Journey to the Lost World

by David Gourley

Venezuela has not of late had a particularly good press, due to political upheaval. However it is, apart from Costa Rica and (more questionably) Mexico, the longest established democracy in Latin America. Before 1958 the country was ruled by a brutal dictatorship but since then it has been the ballot box that has prevailed. Democracy remains, though, a rather fragile plant. Since the oil boom of the seventies, when the country earned itself the sobriquet Saudi Venezuela, the economy has gone downhill and resultant discontent led to an attempted coup a couple of years or so before our trip. It might be thought that there would be dire consequences for the coup leader, Hugo Chavez. Not so. He was gaoled, true, but not only was he released after a fairly short period, he was allowed to run for president – and to be elected. Now, having himself seen off a coup attempt, it is Hugo Chavez who presents himself as the defender of Venezuelan democracy. This year’s unrest on the streets was the result of the concerted attempt by his opponents, who consider him to be too left-wing, to get rid of him. However he has survived a recall vote and one must hope that both sides will now go forward peacefully to the next presidential election.

Britain does not have many direct flights to Latin America. All too often a change in Miami is necessary, something of an ordeal post-9/11, as we ourselves found when flying recently to Costa Rica. Fortunately BA do run a direct flight to Caracas, which continues to Bogotá. Our first sighting of South America was impressive, for Caracas enjoys a spectacular location, a couple of dozen miles or so inland, between mountain ranges.

We were rather less impressed with our arrival: our driver had not turned up to meet us. We do not speak Spanish and in Venezuela, as in Latin America generally, English is not widely understood. We were nevertheless able to ascertain that he was on his way. He then insisted on taking us a slow route through the city centre albeit our hotel, the Avila, was to its north and could be reached via a fast motor road. It’s as if a visitor to London had to be shown the delights of Hounslow, Brentford and Hammersmith rather than be whisked along the M4. Moreover these were the western suburbs and in Caracas the classic east-west division is reversed. In most cities, the areas to the west, upwind of any industry, are generally more prosperous - London, with its East End and West End, is a prime example. But in Caracas the wealthy elite congregate in the eastern suburbs and the west is rather poor.

Like many other South American cities, Caracas has its shanty towns, known here as barrios, though we were assured the next day by our charming guide Januth that they were better than, say, the favelas in Brazil as they are made of brick. In any case, she added, their inhabitants come from poorer countries such as Ecuador or Peru, people who’d ideally like to go to the States but settle for comparatively wealthy Venezuela. 

Our hotel, built by Nelson Rockefeller, is something of an oasis in what the locals themselves call “crazy Caracas”. There was a fine view from the hotel gardens towards the downtown and its skyscrapers. Also visible in the distance was a hillside barrio, its twinkling lights, powered by electricity illegally tapped from the grid, almost picturesque seen from afar at night. A city tour was included the next day. We headed out via the rather inaptly named El Silencio district. It cannot be said that this is likely to figure on anyone’s list of the world’s most beautiful cities. The location is beautiful, and the French or Italians might have seen to it that the city was beautiful too, but much of old Caracas was torn down during the oil boom and little of architectural distinction was put up.

There is however a small historic centre. As in towns throughout Venezuela, there is a Bolivar Square. Simon Bolivar liberated not just Venezuela, his own country, but five others in South America, one of which bears his name. Sadly he died in poverty and obscurity, fearing, all too prophetically, that South America would prove, in the coming years, to be virtually ungovernable. Today he is revered in his native land and Hugo Chavez has rechristened the country the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. We visited the nearby Capitolio, or Congress Building. Here the fine paintings include one of the British soldiers, the Legion Britannica, who joined Bolivar’s revolutionary army. 

We finished our tour in the affluent eastern suburbs. Rather than go back to our hotel in our bus, we elected to make our own way back using the metro. This was newly opened and is Caraquenos’ pride and joy. There was extensive preparation, indeed education, of the locals for this new mode of transport, with the result that it is spick and span, as well as efficient. “But,” lamented Januth, “You go back outside and it’s still the same old Caracas.” It is virtually the only railway in the country. Just one overground railway line remains, running from Puerto Caballo on the coast inland to the city of Barquisimeto. It’s as if the only line in Britain was the one from Hull to Sheffield. Venezuela did once have a proper railway system but the oil companies lobbied for it to be closed down. We broke our journey to wander along one of the main shopping thoroughfares, the pedestrianised Sabana Grande. Crime is a problem in Caracas but by day it is reasonably safe.

