Venezuela (1/14/09)

In the final scene of the latest Coen Brothers’ movie, “Burn After Reading,” two top CIA officials are discussing how the George Clooney character was caught trying to escape his imagined and real enemies by boarding a plane to Venezuela, a country with which the United States has little diplomatic influence and no extradition agreement. Wanting nothing more than to keep secret the entire mess that had transpired during the course of the film, the CIA boss shrugged and said, “put him on the next plane to Venezuela.”

A worker stands in a field of cauliflower. The farmland in Venezuela's Andes Mountains are as lush and fertile as anywhere in the world.

I’ve just returned from two weeks in that South American country, where I was only able to scratch the surface, both photographically and in the sense of learning about a new place. Two things stick with me that I can say with certainty. First, it’s a beautiful country, with a virbrant, hard-working population. And secondly, Hugo Chavez seems to be very unpopular among the people, the general feeling being that he is running the economy  into the ground with misguided notions of a Socialistic utopia, ala Cuba. Gasoline is cheaper than water, but in the state of Tachira, near the Columbian border, there are long lines at the gas stations. Chavez has reportedly entered into some sort of devil’s pact with the worst elements of Columbian society, taking weapons from the police in San Cristobal (the largest city in Tachira) and giving them to thugs from the neighboring country,  while businesspeople in San Cristobal are hounded for protection money by the Columbian mafia. Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, the Venezuelan capital of Caracas was recently named by CNN as the murder capital of the entire world, which will not do much to help tourism efforts.

Still, every country has problems, and Venezuelans get on with their lives with humor, tradition and dignity. My wife and I were fortunate enough to spend our first honeymoon traveling through the state of Merida, where we traversed rural roads high into the Andes, meeting the friendliest of people and seeing the kind of sights that stick with you for the rest of your life. To see the entire portfolio of images from Venezuela, go to:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kioko/collections/72157612337079538/

 

Andina girl, in front of a village church, somewhere high in the Andes, in the state of Merida.