Staying Caracas, Venezuela

It has been a long time since I have written in this blog but have sworn to start again. Too much Facebook and not enough blogging. Since my last entry I have been on a transatlantic cruise, been to P-town in CT, spent a few days at the flower and garden show at EPCOT, been camping and traveled through Arizona and up to Las Vegas, among other trips. I need to sit down and write some more about each vacation, from memory, and have sworn to go in and do all this this month. I am on a layover in Caracas, Venezuela and have time to write. Apart from the transatlantic cruise from Rome to Fort Lauderdale, I have pulled back from travel to Europe. The low dollar and the high cost of everything in Europe kept me back from traveling over there too often. It seems that the dollar has become strong against the Euro again, and my layovers are getting easier to stomach, especially in London, where I was paying $2 for each pound sterling. Unfortunately, my layovers in Europe have all been in Madrid lately, and it is a city, which although lovely, I have seen way too many times, so I just stay in the hotel room and watch TV rather than getting out. I did manage to take a hop on hop off bus a few months ago to see the city, which I think is a fantastic way to see any foreign city that you may be traveling to. For about $20 US, you can see the sights. The buses supply a headset, which you plug in to a prerecorded narrative about the sights of the city that you are passing. You can hop off, see the area and hop back on, as the buses run about every 10-15 minutes, making this a terrific way to sightsee, on the cheap. You can find these buses in most major cities in the world, although the US seems slow to adopt? The only exception was when I was in Madera, off the coast of Africa, and the hop on hop off bus was a failure. Not enough buses running to handle the number of cruise ship passengers that had landed made this a bad idea, but more about that on the blog I will do about my transatlantic crossing. Now I will discuss a bit about Caracas, Venezuela, where I am laying over this month. Ever since the collapse of the bridge into the city about 9 years ago, we are no longer laying over in the downtown area. The back story is that the bridge that connected the airport to the city, collapsed during a rainstorm around 1999, and stranded our American Airlines crews in the city for 3 weeks. I think that some of them were finally taken out by helicopter however this happened right at Christmas time and caused a big mess for those who were stuck for 3 weeks with nothing to do. Since that time, Hugo Chavez has taken over the government at a rapid pace. Since we no longer stay in the city, I cannot comment on changes outside of the airport area, since we stay very close to the airport. The changes I have slowly seen taking place have been some new “government housing” going up near our hotel, and a larger and larger number of working people on the street wearing red (read-communist) shirts, that have the name of the government “social” program embroidered into them. The streets near the airport are cleaner as more and more people are employed by the “socialist” government to take care of the airport and surrounding areas. The airport has been greatly improved, with new clean facilities and the landscaping the the airport area, which was in the past shamefully full of trash, has been cleaned and brightened. A funny point is the fact that when you come out of the immigration area, there is a big sign over the luggage carousel area, that reads, in Spanish, “Now Venezuela belongs to all.” Hugo Chavez pictures are everywhere, and he is known for talking for hours on national television. This of course is all funded by the oil revenue that the country now controls, and little by little, the nationalization of industry is taking place. I cannot help think that I am witnessing the communist takeover of the country. This has been obvious in the demeanor of the passengers on our Caracas routes. They seem to be more subdued than in the years before Chavez took over. I think that it is a tale of things to come that are more foreboding. My partner, who is Cuban, says that this is the start of a communist society, and the façade created by jobs, clean streets and government housing will soon be replaced by food shortage, and a repressed lifestyle as the infrastructure begins to collapse under the communist system. I am sure he is right, but for now, I cannot help but think that I have seen positive changes in the area surrounding the airport. This cannot, however, cover up the fact that crime rates continue to surge in Caracas, thus we are no longer taken into the city, even though the bridge was fixed long ago. We are told not to venture outside the hotel for any reason, since robberies are commonplace, even just outside the hotel area.