 The next day saw us fly to the remote southeast of the country. We were staying for one night in Canaima National Park, an utter contrast to “crazy Caracas”. En route our plane had a stopover in Ciudad Bolivar and there were fine views over the mighty Orinoco as we descended. Our lodge enjoyed a spectacular location; we looked across the lake at a magnificent waterfall and at one of the tepuis, or flat-topped mountains, that are a feature of this area. They inspired Conan Doyle’s Lost World. He imagined there were dinosaurs roaming on top of them. However, we didn’t see any. 

The Canaima Lodge was simple but offered decent accommodation, in our own straw-thatched hut, and meals. A contrast with the lodge by the Peruvian Amazon where we were to stay a couple of years later, where food and accommodation were poor. One does not go into such a location expecting luxury accommodation and gourmet meals and it might seem churlish to complain. But we felt that if the Canaima Lodge could meet acceptable standards, others in remote locations ought to be able to do so as well. My only problem here was when I went to pay for our drinks with my credit card. “We only accept international cards,” said the barman, eyeing my National Westminster Gold Card. Fortunately a colleague put him right.

Our excursions here included a trip across the lake and then a jungle walk and, the next morning, a flight to Angel Falls, the world’s highest. The scenery en route had a surreal quality to it. We were lucky when we got to the Falls as they were clearly visible; sometimes they are obscured by cloud. They are not spectacular like Niagara or Victoria Falls. Their interest, and their beauty, derives from their amazing height. The name sounds romantic but isn’t very. It was an American airman, Jimmy Angel, who discovered these falls. His plane crashed in the area, but he lived to tell the tale. The plane was in due course retrieved and is on public view in Ciudad Bolivar.

We then flew the length of the country to Merida, in the Venezuelan Andes, changing planes in Caracas. To get around in Venezuela one generally depends on internal flights and these can be tedious, not so much the flights themselves but the waiting around. We got to know Caracas Airport all too well. Merida is an attractive city, a centre of academic learning, but there was little to see as we arrived in driving rain. For some reason there is a statue of Charlie Chaplin, which was pointed out to us.

 Merida provided the biggest disappointment of this holiday. According to our tour company’s brochure we were here going to ascend the world’s longest and highest cable car line. There were other reasons, of course, for wanting to visit Venezuela but there are other places too that one wants to visit and the promise of this cable car ride helped clinch our choice of this particular holiday. We had in fact already learnt, through chatting to someone in Canaima, that the cable car line was closed. This was not because of some unforeseeable act of God; it had been closed for three years or so, due to an accident. Thus the brochure had been misleading, the result, no doubt, of sloppiness rather than downright lying. We took the matter up with the tour company, Hayes and Jarvis, on our return. They reacted with the kind of defensiveness one all too often finds from travel companies and the compensation was meagre. 

We were glad nevertheless that we did choose Venezuela. And the cable car has since re-opened - one of the reasons I’d like, one day, to go back there. The next day was still a very full one as we drove through the Andes to the high mountain pass at El Aguila. It was still raining in the morning, but not heavily, and our enjoyment of the magnificent scenery was not impaired. A distinguishing feature was the ubiquitous frailejon, a plant with spiky leaves and yellow blossoms which is native to this area. In the afternoon we spent some time in the museum village of Los Aleros, located up a steep roadway which we ascended in a special bus. This preserves the Andean lifestyle of the 1930s. The rain left off just as we got there and by the time we departed it was bright and sunny. Exploring this village was good fun. We were presented with special passports which were stamped each time we went into a building. A good souvenir.

We had a second night in Merida and there was the chance, at last, to explore the city in good weather. At one point we went into a travel shop, run by a Swedish chap. He had lived elsewhere in South America and considered Venezuela to be relatively Americanized. He was probably right. In an otherwise football-crazy continent, the national game here is baseball! If we wanted to see a more traditional way of life, he said, Peru was the place to go. We were to see that for ourselves a couple of years later.

