where you can stand in clear shallow water nearly waist-high under the sun.

Flamingos wade through the shallow lagoons on some of the uninhabited islands, feeding on crustaceans living in the warm tidal pools. Other bird species, including frigatebirds and pelicans, nest on rocky outcrops far from the main island, where human disturbance is rare.