Venezuela Is Crap

I recently had the misfortune of visiting Venezuela and due to a disastrous error of judgment I ended up staying for four months.

On the surface, Venezuela can look like a holiday dreamland. Nowhere else can boast Caribbean islands; lush, untouched jungle; vast, wildlife-rich national parks; a mountain adventure sports capital and a modern city full of first rate accommodation and pulsating nightlife in a tepid land smaller than 33 other nations on earth. It sounds promising.

Spend enough time in Venezuela away from the resorts and organized tours and you will discover it is a nation inhabited by idiots and led by a madman who shuts off the capital city's water supply on weekends and takes over every free-to-air television channel each night to jabber on about how well he is progressing his homeland into the future. The same man who then flew to Cuba when in need of surgery.

While, as a nation, Venezuela does manage to operate at a sufficient standard to allow most of its citizens to live and breathe and dance their nights away listening to mind-numbing Reggaeton, there are countless policies and trends that are baffling to any visitors, and would have those from even the most backward third world countries scratching their heads, a trifle confused.

Receiving four twelve-and-a-half cent coins as change is the first abnormality, then as you get to meet the locals a whole new world of lunacy becomes prevalent. Individually, Venezuelans appear to be switched on as functioning human beings. Many go to university, they can all speak a language I have no idea about, and the capital city, Caracas, has many large buildings and shopping malls erected which must have required some level of competence and cohesion to construct. Collectively, however, they seem to have fallen into a brain drain behind El Presidente Chavez and accepted that his way is the right way, and there are no alternatives worth pursuing.

Even Chavez’s critics have accepted him as a permanent presence, blaming his continual election victories on factious and incompetent opposition and the majority of rural "Chavistas" who support him, leaving the country with no alternative. And it is the actions of his government–that shuts off electricity at universities each Friday-that filters down to its citizens and corporations to implement inane rules and regulations and acts of sheer stupidity by themselves.

Try to board an overnight ferry to Isla Margarita and you’ll wait for two hours with 2,000 other passengers while one man checks tickets and conducts random and regular bag searches.

Try to catch a bus at the designated time and you’ll likely be told by the ticket booth attendant that the bus, which is scheduled clearly at 2:30pm on the large poster next to the ticket booth in the ticket office at the bus station, does not exist, and you’ll have to wait until 5:00pm, tomorrow. No explanation, no excuse or apology. Just total indifference.

After a while it becomes the most appealing part of the country, waiting to see what confusingly inept acts Venezuela can dish up each day becomes more entertaining than the jungle retreats or tropical beaches.

Boarding a bus to a softball match which drops you off at the back of the line you were just standing in would be alarming in most places. In Venezuela, it's the norm.

Having an item bagged at a supermarket before checkout, then having the plastic bag ripped open at the register and replaced with an identical plastic bag should be a concern in a country with a visibly serious waste management problem, but, in Venezuela, nothing surprises you after a while.

It should be a surprise that on a continent teeming with backpackers and tourists, the Venezuelan government fixes the exchange rate at banks at less than half of what is offered on the black market, keeping would be visitors away. And usually it would be a concern that the few tourists who do visit are subject to frequent military searches and thrown in jail if caught without a passport on them, but the Venezuela government seems to want to remain isolated and self-sufficient, perhaps to shield its citizens from the efficiency of the world around them.

So, to make yourself really appreciate where you come from, and if you want to feel justified that you are an intelligent, properly functioning member of a coherent, progressive society, visit Venezuela. Look past the natural wonders and be astounded and entertained by a nation of backward thinking philistines so rare in today's modern world, and remember to check your brain in at the border.

WARNING: BRING CASH

If you decide to visit Venezuela (see my article, Roraima National Park) be sure to carry enough USD with you to last your entire stay. If you try to use your ATM card at a bank, you will only receive about 3:1 for Bolivars to USD, making Venezuela on par with Monaco for affordability. At a land border crossing, 4:1 is normal, but on the black market in cities you'll be able to get 7:1 or even up to 9:1. So plan ahead.