Life in a Dangerous City (Destination: Caracas, Venezuela)

After a week in Caracas, everything is going well but we are always wary.

Our local co-workers are always giving us advice…it is OK to walk from our hotel thru the basement mall and across the street to the office, but we should not walk one block north or one block west of the office because that’s dangerous!

View from the office
Pro Chavez rally

We’ve eaten out several times and visited the huge Sambil mall in Caracas – the largest mall in South America.  The food is surprisingly good…especially the Arepas.   A big surprise is the cheese – cheese has not be prevalent in other South American countries but it is here and it’s great.  Also great is the “parcita” passion fruit mousse.

On our weekend between our 2 work weeks, one of our co-workers picked us up to do some touring.  We hiked up Avila Mountain

View from Avila Mountain

and then went to El Hatillo, a small touristy village outside of Caracas.

On Sunday night, we were supposed to go to dinner with another co-worker and as we were sitting in the hotel, the walls started shaking… it was an EARTHQUAKE.

We just hung out in the hotel the remainder of the afternoon because the streets seemed really quiet but dinner time came around and we wanted to eat.  First, we tried the seafood restaurant across the street but it was closed.  Then we went to the mall.  The doors were unlocked so we entered but it was a scene out of a disaster movie.  Not a soul in sight and a melted ice cream cone in the middle of the floor.  Luckily, the restaurant on the top floor was open but we were the only diners – it was a strange night.

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