Going Crackers in Caracas
Trip Start
Aug 29, 2009
1
10
19
Trip End
Ongoing
Caracas, Central Venezuela, Venezuela
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Kaieteur Falls seemed a fitting finale to our exploration of the three Guyanas, so it was time to move on. The logical next destination was Venezuela, but unfortunately an ongoing border dispute with Guyana means there is no official land crossing between the two countries, so we ended up flying there via Trinidad. As with Georgetown, we had received stern warnings about being careful and in particular only taking the official taxis from the airport at Caracas, distinguished by all being black Ford Explorers. When we stumbled out of arrivals we were immediately accosted with offers of taxis, so I asked one directly “taxi negro?” and he said “si, si!” and then waited patiently while I struggled to find a combination of card and cash machine that would deliver local currency. Duly enriched (though not by all that much – more on this later), we followed him out of the airport to where he had parked his car – a red Toyota or somesuch. He was very upset when we refused to get in, saying something like “black taxi, red taxi, what's the difference?” and flourishing some pad of receipts that apparently proved he was an official taxi. We stuck to our guns, however, and marched off to the waiting line of big black Fords, one of which whisked us to the hotel that we had booked by email, in the allegedly quiet and safe district of Altemera. I say 'whisked' but in fact the drive was quite long and went past a large area of 'barrios', unofficial districts where the poorer people live and guide books warn against trying to visit. When we were finally set down it didn't seem to be in the the right place at all, directly on a main road in what appeared to be quite a run-down district. We were also shocked by the charge – 170 Bolivars (henceforth abbreviated BS, which is quite appropriate), which consumed most of the cash I'd taken out at the airport. Fortunately the hotel accepted credit cards, but despite being quite expensive, our room was rather small, shabby and facing the main road, from which the roar of traffic reached us even on the 8th floor. We were too tired and hungry to protest, however, and went out in search of dinner. The only place we could find still open at 10pm was a rather expensive Italian restaurant, where we shared quite a good pizza at the cost of most of our remaining cash. A hundred pounds worth of BS were gone in an evening – at this rate Venezuela would soon leave us bankrupt! We consoled ourselves with some of the excellent rum we had brought from Guyana and got what sleep the traffic noise allowed.
Looking out in the morning we could see that the hotel was opposite a construction site, which had contributed to the bad impression of the neighbourhood. The rush-hour traffic was at a standstill, however, and the noise was quite daunting. Things looked up a bit at breakfast, when we got talking to a couple of French ladies on our table and discovered that they belonged to a choir on a visit to Venezuela, just as our own choir in Bristol had visited Madrid! Heartened and fortified we went out to take a look at Caracas. One of the first things that struck us were the number of women with surprisingly large breasts - apparently Venezuela has one of the highest rates of cosmetic surgery in the world, and it showed. Even mannequins in shop windows had enormous boobs! Strange... The second thing we noticed were the mountains towering over the city that did a lot to moderate the depressing effect of the high-rises. There's a huge national park immediately to the north of the city with lots of walking trails and so forth, which we didn't get around to seeing. First we thought we should see a bit more of the city itself.
The obvious solution to all the traffic was to take the metro, particularly since there was a station just around the corner. It took us a little while to figure out, but once we got going it was smooth, efficient, and, amazingly, cheap. We went to the historic centre, which had slightly fewer tower blocks and slightly more old buildings than elsewhere, but wasn't all that attractive, so we walked back towards where we were staying, taking in a market along the way, and buying a few doughnuts, which seemed to be about all we could afford to eat.
Back at the hotel, we were unable to get back into our room, which turned out to be because it had flooded and the staff had moved all our stuff to another room that was larger and quieter. We considered our options and decided to get out of Caracas as quickly as possible. A restful few days by the sea seemed just the ticket and so we set our sights on the small town of Puerto Colombia on the Caribbean coast. This involved going via the regional centre of Maracay, so we packed our bags and took a taxi to the western bus terminal in Caracas, a chaotic vortex that we somehow navigated through to the right bus.
Note: we only took a few few photos in Caracas, and those we did take seem to have been deleted somehow. More photos next time!
Els' haiku:
Noise, high-rise and cars
Barrios, boob-jobs and heat
Distant mountains call
