Enrique Bernardo Núñez, one of the great Venezuelan writers, wrote about Margarita Island in his novel Cubagua (1931): “In other times there was a different race here, they took out pearls, spread the nets, check out the piaches. They were born and died free, happyly, ignored. Then, the pirates arrived, slaver merchants... the piaches run away, and there were built the towns, the land changed its owners. Now a deep silence come from the top of the mountains”. Los Roques is one of the places in the world that surprises, more for its quietness, than for its beauty.

The Archipelago emerged thanks to the formation of two coral reefs located on the north and on the south. A narrow and long Cayo Sal, and the adjoining Green Cloud, are the reefs of the south. From this site, heading north, the Great Coral Reef of the east is found, beaten by currents and strong Trade Winds. Towards the northeast, the Gran Roque, Pirata, Cayo Muerto or Francisquí, among others, make up the recreation area, i.e. the Archipelago's service area.

Back into Times Bones, stones and shells remains found in the deposit of the Marine Biology Station of Dos Mosquises Sur indicate that before Spaniards' arrival, there were no permanent settlements. Fishermen coming from Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire first, and then from the interior and Venezuelan coast were the only people approaching these remote places. From 1910, fishermen from Margarita Island began pushing Dutch, and established the first stable settlement at the Gran Roque. They used to catch lobster and botuto, the largest sea shell of the Caribbean of an intense pink color shell whose meat was considered to have aphrodisiac properties. The botuto was to be extinguished because of its extreme use. At present its capture and that of the green turtle have been completely forbidden. Around the sixties, Venezuelan tourists started to visit this area by boat. The degradation continues until the site was declared National Park in 1972 and the starting point for its recovery began. Since then, navigation and underwater sports are rigorously controlled all over the Archipelago. With an average temperature of 30º C, only softened by the Trade Winds thus preventing rain from falling and the almost total lack of drinking water, only found in a natural way at Cayo de Agua (Water Key). What makes this place a miracle?

The Land and the Sea That is Los Roques. Apart from the village of Gran Roque, we will not find any other settlement of population in the whole Archipelago, except for the Marine Biology Station of Dos Mosquises Sur and some other little residences in Francisquí, that belongs to a rich venezuelan families. The rest is the land, the sea and the light. Flora and fauna is very rare in the keys, cactaceous and spinach, and over all, mangroves. The mangrove is a typical shrub which branches fall down and sink into the slime of the sea. There are reptiles as iguanas, guaripete, salamander or the mea mea. Terrestrial birds, ordinary reinita and canario del mangle (mangrove's canary). Marine birds, emigrating from North America. But the variety of Los Roques is found in the bottom of the sea. Coral reefs create an underwater world of thousand of colours and forms, and there are many species of fishes that have adapted to them. And the light is the element that gives color to this scenario, the chief doer of Los Roques Archipelago which has transformed the sea into a wide mixture of blues and greens that seems to be floating on the surface as oil stains. Gran Roque The main island with a surface of some 1’7 km2 where most of the inhabitants, some 600, of the Archipelago live. This island has the only infrastructure found in the area, landing strip, desalination plant of water and electricity generator. Here is the only Headquarters Office where visitors should pay their entry tickets to the Park and INPARK Center which issues special permits to carry out activities outside the Recreation Area. The tiny village is located in the southeast and there you can find just few inns, characterized by a small space run by locals or some authorized tour operators.