Our final two nights in Venezuela were spent in the second city, Maracaibo. Another flight – and another delay. But at least there was no need to change plane, though we did have a stopover in San Antonio, which is right on the border with Colombia. As we drove into the city, we saw a tall building, in an area unenticingly described as being near the “industrial zone”. I enquired what it was and was surprised to be told it was our hotel, the Maruma, as it was a good distance from the downtown. This was supposed to be a five-star establishment and, for all I know, is today a fine hotel. But it had been barely finished, indeed parts of it had not been finished. Their cuisine rather reflected this unfinished state of affairs; they seemed not to appreciate that, if one orders a hot meal, one likes it to be, well, hot.

We then had a fascinating excursion to the nearby oil field which took us across Lake Maracaibo via one of the world’s longest bridges. Maracaibo is the centre the Venezuelan oil industry, and the city and its surrounding province of Zulia are relatively prosperous. There is some resentment of the capital. Maracuchos complain that Caracas’s metro was built with Maracaibo’s money! In a shop the next day the avuncular old gentlemen who owned it exhorted members of our party, as he wrapped our souvenirs, to “remember, Maracaibo is Venezuela”. I don’t think he thought we needed reminding what country we were in, the message of course being that Maracaibo is the real Venezuela. Somehow I can’t imagine a shopkeeper in our second city telling customers to “remember, Birmingham is England”.

We alighted the other side of the lake to view the awesome sight of numerous oil derricks and nodding donkeys, the nearer ones being no longer active. Night fell as we re-crossed the bridge and the lights of the big city made for a striking sight. So far so good but the evening was a bit of a fiasco. Our local guide, Klaus, had recommended a downtown restaurant. A taxi was ordered and the driver didn’t baulk when we gave him the name of the restaurant. It then transpired he didn’t know where it was. By way of stopping passers-by in the centre of the city, he finally found it, only for us to discover it was closed, due to its being a bank holiday. We were thrown back onto our hotel’s less than sumptuous cuisine. We consoled ourselves that we’d had an unscheduled “Maracaibo by night” tour!

 In spite of this we greatly enjoyed our stay in Maracaibo. Klaus was very apologetic the next day and undertook to accompany us himself to the restaurant that evening. Being tall and fair he was not at all a typical Venezuelan. His family were of German origin and he was the subject of much teasing, generally good natured, about being a “gringo”. I think he rather liked meeting someone like myself who’s of similar height and pallor. He started a conversation with the two German ladies in our party about the Nazis and war guilt, which he seemed to carry as a personal burden, albeit he was young and his own country, Venezuela, had been on our side in WW2. They were a charming pair of middle-aged sisters, one of whom had lived in England for many years, and I think this was just about the last thing they wanted to talk about.

The next day started with a city tour. As in Caracas, much of the historic downtown was torn down in the seventies and it cannot be said that this is a city of outstanding beauty. There isn’t even the scenic mountain backdrop which Caracas enjoys; this is a hot and humid coastal city. It was interesting nevertheless and we were pleasantly surprised to turn into what looked like a nondescript side road to find a pedestrianized street of beautiful colonial-style single-storey houses, each painted a different pastel colour with contrasting window frames.

We then headed westwards towards the Colombian border. Maracaibo sees itself as a frontier city and we were advised to take our passports, the actual ones, not photocopies. We were not actually going to cross into that troubled country, but apparently the local police are liable to stop anyone they think might be young and Colombian. Precious little chance of me being taken for either, I would have thought!

We transferred to a motorboat which took us for a thrilling ride through the jungle along the Limon (Lemon) River to Sinamaica. Here are the palafitos, or dwellings on stilts. They reminded early explorers of Venice hence the name of the country: Venezuela means “Little Venice”.

In the evening we finally made it to our restaurant, accompanied not just by Klaus but his lovely girlfriend, Claudia, who was of Italian origin. South America is a meat eater’s paradise - the vegetarian might do better to choose another continent - and Venezuela is no exception. We enjoyed a superb steak meal in convivial surroundings.

 First published in VISA issue 60 (April 2005)