Arriving in Caracas, Part 1 of 2; or, my niece’s birthday party was a porno scene

The plane landed at Caracas’ Simon Bolivar International Airport with a stronger bump than most, and taxied past a row of unfamiliar logos on modest fuselages. Between the recent unrest, and, more importantly, the country’s inability to pay the airlines the fees they charge, several carriers have pulled out of Venezuela entirely. Luckily for me, Copa still had daily hops over from Panama City.

 

Out the porthole window (is there a physics reason for that, or just nostalgia for the seafaring age?) a lego landscape of right angles and boxlike structures grew up the mountainsides in a competition between cinder blocks and tropical foliage. These slopes surround Caracas in a carpet of chaotic concrete similar to the iconic images of Brazil’s favelas, and share many of the equally well-known problems. Blue and green walls were seasoned in among the reddish clay color, and a visual hum of lives being lived leaked from the spray of windows.

 

The customs officer was suspicious of my passport’s extra pages, and left me standing while he went to confirm with a superior. I watched the flow of Venezuelans, and the clusters of confusion around a few Chinese tourists squabbling with the guards, savoring my eagerness to be into the city.

 

The program director and the translator from Witness for Peace met me in the terminal and I liked them both immediately. The director shared a taxi with me into Caracas, commiserating with the driver about how music isn’t as good as it used to be, and kids these days misbehave.

 

“I went to my niece’s birthday party last week, and watching them dance, I felt like I was watching a porno scene. It wasn’t like that when I was a kid.” As an example of the better music of yesteryear, he referenced Black Sabbath.

 

The driver also raged at the traffic, which didn’t seem that bad to me. We rarely stopped, and on the whole, people were far more complicit to the concept of lanes than I’m used to in the developing world, and the honking wasn’t even continuous.

 

I checked into the generic comfort of the Hotel Altamira (hardworking marble floors, bulbs missing from the bedside lights, the vague moldy aftertaste from years of continuous air conditioning) in the neighborhood of the same name, familiar as the epicenter of the violence earlier this year. No sign of that today, as the man at the desk lazily buzzed us in, and my orientation boiled down to “Go right for a chicken restaurant, and left for shops and stuff.”

 

Oh, and one more thing. “The water is shut off every night around 8:30, and back on around 6:30 AM.” I made a note to be back and complete my ablutions on time. I did not envy housekeeping the toilets they undoubtedly discover every morning. I dropped my bag in my room and headed out to the street, where trumpets and bass was blasting, giving everything the air of a neighborhood quinceañera

 

Time to explore this notorious city…