Blogs from Capital, Venezuela, South America - page 7

Yes, it's official (it's in the news so it must be true); Caracas is currently the murder capital of the world with 130 murders per 100 000 inhabitants (compared to less than 2 in London) - and that doesn't even include prison-related murders or police violence, so it wouldn't be too adventurous to guess that the real ratio is substantially higher (although I'm really not sure what kind of statistic that is... I mean... over what time?). Despite the fact that crime rates have gone up 67% since Chavez took the lead ten years ago, many people here, especially in the shanty towns, do actually seem to like him. Although in all fairness it should probably be mentioned that most people that I see on a daily basis in my work (i.e. people with money) absolutely ... read more

this entry was originally going to be one line long, because it sounds so bizarre, but then i suppose i´m doing too much to justify that. either way, i´ll start with the aforementioned line, and then get into the details. last night i went out for drinks with my host, a pole dancer and the most german guys ever, and watched venezuela´s version of ozzy osbourne cover iron maiden, led zeppelin, metallica and the stones. and by gum it was hilarious. but we´ll go back to where it was left last i guess, which was friday night. we went out to a gig, and saw a band called los humanoides who were venezuela´s answer to kraftwerk, and a band called la vida boheme, who were as annoyingly indie as it gets, but begrudgingly good at the ... read more

The shouts of several dozens of fishermen woke me up and threw me right back into reality. A reality that I must admit was for once very pleasant - despite the fact that my sleeping bag was full to the limit with sand. Close by I could hear the waves hitting the shore and as I opened my eyes I could see the pink sun rising in the east. A flashback from the night before reminded me of rum, dancing to african drums, midnight swims and stars so clear I remeber thinking I must be dreaming. The weekend trip to Chuao (a thirty minute boat ride from Puerto Colombia in the north) was a huge success and together with some of my newly found friends I enjoyed total relaxation on the beach as well as hiking ... read more

We said goodbye to the Andes via a 2 hour true winding mountain road through spectacular scenery - huge steep mountains dropping down into a deep gorge. With every metre we descended the temperature rose until eventually we were in hot, dry Barinas. We did the rounds of bus companies for the last time, looking for ones that go overnight to Caracas and secured our tickets for our last South American bus. With over 12 hours to kill we found somewhere to dump off our big rucksacks and caught a local bus into the town centre where we spent the rest of the working day in banks trying (unsuccessfully) to get some money before we ran out completely. We returned to the bus terminal pretty frustrated, particularly after trying to buy some food on Visa, when ... read more

It´s funny how life tends to work out. Of course in order for life to¨work out¨life usually had to have thrown you a few curveballs...and probably beaned you with one or two of them... But since I´ve resolved to be the glass half full type this morning, I´ll focus on the good stuff - namely that I have finally embarked on an escursion. SO! sans sense and sensibility - and the major working of a plan - i find myself in Venezuela. I wish I could say that I am well prepared and have planned this to the hilt, but that just ain´t me. As it stands, all I´ve got is a backpack, two cameras and a lonely planet guide that has already gotten on my bad side (me and lonely planet are beefin´right now...) And ... read more