One of the most dangerous cities in the world

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I´m writing all this a few days after since its been bloody hard to get to the net for an extended amount of time but since I´ve kept a diary of stuff I can update online.

However the idiot that I am, left my camera back in the hostel we´re staying in, so will have to upload pics another day..sorry!

So yeah I finally found Graeme in the airport in Lima, we went to an airport hotel and watched a bit of premiership football and then caught our flight to Caracas, Venezuela, a city that is infamous for its kidnappings and crime..

The airport was a bit of a nightmare..full of rip-off merchants and dodgy characters, and we were there for over 2 hours working out how to get to the city by taxi...Our guide book said $15 but the only semi official taxis we could find said $50...The cash points in the airport didnt work either, only giving us receipts but no cash...

Also customs authorities are a bit weird, you have to pay tax on the stuff you bring into the country if any of it is worth more thatn $1000. So we ended up valuing our clothes,medicines,tvs,refrigators and the other stuff we had brought with us. I came up with $965 and Graeme a bit more $980...

Then we understood the most ìmportant thing about coming to Venezuela..BRING DOLLARS IN CASH AND LOADS OF IT. Basically the country´s official exchange rate to the dollar is about 2150 Bolivares and since the government operates a fixed exchange rate regime, its been that for the last few years. The unofficial exchange rate however is around 4000 bolivares.Since we didnt bring that many dollars between us, this has ended up meaning OUR TRIP IS COSTING US TWICE AS MUCH AS IT SHOULD!

Anyway we finally decided that the airport was getting more and more dodgy so we took the $50 cabride which took about 2 hours with ¨reggaeton¨music pumping so loud my ears are still hurting!

We finally got to our hotel and crashed out..

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