Watch Your Money in Caracas!!!

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Next on Trevor's "must do" list is a visit to Angel Falls, the highest waterfall in the world!

After disembarking in Manaus, Brazil on Monday evening, we headed straight for the airport to catch our flight to Caracas, Venezuela. Our flight was an overnighter that neither of us could sleep on (gross - we arrived about 6am Tuesday morning) ... and as we were waken up every morning on the boat at 5am by darling little children, we arrived in Caracas rather cranky and just wanting to be on our way to Angel Falls. We set about to arrange a tour through one of the "tourist" booths at the airport, and things didn't go so well. We have officially had our first experience of being swindled -- BIG TIME.

Our first bit of advice for anyone going to Venezuela is to do your homework and know the exchange rates because there is a black market and it can be quite ruthless. At our time of travel, the official exchange rate was 2150 Bolivares for 1 US Dollar... but that was only if you were changing your money through the bank or the official exchange places. If you used the black market and were paying in cash, you could get as much as 6000 Bolivares for 1 US Dollar. For travellers cheques and the black market, the rate was anywhere from 2800 to 3500 Bolivares for 1 US Dollar. The swindlers expect that travellers know little about the rates and will try to go as low as they can. This is what happened:

When we arrived at the domestic terminal, an eager man asked us if we wanted to go to Canaima National Park (the jumping off point for Angel Falls). Of course we said yes, but also that we wanted to check for the cheapest price through the various airlines. He insisted on taking us to his friend's booth and as newbie travellers, we followed him. That's when we met Jose - surely Venezuela's fastest, smoothest, and sneakiest salesman!

He described an awesome trip that included 3 nights, 4 days, all air transportation, food, and the tour at Angel Falls. When we asked him how much, he said "394." We specifically specified "AMERICAN DOLLARS, PER PERSON?", and he said "Yes yes yes." We said we would like to pay with Visa or with travellers cheque, and he said "Ok. No problemo. Follow me. You can pay the airlines by credit card, and pay me by travellers cheque." He then hurried off in a frenzy to get the tickets leaving us scrambling after him. Trevor made a comment that we needed to make sure we were paying attention to the reciepts because the prices were shown in Venezuelan Bolivares, not US Dollars.

When we went back to their booth, they proceeded to tell us that the total package for both of us came to 3,960,000 Bolivares. If that is taken at the travellers cheque exchange rate of 3000 Bolivares per 1 US Dollar... our package of $396 per person just became $1320 total... a big, fat, whopping difference of about $500!! They were trying to confuse us by saying that we should pay $200 US in cash (all we had on us) at their fantastic rate of 5000 Bolivares per dollar, and that the rest could be paid by the cheques. The final number changed about 10 times, but no matter how we looked at it, it was no where near the $396 US per person we were originally quoted! We had already paid $524 by Visa to the airlines, and so by Trevor and Kristena math that should have meant we owed a maximum of $272 more. We wanted to pay it in travellers cheques and let them deal with the stupid exchange rates, but they kept arguing and trying to confuse us.

Our instincts told us something definitely wasn't right and we ended up completely halting the whole transaction by insisting on sitting down with a calculator and some paper so we could work the numbers out. While we were doing that though, they began to yell at us and cause a big commotion. They told us we were being stupid and unreasonable and just really made it out to seem like we were the fraudsters, not the other way around. Two exhausted, overwhelmed, English speaking kids and five sly, smooth, and slimy Spanish speaking "businessmen" trying to communicate effectively at 6am equalled disaster. They were pissed, we were pissed, it was ugly. At that point though, there was no way we were going to let them get the better of or bully us!

In the end, we flat out said that we refused to pay them any more than the $396 US we were originally quoted and Trevor demanded they refund his Visa, which turned into another great big gong show. They said no, so we threatened to call Visa and report the card as stolen. Eventually they gave in, but it took them 4 hours to finally get it done. And then call us stupid (or just really, really tired and desperate to get to Angel Falls), but afterwards, we agreed to start over again with them! They were sweet talking us at that point, and even though we know we should have just walked away, we felt somewhat "bad" saying no and tried again. The new SUPERB deal was now 2 nights, 3 days, take a bus from Caracas to Cuidad Bolivar and then a plane to Canaima National Park (the park is not accessible via road) for $190 US cash and $500 in travellers cheques. To sweeten the deal they even offered to put us up in a hotel for the afternoon so that we could rest until we caught our bus left at 9:30pm that evening. Our hungry, tired, and irritable selves agreed and off we went.

In retrospect, a few things that we've realized:

1. It sounded too good to be true.
2. Everything happened WAY too fast -- we went from hearing about the trip and buying the tickets in a matter of minutes.
3. We did not ask enough questions -- or perhaps the right questions. Let's chalk that up to extreme tiredness and/or serious confusion with the currency exchange rates.
4. We did not price compare with other companies. We literally took the first offer -- not very bright of us!
5. We should have had the backbone together to stand up and walk away from them.

The good thing that came from it all was that even though we know they still ripped us off a bit (or a lot, depending on which exchange rates you go by), it could have been worse and we've learned from it. It took us a bit, but once we clued in to what they were doing, we worked together to fix it. Yay, go team go. 😉 Considering we're only 3 weeks into this year long adventure, it's a good lesson to learn!

Anyways, that was the kerfuffle, just wanted to give a heads up to other travellers. For anyone wanting to do the same sort of tour, the company who ripped us off is called LOGGAGE CARE and they are located in the domestic airport in Caracas accross from the airline Conviasa. BEWARE (and perhaps give them a swift kick in the you-know-what for us!)

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Comments

[nomad1979]

Travellers Cheques
AmEx travellers cheques used to be the way to travel the world. I'm wondering if, except for a one or two countries in S-E Asia, you've found them to be difficult to deal with as myself, esp Europe and Latin America? AmEx offices that deal in currency exchange seems to be a vanishing breed.