Reply #13: I'm not brave, I was poor. [View All]

[Mik T]

Well sure there were places I wouldn't go alone at night. Like any city.

-It was daylight and there were people everywhere. Who would want anything from a badly dressed dark haired pregnant woman carrying little money? I fit right in. It's only rich people who have their movement restricted and have to live in fear even in the daytime.

I grew up in NYC in the 80's. That was just about the same amount of dangerous. In fact, thats what Caracas kind of reminded me of.

Caracas is not third world either- No more then parts of brooklyn or the Bronx. I believe the technical term for places like Caracas is second world. Poor but not desperate. You could tell because even the stray dogs were well fed looking. I was there as a delagate for the world Social Forum. I had a friend who was a fullbright professor and I stayed at her house at night part of the time and with my delagation for the rest of the time. They stayed in police barracks and a youth center. The police barracks were pretty funny actually, these 2 goofy dogs followed the cadets everywhere and their families hung out on the balconies and watched them train. It was so not inspiring of fear. You could just tell their was nothing dictatorial about the place the people there were always yelling and wild and ebullient. More American then we are actually. There was definitly not the rigid adherence to law and order that was characteristic of a dictatorship. And noone was afraid to tell you what they thought- about anything. Venezuelans are pretty outgoing people. They certianly don't live in fear, that's for sure.

Now I've been to El Salvador and that WAS the third world. Their dogs were starving. I would never wander around alone in a city there. There were guys with sawed off shotguns all over the place an you could hear gunshots all the time. San Salvador was scary as hell. I spent the first night I was there Hiding under a blanket in the apartment I was at jumping out of my skin every time I heard a shot. My advice would be- don't go to Venezuela if you have lots of money cause you might be robbed at night. Other then that you are perfectly safe in the daytime. Don't go to El Salvador at all though unless you have an itinarary and you are travelling in a group. The cities aren't safe for anyone. The air is green. It sucks. I feel really sorry for those people.

Bottom line- Venezuela is OK and Chavez is a good guy who got a bad rep from the Bush administration.