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When we enter Caracas we are welcomed by Hugo Chavez with a big smile on his face. It is a huge billboard strategically placed on a spot where the traffic tends to congest, so that you cannot come away without looking at it. Actually the billboard could be placed anywhere, because you hardly cannot find spots where there are no trafficjams. And indeed the billboards are everywhere. 'La Patria, la Revolucion o Muerte', we read. 'Welcome in Caracas' would be a bit friendlier. But we are not welcome, as we will experience during our two weeks stay here. It is even worse: we simply do not exist. It seems that no one exists here. Though we have met some friendly people, we have seen nowhere such a high density of asocial, intolerant and blunt people per square kilometer. No one trusts no one, criminality is high and since the introduction of the Bolivar prices have risen twice as high within one or two years. So apart from Hugo Chavez on his billboard no one laughs.
Caracas
We are waiting in the Surinam embassy for our visa. It is the main reason why we are in Caracas, because Caracas itself is
not so interesting. On the wall hangs the portrait of Desi Bouterse, the new president of Suriname. He looks a bit like Kofi Anan. In the showcase we see djogo's, the one liter bottles of Parbo beer, I used to drink in Suriname 42 years ago during my military service. They rub shoulders with the bottles of Black Cat Rum, another product which served the basic needs of us soldiers.
We hear it will take three weeks before we will get our visa. After some talking we are told it can be done within 5 days. We have to do a lot for it: copies of our passports, copies of the tickets to Paramaribo, confirmation of the hotel in Paramaribo, bankoverview of the last 3 months, letter of our employers, proof we are married and a fee of 45 US dollars. Not an easy task in a country, where nothing is working, where computers in the internetcafe's have their periodical melt downs, where Hotmail is a pernicious product of the western world and where ATM's are slot-machines which spit out money at random. Where to get US-dollars in a country which considers the US as the axis of evil? But
the Djogo's and the Black Cats are beckoning and give us the energy to arrange it all. When we sit again in front of the showcase with the tempting bottles we hear suddenly we have our visa. It has been done within 2 hours in stead of 5 days.
Cumana
We have tickets for the plane from Trinidad to Paramaribo. The trip to Trinidad we like to do by boat. The boat leaves from Guiria, at the East of Venezuela, but we cannot get the right information about it. No one knows exactly how it is. Cumana is 8 hours from Caracas, half way between Caracas and Guiria. There is not so much to see in Cumana. There is a museum with some old Dutch plates and bones from a Megatherium. We tried to visit the Castillo de San Antonio de la Emeneva, an old castle of 1659, from the colonial time, but the fence was closed. Cumana was the first town the Spaniards founded on the mainland. We liked to see the monument who marks this event, but around it are military buildings, so that you cannot see it anymore. It looks like Venezuela likes to forget its
colonial past. Instead you see everywhere the statues of liberators like de Miranda, Bolivar and Sucre, which stresses the chauvinism of the Venezuelians. Apart from being chauvinistic the majority seems to be chavinistic as well. 'Con Chavez el pueblo esta el governiement', we read on the walls. ' Socialismo' is the bewitching word. Even the milk is 'hecho en Socialismo' (made in socialism), we read on the package.
Guiria
The bus from Cumana to Guiria leaves at midnight, we hear. You cannot bye tickets beforehand and no one can tell where the bus will leave. At one at midnight there is still no bus. Everything is closed and the busstation does not look safe. We are about to turn back to our hotel, when finally the bus arrives. It is 3 o'clock.
When we arrive in Guiria it turns out that the information about the boat to Trinidad was wrong indeed. A single trip costs a hefty 150 euro, including departure tax. The boat leaves at Wednesday so that we have to wait some days.
In the afternoon we see Chavez on tv. He acts as a presentator and is talking with people about the food in their fridge.
We do not find the Venezuelian food particular tasteful. When we have some rests of our lunch a woman asks us if she may eat it. We see a lot of poverty. Taxis are old Fords and Chevrolets, rattling wrecks which witnessed better times. When we sit on a bench near the main square suddenly a luxurious Mitsubishi stops in front of us. We wonder who is the owner. A girl of about 18 years comes out. A lot of things do not work in Venezuela and we are even wondering if 'Socialismo' is working.
Chavez profiles himself clearly as anti US. A lot of people were killed this week in Syria during the riots. Chavez supports the Syrian governement we see on the Venezuelian tv. His love for Syria must be deep, because there is a direct flight connection from Portlamar on Isla de Margarita to Damascus. Though when I try to sms my daughter in Syria, the line appears to be not supported. In a local paper we read that Chavez according to a report of the British International Institute of Strategical Studies supported the Farc in 2007 with 300 million dollars.
We are happy that we can
leave this country. Up to Trinidad!
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Vlado
non-member comment
Venezuela
Tento clanok mi pripomina casy chvalabohu davno minule u nas na Slovensku. Je zaujimave ze aj teraz mame politika ktory ma v pracovni na stene portret Hugo Chaveza,aspon viem koho nevolit. Tie papagaje su nadherne.