Caracas: Black Market Handshake

“It’s Sunday so the streets are too empty to be safe.” As an opening statement from the local guide who picked us up at our Caracas hotel, it left something to be desired. It was her casual explanation for us taking the metro instead of walking.
The Caracas weekend was planned with great enthusiasm but much less research than is usual for me and K. It was a quick 2-hr flight from Panama City and a cheap points ticket so we jumped on it with the same insouciance as hopping to a neighbouring country in Europe. We realized our mistake after mentioning our plans to a few friends. Oh, there is a travel warning on Venezuela? But what does that mean, really? Colombia has one too but friends, after spending a month there, reported back that the danger generally felt exaggerated. So we read some more and talked to others. One colleague had heard tell of a 1 in 5 chance of being car-jacked on the road from the airport. Another website said not to fly in or out (or venture outside) after 7pm. As we were flying during the day, I hoped that 2/5 people get car-jacked at night and 0/5 in the day. You can prove anything with stats.

Thus started some interesting pre-trip texts.

  • K: I used up a lot of luck in Rio over 2yrs
  • Me: And our trip to Syria in 2010
  • K: and Lebanon
  • Me: Israel… Jordan…
  • K: We’re screwed
  • Me: Let’s try to get mugged before we go

Bogota had given me a false confidence that eroded somewhat when we arrived at the Caracas airport. We’d planned to be as safe as possible by arranging airport transfers, a full day with guide and driver and a hotel in the nice part of town. We scanned the signs being held up upon arrival but ran the gauntlet without seeing our names. I cold-shouldered a man who followed us around speaking rapid Spanish until I realized he was an airport official making sure we didn’t do anything stupid. He stayed with us for the minute it took our driver to find us. Our driver’s “sign” was a picture of our names on his cell phone. No wonder we didn’t see him in the throng. 

Cash is king here but almost worthless at close to 180% inflation, by some reports. We passed 50+ people waiting in line at bank machines. We were told not to exchange money at the airport, but neither to do it in the street since the largest bill is an 100 Bolivar note, worth about 15 cents. The $50 US exchange we’d prearranged with the tour company came as a 3-inch brick of bills the driver conjured up from the recesses of the car. We counted that into 8000 Bolivares bundles in anticipation of paying for a $12 lunch as discreetly as possible.

Caracas is built in the aptly-named brutalist architecture style, or 1980s concrete chic if you want to be more positive. All hard angles and cement lines, it looks both pre- and post-Apocalyptic at the same time. K likened it to the futuristic Hunger Games and she was right. She is also much more well-read and well-traveled than my quoting her references to tv and movies would suggest.

Approximately 5m people live in Caracas, and a panoramic view from the mirador (lookout) showed office buildings, residences and favela-like barrios stretching from end to end out of sight. If Venezuela is your hand, Caracas is the thin white edge of your closely-trimmed thumbnail. Or the almond sliver on your Danish pastry, if that resonates more.

We learned a lot about Bolivar, who is universally loved and was apparently extremely short. But as liberator of five South American countries from the Spanish, his lack of stature was only physical. We learned as much about the late Hugo Chavez who is adored by some and less so by others. The cry of “Que viva Chavez!” is used in equal measure reverently and sarcastically, the latter by people waiting in long bread lines. He did odd things like modifying the design of the centuries-old coat of arms, flag, and bank notes. And in addition to allegedly liberating much of Venezuela’s wealth, he exhumed Bolivar’s skeleton, opening up the coffin’s lead lining like it was a tin can and broadcasting it on tv. Many Venezuelans believe that was the start of a curse, the effects of which they are feeling today.

Those effects? If 50 people waited in line for the bank machine, down the road 150+ people queued up for food. A similar system to the Bogota driving restrictions exist for all goods here: food, shampoo, diapers, really anything but clothes, which they don’t need to line up for because they can’t afford them. A cheap car costs $8000 US, on a minimum wage of $10 US/mo plus another $7/mo for food.

Based on the last digit of her identity card, our guide, early thirties, single mom, can only shop on Tuesdays and Saturdays. She can buy up to two kilos of rice, for example, if she can find it (the Venezuelan staple of black beans is no longer to be found at all) but can only buy that once a week. They keep track of what she buys, where, through a thumbprint scan. She was confused by the concept of “grocery shopping.” It is all dictated by what is on the shelves. Each week she might be allowed to buy two kilos of corn flour (which lasts a week), but can only find it on the shelves once a month. The same goes for ev-er-y-thing. Her friend, who had twins, was limited to diapers for one child and now only parents can buy diapers at all, after producing a birth certificate. People get around some of the limits by knowing which stores enforce them less than others. But sugar can only be found on the black market, at 4x the official price. If you negotiate a good rate on the black market, though, $1 US will be enough to ride the metro for a year. 

But now that we are safe and sound in the Caracas airport on our way back to Panama, I’m glad we went. We clearly didn’t get the full experience, being quite protected. And though we never felt at immediate risk, we were hyper-conscious of anyone walking nearby and less blasé than normal about the men who catcalled or sang drunkenly about women as we walked by. (Mujeres was happily the only word I understood.)

We acclimated pretty quickly and I was feeling some sympathy for would-be muggers after hearing what daily life is like here. By the end of the day we even felt up to braving the streets for dinner outside the hotel but decided against it when a drive circling the block showed no one on the streets and no destination worth the risk of walking around like the only two tourists in Caracas. Instead, we ate safely in our empty hotel restaurant and I got my thrills from negotiating an extra black market money exchange with our bellboy, slipping him a US $20 in the coolest of hidden-money handshakes and looking nonchalant when he found me a few minutes later and passed me another ostentatious brick of cash.

  

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