First impressions of Caracas
Trip Start
Nov 29, 2007
1
12
Trip End
Dec 30, 2007
Caracas,
Venezuela
Friday, November 30, 2007
Caracas has the worst reputation of anywhere that we will be going on this trip, although the rest of Venezuela is supposed to be pretty good, so we took the absurd precaution of making a reservation with a hotel that picks up clients from the airport. It was a pretty cheap hotel and we weren't entirely surprised when there was no one there but we were also a little anxious, and the soldiers wandering around only added to the air of uncertainty. So we did the safe and silly thing of going with one of the hotels that did turn up. I later discovered that my email booking with the hotel had bounced, but it was correctly addressed according to the hotel's own information.
I will spare you the tedious details of how we navigated our way out of Caracas, save that it was circuitous and involved four kinds of transport. Instead I will try to create some sense of local colour.
We arrived on 29 November 2007. Chavez's great socialist revolution was to be determined on 2 December. This may sound exaggerated (and I think it is) but that is the way that the Venezuelans, including Chavez, describe it. Caracas was plastered with pro-Chavez slogans. This appeared to be not about policy but about whether you were 'with' Chavez or not. The most common slogan, and it was on almost every wall and hanging from countless banners on street lights, was 'si con Chavez' all in red with the 'si' in a speech bubble. Others included 'si a la reforma' and 'mas poder a los pueblos' (more power to the people), and 'si a socialismo'.
Chavez propaganda above other commercials
Images of Chavez were common on banners. I've never been somewhere where personality is so important. But I was amazed to see to see one enormous canvas depicting Chavez waving a little red book. One leader I would not want to link my socialist revolution with would be Chairman Mao, but the allusion cannot be accidental, and I saw the same picture on a wall later on. I soon learnt that the 'young rebels' say 'si' to the reform. I saw a very few black graffiti saying simply 'no'.What is the reform? It is so topical here that no one even needs to explain it, which is a handicap for me. It is a drastic rewrite of the new constitution that Chavez passed in 1999, and the referendum would determine its fate. The most high profile issue was the elimination of limits on presidential terms, obviously a necessity for a man who has stated that he wants to rule until he dies. Other important issues concerned the state's power to claim private property and nationalise industries. This referendum clearly laid the groundwork for a far more intrusive state. Nobody I have spoken to supported the reform, but all agreed that the country was pretty evenly divided. The last constitutional re-write passed handsomely.
That election setting is the most dramatic feature of my arrival. Apparently there have been demonstrations in the city but we did not linger long and I saw nothing.
Caracas is a big road-intensive modern city and I have never seen so many buses lined up on the side of the road and in traffic as there are here, going in every direction. Even with all these buses, the city is congested.
We weren't here long enough to form more than superficial impressions of the place but nothing we saw encouraged us to stay longer.
The value of money
We had our first experience of command economies on arrival. A man took us aside an in incomprehensible English told us that taxis were either US$25 or US$50. We couldn't understand why, but perhaps that was the result of a pretty long day. Of course, the reason is that Venezuela operates a fixed exchange rate that claims that 2150 bolivars equal one US dollar. You cannot exchange bolivars for any other currency within the country, except with government authorisation, even at the international departure desk. The fixed rate is what you get when you buy things with credit cards or use cash machines. But it is a total fiction - locals say that the market rate is twice this (or more), and the sting is that prices reflect the market value, not the official value. It has deteriorated very rapidly recently. The black market rate was just 3,500 a couple of months ago. So there has been something like a 50% devaluation of the bolivar in two months and Venezuela is a very expensive place to visit right now, unless you have dollars and an inclination to use the black market. You cannot buy foreign exchange in Venezuela - an irony for a country swimming in dollars from oil exports.
We asked one person how the locals can afford to eat, and were told that staples are price controlled. So we asked what effect that had. The result, unsurprisingly, is that staples are exported and sold for dollars which can then be changed on the black market for double the official rate. That is why there is no milk in Venezuela, although the official explanation is the world milk shortage. Perhaps I'm out of date, but has anyone else heard of a global milk shortage?
But against these criticisms, one should balance a lot of reform that should please liberals. Infrastructure in rural areas has been greatly improved (I am told), and great advances have been made in making health care accessible. This is supposedly something of a novelty in a country where governments have tended to favour the rich, and being well connected has been an essential business skill. This is why Chavez would still win a presidential election, even though a narrow majority oppose the particular bundle of reforms.
Update on the milk crisis:
according to the paper, milk is not the only item in short supply. Various unspecified food stuffs are also scarce, as is toilet paper. The official line on this is that private industry has not responded to the situation the way it should have. I don't think that I fully understand that comment.
But the good news is that the government has been negotiating with NZ and more milk is on the way.
