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Published: August 2nd 2005
Caracas is an overcrowded and poluted city stuck in a valley between two mountain ranges. The traffic is horrible, the streets are dirty, the buildings are uggly and the center is loud. It is surrounded by endless slums where the huge black, indigenous and mixed population live. The center has a few nice colonial buildings that are very well preserved - about six of them. The other few hundred either look like old gigantic cardboard boxes or are new constructions that resulted from the combination of too much money and a lot of bad taste. One of the two tallest towers in the city caught fire and was never renovated, it is just a skelleton above the 20th floor or so.
The country side is not any better. Through the endless bus trips I took I saw only poverty, with the forgotten racial minorities living in shacks and farming for subsistance. The money from the oil doesn´t seem to have helped the country at all. There is indeed an extremely rich, white, upper class, but the majority of the population is not any better than in much poorer countries like Nicaragua.
The upper class would defend themselves by saying that the president is crazy and the poor people don´t know how to vote. True. Your president is a freaking wacco, governs the country like an emperor, limiting the rights of those who disagree with him and with his "ideals" (marxist). The current Venezuelan government is antidemocratic and takes advantage of the ignorance of the population to remain in power. Chavez claims to be a president for the poor, but the situation for the lower class hasn´t improved a bit during the six years that he has been in power.
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Mike
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A Walk to the sky
Caracas, a B-E-Utiful city.. Totally love it! You see the skycrapers, gigantic malls, some nice colonial houses, great night life.. You think you're not in Latin America anymore, but up there in the hills, there is the poverty :s . I LOVE VENEZUELA, one of the most spectacular countries i have ever been, you really must go, I know it's not safe but if you get the rules, ev'rything is gonna be fine.. Cracas is a Metropolis, a huge city, obviously a city that may be not visited for the people who doesn't like to be close to much people! I know you're gonna like it :D