 Caracas, Ciudad sucio y peligroso |
AfricaAntarcticaAsiaCentral America CaribbeanEuropeMiddle EastNorth AmericaOceaniaSouth AmericaOceans and Seas
Caracas, Ciudad sucio y peligroso
South America » Venezuela » Capital » Caracas
May 15th 2009 by linzcrowe
What a mirror eh?
Heh converted sex motel, I love it. The mirrow is just class, its the only thing in the room!
* 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 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 ticket, time to get out and back to nature =)
4 Comments - Add Public Comment or Send Private Message
October 17th 2009 - Fernando Rendon : 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.
November 17th 2009 - MS: That sucks
i didnt know it was such an ordeal for foreigners to be in this city. i live in caracas, and as a local i could say its not so bad as you say, but the truth is, it may be even worse. the problem is, tourists like yourself do all the wrong thins that in a city like this will get you in trouble. looking like a tourist is one of them ( no offense intended), and also looking like you may have anything of value. dollars are one those things. by the way, the exchange rate is so crazy because in an attempt to prevent people from going outside the country and/or emmigrating (or having a business based on imported goods) the goverment limits the amount of money you can change into foreign money. only people with goverment connectiopns can -illegally- have enough $ to mantain any kind of big business here. also, travelling outside is trouble too, because the goverment only allows for the equivalent of 300$ per person, and theyre trying to find a way to track down and limit where and how you spend it, too. it sucks and i woulnt blame you for never coming back. actually, i would recommend that you never do. but while youre at it, please spread the word of how bad it is here. the wild baboon we have for president controls the media -also, ilegally- and very little of the real situation gets out. good luck in your travels.
It is indeed a sad reality. The poverty there is phenomenal. I have seen more poor areas than Caracas but it looked the most unhealthy (not in the superficial way, but the overall society way). Its extremely unfortunate. The rule of Chavez does not help. I'm not saying he is a poor leader or the right or wrong choice, but that lack of outside information in the city is unhealthy. Meeting people that blindly believe what the controlled media feed them is never going to end well. My trip to the interior was incredible, especially the Gran Sabana! Near the border with Colombia was beautiful too.
Yeh its quite the ordeal in Caracas. It is also quite the experience though! So while the feedback may be negative, I could guess what it was going to be like and still went =) though I did get out as quickly as possible...
Tourists do certainly do all the wrong things. Having a bulge in your pocket (looks like a camera/wallet), dressing differently than locals, and yes using dollars. I was fairly well trained by the time I hit Venezuela. I'd survived all of Central America and Brazil, doing it all local and cheap, but Caracas still had me a bit by surprise! I tended to wear older dirty clothes, never shorts, a non-english or no words Tshirt, and nothing in my pockets. Unfortunately a 15kg large hiking pack, blondish hair and white skin is harder to hide heh. Even little things like never looking at a map in public, and even when lost always walk like you know exactly where you're going. They're all good hints and they truly all work. The issues lies in ever NEEDING all these tactics. However, that is the situation...
The foreign currency situation is very sad though. I met a student studying English who was explaining that really to get his English to a higher level he needs to travel. But, the government won't allow him the money to travel in a foreign currency.. they'll support his education up to that point but then cut him off at the knees when he is so close to becoming qualified.
Don't worry about the control over the media as far as the rest of the world is concerned. The word on Venezuela does get out, and is quite easy to find. You can however always get more of the word out by doing things like writing your own blog on the situation from an internal perspective as there are of course many facets of Venezuelan society that even with a lot of time in Venezuela I could not get access to and hear about, especially in Caracas. The issue seems more that Venezuela, while people want to assist it how they can, gets left at the bottom of the priority list because most western people including myself do not want to support a dictatorship. Umm take that last comment softly, as I know thats a very broad comment and it isn't meant in a broad way, but to clarify it would start an eternal political debate, and I'm just about to head to the pub and can't be bothered heh.
All Comments
Venezuela's Flag
Map of Venezuela
Copyright notice.
The text and photos of this article remain the copyright of the Author (Linz Crowe). Under no circumstances should the photos or text be used without the express written permission of the Author (Linz Crowe). If you wish to use or publish photos or text from this article - please
Contact Linz Crowe.