Lately I’ve noted that many people look at me as if I were a “malandra.” In Venezuela, malandros are said to be those who we in Cuba in generally call criminals: any type of mugger, pickpocket or petty thug – in short, a low class person. (9 photos)
It wasn’t in my plans to stop at this place; the noontime heat here is as intense as in Cuba. Indeed, Maracaibo, Venezuela is as hot as Santiago de Cuba. However, the car I was in thought that it was time to stop and cool its engine. (14 photos)
One of the common forms of violence in Venezuelan cities is kidnapping. Interested in greater economic rewards, thieves are no longer content with snatching gold chains from the necks of naïve wanderers; nor are they so interested in demanding at gunpoint what a driver or a pedestrian has in their pocket. Kidnapping pays bigger dividends.
While the planet is being turned upside down by the Soccer World Cup in South Africa, in another southern region —that of the Americas— another world championship is taking place. This competition is in the discipline that was eliminated as a sport for the 2012 London Olympics and 2016 Rio de Janeiro games: softball. (34 photos)
With my camera in hand, I approached the group of women and men on the dock. In all my life I’ve only seen one stingray or devil ray, however you might call it, nor had I ever seen such as massive quantity of marine life of any species. (15 photos)
A little blond in shorts, a T-shirt and hiking spoke to me from the television screen the other day. She was on the National Geographic channel, which is supposed to be a little more serious than the rest of those that I occasionally have time to see on cable here in Caracas. I’ve read reports in the National Geographic Magazine that have seemed interesting. However this little blond was inviting us to go on a tour in Oklahoma.
It was one of those days I longed to walk down the foul smelling and semi-destroyed back streets of Old Havana. Someone suggested that we go see a Venezuelan friend of theirs. My response was “why not.”
Cubans usually try it with reluctance, but with voraciousness I’m continuing to appreciate Venezuelan cuisine, from the city and the country. This is because after going up and down the hills there’s nothing like a plate of kinchoncho (lazy bone bean stew), accompanied by two or three arepas. (11 photos)
It occurs in the metro or in minivans, the most widely used forms of public transportation in Caracas. Your standing up in the aisle or sitting and suddenly you hear a voice behind you saying, “Before anything else, good afternoon.” (12 photos)
A Venezuelan friend, who unfortunately lives far from Caracas, sent me a cell phone that she didn’t use; she told me it was so I don’t keep walking around like a soldier without a rifle. (27 photos)