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What a mirror eh?
Heh converted sex motel, I love it. The mirrow is just class, its the only thing in the room! Tim Version:
* Landed in Caracas, changed some money on the black market.
* Made my way to "Backpackers Hotel", an ex sex motel, and met 3 people - none in Venezuela more than 4 days, all had been robbed in Caracas. Decided to stick to my plan of hastily leaving Caracas.
The version using lots of caution and taxis in this place...:
Finally I got a plane with personal TVs, lots of good movies, games to play and all that stuff =) To bad it was only a 3 1/2 hour flight!! Where was this kinda plane on my way to England, or down from Madrid! So much more relaxing when you can choose your entertainment. I watched Valkyrie, not a bad movie but not a great one, and grabbed a few more Cusqueña beers. Not a bad beer actually!
Arriving in Caracas, money changing time. The entrance in the airport is slapped with slogans about how free and true Venezuela is, with Hugo Chavez leading them triumphantly forward! Then, on the other side of customs, the real Venezuela. A country where the official exchange rate is 2.11 Bolivars Fuerte to the US$. The black
Uglyness redefined
This hurts my eyes to look it. So ugly and featureless and they are everywhere! market rate, which with my Spanish at an all time low took me 5 minutes to find, 5.5 to the $US. Watch when entering, the first few people you meet will offer 4 most likely.. this sound brilliant considering its double the official rate. Its not. You can get much better. Just shop around. I got mine through a taxi driver.
*** A little sidetrack thing here - why the rate is so different. The truth is I have no idea, but the most reasonable reason I heard is that nobody outside Venezuela wants the Bolivar (their currency). Therefore, to pay for imported goods and outside the country contractors, they need $US currency in hard cash. This, due to various government initiatives, is very hard to get. So how do they get the $US notes? People bringing them into the country. Obviously they need them bad enough too that the currency exchange rate is so vastly different. If you know whether this is true or not, or other reasons, please let me know... ****
Changing currency in a stairwell in an airport, an interesting experience. Feels so much more dodgy than changing at the borders in Central America.
With
money changed I was off, to find a hotel, as i found the bus I wanted direct to Santa Elena only goes earlier in the day so I had to wait until the next day. I started by bus, but then instead of Metro I took a taxi. This was thanks to advice from a couple of ladies I was asking questions of in the bus, who when they realised what I was trying to do advised me strongly against it. One even took the taxi with me to make sure I got to the right spot and found my hotel, an incredible helpful lady =)
The Backpackers Hotel, an ex sex motel on some floors (my room has 1 mirror in it - it is horizontal, next to the bed, and you can only see yourself while you are lying down heh, its hilarious) and just a cheap hotel on others. Good friendly owner, a little English and Spanish with one guy running it, and a lady I'm guessing is his wife spoke Spanish and Portuguese so I could use my Portuguese with her. All good.
First 3 people I meet - an Australian guy and a German
guy traveling together, and a girl from I dont know where. The two guys, in Caracas 2 days. Robbed by the police over the road (some 20 metres away). This is apparently very very common, so do not go near them when here. I had to pass them and waited until they were busy to rush past, and one of them eyed me the whole time walking past. The girl, lots of border troubles coming in from Colombia, then someone tried to snatch her purse though she says she fought it back. All this seems a common theme in Caracas, unless perhaps you are cashed up and stay in the rich areas. Time for me to get out, not a happy place. An overcast sky, ugly square concrete buildings, and a general grime are all I saw in the bus from the airport to hotel, and the taxi from hotel to the bus terminal. The favelas I've seen just driving around in the buses and taxis in Caracas look as bad as those in Rio, except without the nicer areas of Rio, so in reality are possibly much worse and more numerous! Not a healthy city. Got myself a 3:30pm
Like an ant hill
Every inch of ground is used ticket, time to get out and back to nature =)
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Fernando Rendon
non-member comment
ITs reality
This is the reality of a country that once was great and now suffers from massive poverty and the lack of investment in education. The reward for the bad decision made by poor people is to have an even worse goverment in power. Chavez fuel are the poor and he will make sure they stay poor, only an elite group will watch from the rich hills how the rest of the country simply rots. Hope your trip to the interior of the country was better than the sad Caracas experience.