My hostess, who is in fact the sister of a friend who lives in Dublin, has been waiting for a few minutes. She stares through her round glasses and smiles while holding a small sign with my name on it. She asks me the three main questions to ask to visitors to Venezuela:

 

 

On the climb to the capital through an once-modern La Guaira Highway, the car speeds through tall concrete bridges and long tunnels that run deep across the last of the Andes and divide coast and city. In the forty five-minute journey, I am updated on the tremendous social changes happened at the head of the late Hugo Chavez.
Hated by half of the population as a tyrant and loved by the the rest as a saviour, Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela has seen in a decade, an overinflation of nearly fifteen hundred per cent, a rise in poverty and crime levels and over two million citizens emigrating to Colombia, Peru or Spain.

 

Bringing U.S. Dollars as cash means I can exchange them for Bolivars on the black market, with a value ten times higher than the official exchange rate. To put this in context, if I purchase a cup of coffee and pay with my bank card, the cost of it charged in Bolivars and exchanged by the bank would be of fifteen U.S. dollars, as opposed to one and a half in the black market.

 

 

Once the mountain range opens to the wide Caracas valley, I notice all cars having tinted windows in one of the most dangerous cities in the world.

With nearly four-million inhabitants, Caracas shows itself as a massive combination of tall buildings, wide highways and an impressively large area of slums. Slums that climb up steep hills occupying every piece of land possible as a tridimensional wall of red-bricked poverty.
Indeed, I am briefed by my hostess that slums are a no-go for non-residents and venturing up the hills is nearly a life sentence.

 

 

Traffic is light on a Sunday and, showcasing one of the few tourist attractions in Caracas still functioning, we park and queue next to the cable car station for El Avila.

Around us, locals buy sweet popcorn, cotton candy and transparent bags of peeled mango. I quench the heat with a tizana before we are pushed into a platform and the cable car silently climbs sixteen hundred meters away from the troubles of the capital.

 

At over two thousand meters above sea level, the air is cold with mist and the lights of the city below vanish under a layer of thick cloud. Caribbean music plays at the beat of an accordion and children dance with their parents after having their faces painted by a young lady in a colourful clown gown.

 

 

 

 

 

A two-hour wait is needed to descend to the city as everyone decides to do so at the same time. A wait only sweetened by questions answered with mouthfuls of tamarind sweets and small plastic bowls of strawberries with cream.

 

 

 

At darkness, I am driven through a city coming from a post-war scene. Night time is a dangerous affair in the streets of Caracas, so local decide to retreat indoors as soon as the sun sets. Through the Pan-American Highway, we finally reach San Antonio de los Altos for refuelling our bodies with a dinner of pork-filled arepas, and refuelling the car with petrol at two cents of an Euro for a full tank.

 

In the early morning, we depart the cold mountains of San Antonio de los Altos with the first rays of sunshine, head downhill through a sleepy Caracas and into La Guaira in the Vargas State.
The navy blue Caribbean Sea roars as the water crashes against thick rock walls placed here after the famous Vargas Disaster of 1999 in which thousands of people died in a matter of minutes when the tall mountains of El Avila collapsed and brought massive mudslides with it.

We reach La Pantaleta Beach -the Panties Beach- early enough to find it empty albeit already warm with the wintry sun.
Within an hour, the popular hideaway fills with tanned locals driving sport cars, playing loud reggaeton music and starting a drinking-and-eating frenzy of beer and seafood chowder at mere ten meters from the shore.
Girls wear tiny bikinis exposing their perfectly shaped bodies and heavily worked tan as a testimony of a society well-known for keeping up with a high standard of physical appearances. A picture worth of an advert, ‘por que en Venezuela, Si Hay!’

Three hours later and with my pale skin acquiring a dramatic prawn red tone, we decide to go back to the capital by taking two local buses into the Gato Negro metro station, from which we take one of the cheapest metros in the world – at twenty cents of an Euro for a ride-  to Los Cortijos, a middle-class hideaway in Eastern Caracas.

Homemade burgers, soft drinks and chocolate cake are as plentiful as the answers my hostess’ extended family are happy to answer for me. Through this little Venezuelan middle-class window, I notice how everyone seems to be aware of politics and social issues, but most importantly, how everyone seems to be hopeful for better days for the country. I feel as I have made friends for life in a matter of minutes.

The dark night discreetly disguises the poverty pockets which cover the rims of the narrow valley. As we drive to Caricuao, one of Venezuela’s most dangerous neighbourhoods, in order to give a family member a lift, a wild array of street lights bolt towards the mountain like fireflies in the wind.

I laden myself in body lotion and my skin turns into shades of purple. I uncomfortably sleep overnight, and the next morning, I see the real Caracas.
The Caracas of the traffic jams that can last for hours at the Pan-American Highway, and the Caracas of ridiculous wealth at Chacao. At Altamira Square and for one of the few times in Venezuela, I see fully-stocked supermarkets of blue-fin Madeira tuna and exquisite bottles of Dom. I see briefcases and suits gallivanting with no safety worries and I see private bodyguards waving at the stern Guarda Boliviariana.

During my two business meetings, I am explained that a very small percentage of the population holds an astronomical amount of money. They spend weekends in Miami and go for shopping trips in Paris. They belong the pro-Government elite, they own the country.

When returning to San Antonio de los Altos, I am driven through Los Proceres at sunset, a long avenue where late Hugo Chavez and its government constantly organise military parades.  On the TV, a local baseball match is being played, Venezuela the only country in South America where such sport is popular. We eat cachapas for dinner and late at night, when the hills are quiet, I step outside the balcony and look over dozens of little villages that seem to light candles of prayer to the dark sky.

‘My last day in Venezuela becomes a mixture of emotions and landscapes. From the early morning visit to the stables and riding school in the Valley near Los Teques, to a typical ‘pabellon criollo’ lunch with my new Venezuelan family, and finally, to a rather melancholic drive to the airport strongly guarded by advertising outdoor signs featuring the late Hugo Chavez’s stare.’

Air France flight three-eight-five is called as I finish my last arepa of the trip and hug my hostess goodbye. For boarding, we are called in groups of  twenty into an airbridge of pure intimatidation.

–          ‘Good Evening people, hand luggage in front of you please’.
–          ‘Now step back!’

A sniffing dog loudly pants and searches for any traces of drugs or explosives on our hand luggage. He stops by the person standing next to me and my fellow passenger is immediately grabbed by the arm and taken away to a little room. My heart races in unjustified guilt as the dog passes by and our little group is cleared for a second security check in which our bags are opened and our bodies tapped next to the airplane door.

Once finally inside the aircraft, I look out the window for a terminal being pushed away from us, and with it, the problems of a socially destroyed country. For ten hours I watch a movie and sleep, only waking up as breakfast is served over Lisbon and landing is announced next.
At Charles de Gaulle, I take the opportunity of a quick transfer to check my semester grades and with a smile, I board my flight to Dublin.