Esteban's Venezuelan Adventure

I am writing this journal entry from a small room in a casa in a barrio called Nueva Via. The neighborhood is Familia Cabezas. I am having a fascinating time here, but I miss my life and friends at home very much. I cannot complain too much because I am staying with a wonderful family, I have my own room with my own bathroom and AC unit, and these people know how to feed me a diet high in soluble fiber and free of milk! Soluble fiber! I have a lot of great pictures of where I am living, but I want to show you what Caracas was like because that is where a lot of the action is going on in this crazy country. I arrived in Caracas a week ago, and started taking pictures. This is a picture of a barrio on the outskirts of the city. These barrios are called 'Los Ranchos,' and they are built up the sides of the hills that surround Caracas. Some are better than others, but most are shantytowns built of mudbricks from the hillside. When it rains, whole neighborhoods can slide down the side of the mountain.

This is a picture of the bridge that used to lead from the regional airport to Caracas. You can see in the background the old bridge that fell into the ravine. The new bridge is being built in the foreground, and they have been working on it for about 3 years but only have one column done. Thus, everybody is forced to take a winding bypass that is perpetually backed up. This is choking the economy of the capital.

I took this picture when taking a walk around our neighborhood, a rich district called Las Mercedes. Electric fences are common and the walls below them are strong, high, and topped with razor wire, pointy metal, or broken glass.

On the same walk through this densely populated area, we came upon this huge golf course. This is like putting an 18 hole course in the middle of Washington, DC or New York city. "El Presidente" has recently made campaign promises to take control of the golf courses and use them to build housing for the poor. The courses are surrounded, like everything, by 20 foot fences topped with barbed wire. We only got in because someone left a gate open. There is such inequality here.
These are the other two Fulbright ETA's posing by a huge tree in the golf course. The guy on the left is Adam, who is in the beautiful, temperate, mountain town of Merida. The guy on the left in Patrick, who is teaching in Caracas. These guys are awesome.

This is a billboard promoting the government of "El Presidente." There are presidential elections in 12 weeks. I'm staying out of it.











This is Caracas' mountain, El Avila. Caracas itself is about 3000 feet above sea level. The mountain is 9000 feet at the summit. It is awesome and huge and filled with exotic plants and animals - sloths, spiders!, howler monkeys, the occasional big cat. I was all set to hike to the top with Patrick and Adam when...

Hey! Travellers diarhea! I had the taxi driver pull over on the way to El Avila at McDonalds. This is a picture of the inside of the stall. It was great. I missed the hike, but I will make in the future.

That's all for now. Feel free to post your thoughts, responses, or mean-spirited insults below. I miss and love you all.