Going on Vacation to Venezuela? What Could Go Wrong?

You will discover new ways to conserve water and electricity, the supplies of which a thoughtful and ever compassionate government has wisely limited by allowing the infrastructure to deteriorate naturally.

Venezuela was once a beautiful but generally laid-back and therefore often relaxing tourist destination. My wife and I spent well over a year there off and on between 1996 and 2001. We enjoyed it so much that we thought of settling there permanently, probably up in the Andes not far from the university city of Merida. Although much of Venezuela’s beauty remains, many things are different. What follows will, I hope, be seen as an attempt at satire comprised of a mix of disgust, love, despair, and hope. Disgust and despair may have overwhelmed love and hope.

This is a hilarious and yet, sadly true, article. Let’s keep Venezuela in our prayers.

If you can understand Spanish, there is a great deal of honest information here as well:

http://lasarmasdecoronel.blogspot.com

(From time to time he writes articles in English too.)

"hilarious"

What's hilarious and sad at the same time are all the Chavez acolytes, worldwide, who refuse to look at the Castro-wannabe as what he is: a totalitarian, socialist pig. They themselves would revolt against many of the strictures Chavez imposes on his own people. But it's just perfect for those Venezuelans...right Sean Penn?

Sounds great, every American college should plan a semester abroad in Venezuela or Cuba for environmental studies and political science majors

Except for the fact that in all liklihood, these students would never see the real Venezuela or the real Cuba that the average citizen with which the average citizen has to deal. It would be a lot like a Michael Moore movie, the students would be shown a Potemkin Village and then come back thinking that Castro and Chavez are really nice people.

I worked for an rent-a-rig oil company in the ‘80s and was sent down to a couple of their camps there (Anaco).

A bunch of us took a trip to Merida and found it pretty quiet and somewhat barren of stores. What got me is that when we took a break in the cuty square, we had a lot of Indian kids circle around us, shyly looking us over - no pan handling or anything like that.

When we were sent to Lake Maracaibo (Ciudad Ojeda) on the west coast, we talked with an American who ran a ferry service of workers out to the rigs in the lake. Even then he said that Venezuela was a Third World country rapidly going Fourth if things didn’t change. I doubt he is there today.

All in all I liked the country and the people - very mild mannered. The Americans I met down there (oil men) reminded me of how it must have been in America in the 1900s - lots of Indiana Jones types hacking out a living there.

One guy said that oil ruined the country as everybody came in from the countryside to work in the oil fields. Cattle ranches and farms went to ruin, but I thought that was just human nature in action - why bust your chops for pennies when you could get big bucks for working for the gringos. When we flew over the country, West to East, it looked pretty empty outside the cities.

Hated to see the country go in the crapper with Chavez, but that always seems to be the story with most of these Latin countries.

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