Venezuela

Visited: 2001, 2003, 2015

Duration of visit: 10 days

Capital city: Caracas

Population: 28 million (2015)

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

• Caracas – one of the most dangerous and chaotic cities in Latin America.
• Prosperity, consumer lifestyle, tons of alcohol and good food on Isla Margarita.
• The lowest petrol prices in the world.
• Productive meetings creating many new business opportunities in the beginning of the century.
• Run down, insecure and pathetic country becomes a victim of corrupted political elites for the experiment of 21^st century socialism.

I visited Venezuela 4 times between 2001 and 2015. Three times for business and once for pleasure. The country changed a lot during 14 years.

From being one of the richest South American countries with extravagant lifestyle, to the place from where the majority of its inhabitants wanted to emigrate.

It is incredible how the wrong political reforms and utopic ideas of a powerful leader transformed a free, liberal economy into a failed system in which people wait hours and hours for the most basic necessities. Kidnaping, robbery, blackmailing and bribery became part of everyday life.

At that time, Venezuela was the richest country in South America with many economic emigrants from poorer Latin American countries, who were in search for better opportunities. Hugo Chavez had just been elected as a president and started with his regular monolog TV shows and new left orientated political agenda. People didn’t take him too seriously, but he had a strong support from majority of poor population.

Venezuela served as an exceptional market for business ventures characterized by abundant financial resources and a multitude of companies eager to invest in various goods projected to yield profits.

People were spending as nowhere else in South America, it was hard to get a seat in good restaurants.

I visited Maracaibo, Valencia, Barquisimeto and various times the capital, Caracas. There were always beautiful female assistants offering coffee, tea and drinks during meetings and local businessmen were flying to Miami for weekend shopping, summer holidays or mingling with friends. Most of companies and wealthy locals possessed bank accounts in the US and credit cards from American banks. They were knowledgeable about products, market situation and always on time when payments were due.

Caracas was already one of the most dangerous cities in the world, but I was hosted by local businessman Raul, who was taking care of me from the moment I landed at Maiquetía airport. Therefore, I never really felt the danger, poverty or rebellion in Caracas, nor Venezuela. The country looked like a paradise and promised land for Latinos.

I could perceive prosperity, luxury, fun and comfort, when I took a week holiday at Isla Margarita, a popular holiday destination 40 kilometers north of mainland. We travelled there by car on a ferry, stayed in a luxury hotel, sunbathed in different beaches every day, visiting casinos at night and simply enjoying life with our new Venezuelan friends.

At lunchtime there was always a lobster or two on the table, while on the beach local high-quality rum or any other imported liquor was available at any time. Inflatable cushion that is usually used for laying down, served as a table for a cooler with rum, while soaking in shallow, warm water of the clear sea. Long conversations among my Venezuelan friends lasted for hours.

Before our return back to the mainland my hosts stopped at three different duty-free shops; Isla Margarita is a tax-free shopping zone. Our Chevrolet Blazer was the most popular car at that time and very convenient to load it with a dozen of boxes of rum and vodka.

The crowds at duty free shops were incredible. It looked as if everybody was dying of thirst. Nobody was buying a bottle or two. A carton box was a minimum order.

Fortunately, we had a handy trolley to carry all the stuff to our car and brought it back through checkpoint without any issues.

I have been based in Panama since 2013 and I could follow closely the exodus of rich Venezuelans from their homeland. Actually, reach Venezuelans were the first to emigrate; later hundreds of thousands and millions followed their steps, regardless of wealth, age, status or family connections.

It was scary to follow the news or talking to my friends in Caracas and Panama. Venezuela changed completely; from being one of the richest countries on the continent 10 years before to a place where you couldn’t buy toilet paper or where your business could be nationalized without any warning. Besides that, the highest inflation in the world reduced the regular income to only a few dollars.

The insecurity and instability were forcing millions of Venezuelans – first the rich and afterwards all socioeconomic groups – to leave the country. Robberies and kidnapping were part of everyday life, not only in Caracas, but also in other cities and even in the countryside.

Initially, the only constant was the low price of gasoline. If in the most prosperous years a tank of gasoline costed 4.00US$ to 5.00US$ in the beginning of economic crises the price dropped to under 1.00US$ – for a full tank. Yes, in Venezuela the gasoline was not measured in liters or gallons, but in the whole tanks.

In the year 2015, I came to the conclusion to travel to Caracas for a business trip, prompted by a call that informed me of a business opportunity involving an ID card project. I noted that the Caracas airport appeared to be largely unoccupied, with old socialist shops offering mostly simple local products that costed close to nothing.

If there were tremendous traffic jams in the beginning of the century, the travelling speed in Caracas now was much more decent. My friend explained to me about a new informal lane that was formed for motorcyclist and you had to be very cautious when switching lanes or overtaking on highways, to avoid a huge amount of motorbikes.

The city looked run down and I felt tension in the air, when I walked in downtown to the meeting in Servicio Administrativo de Identificación, Migración y Extranjería. It was a kind of illegal to change US dollars to bolivares and I was not able to change even 20.00US$ on the street or in a bank. I saw people queuing in front of a rundown bakery. Many stores shut down or they were without goods to sell.

The meeting was unsuccessful, a waste of time actually. The opportunity to reunite with my long-time friend Raul after a decade was a delightful memory.

Definitely Venezuela under presidents Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro is a great example that socialism of 21^st century works only for corrupted elite, which with despotism ruined once rich and prosperous country with the largest oil reserves in the world. Chavez’s and later Maduro’s politics of nationalization, one party system, giving the power to poor and kicking out the rich people, has proved once again to be a disaster for prosperity of any nation.

If Venezuelans were transporting boxes of rum for personal consumption from Margarita 10 years ago, in 2015 they need to que for hours to buy basic goods, such as bread, beans or toilet paper.

I sincerely hope that Venezuela will recover from the misery and return back to democracy with market economy and succeed reducing crimes with extortion that have become so common.

I would love to mingle again with my Venezuelan friends, fly over Angel falls, trek on Mount Roraima or swim around the archipelago of Los Roques.

Unfortunately, I have no photos of my visits to Venezuela, since most of the trips were for business and at that time smart phones were not existing.