To understand how degraded Venezuela is, travel by plane....

Registration under Chavez

I left for a short holiday to Margarita and truly, it is an awesome experience. Not for the adventure, good food, beautiful scenery, but for the lousy service, the degraded infrastructure, the lack of basic items such as milk....  So there, a little summary.

It all started with the difficulty in finding a plane ticket. In Venezuela now, if you want to have a choice of travel dates, you need to buy a month ahead, even in low season, which is my case. By trying to get my ticket with barely three weeks notice, I could not find the adequate dates and I lost one day of my "package" while having to pay the full price anyway.  Not to mention the aggravation of useless web pages of Venezuelan airline companies which forced me in the end to go to an agency....

Proof that Chavez was a reactionary

But I got my ticket and on the set day I went to Valencia to take my flight.  To decorate this entry I have a collection of the airport political propaganda that I had to endure while at the airport: I had to be there two hours earlier to make sure I would not be bumped for a "waiting list" and my flight was 1 hour and a half late without any explanation. Click the pictures to enlarge for details.


The wait was made heavy because there is no relief from propaganda.  Everywhere, from the registration desk to the bathroom entry there is some large expensive poster with Chavez, Chavez thoughts, Chavez battalion uniform, and one, for Maduro and his 12 step program....

gate entertainment

Waiting at the gate

I was asked to go through security at the accorded time. So the wait was at the gate area, boring, drab, announcing a WiFi that did not work, with a TV screen stuck on VTV, the state propaganda network. The program went back and forth between the only worthy news of the day for the regime, which was an electoral rehearsal for next December, and old speeches of Chavez that are broadcast all the time..... Fortunately the sound was set so low that the AC noise was enough to cover the TV noise.

Eventually, my flight arrived. The last passenger had barely descended the plane that we started boarding. Meaning? There was no time to clean the plane or its toilets. So I tried not to look where I sat and certainly did not even consider going to the john...

Maduro's 12 step....

When you arrive in Margarita you check as if you were arriving to some international airport immigration: you need to have your finger print taken and show your national ID. Supposedly it is to check for eventual delinquents and protect tourists and avoid drug trafficking. But delinquents can rent a boat on mainland and in barely one hour can land discretely in Margarita...  Never mind that in Caracas airport it is not that difficult to hide 1.3 tons of cocaine in regular scheduled international flights. Thus having my finger print taken was not reassuring whatsoever, just another waste of time (you have to stand in line), just another aggravation.

Anyway, I got into my taxi on my way to the hotel. I confirmed my observations from my last visits: taxis are getting jalopier by the day. The lack of spare parts is taking its toll and in one of the several taxis I took I was wondering how long it would take for the motor to explode....

Chavez waits for you on the
way to the rest rooms

The usual hotel I stay in keeps degrading. Now they do not even bother taking your credit card voucher for expenses if you do not take the package. Either you take the full package or you pay as you go.  Too many people bailing out of their bills.  With the end of luxury tourism in Margarita  now we get cheap mass tourism service whether we have the means to indulge on occasional fake luxury. Let's not forget that luxury tourism is the tax source to pay for services for all type of concurring tourism activities: you are not going to pay for beautifying Margarita with the tax income from youth hostels. Luxury, and even not so luxury tourism is gone from Margarita because of insecurity, lack of amenities, degradation of the free trade zone, extinction of casinos, dirt, ill service, etc...  People have much better places to go than Margarita where to spend their hard earned tourism dollars.

Chavez battalion hymn,
gate entrance....

Next day I hit the beach. The upkeep is lousy.  Until last year there was some effort to pick up the garbage that comes drifting, or left shamelessly by visitors. Whether they are still doing it, they have got less efficient at it.

I think I'll stop before I get bitter and I ruin my last hours...  But there are reasons as to why tourism is degrading so much, besides being forced to contemplate for hours propaganda in waiting rooms. For example let me tell you why air travel is so bad now.

For years the regime has refused to give enough dollars to the airline companies to buy planes and spare parts. At the same time it blocks ticket prices and does not provide adequately for airport services.  With time airlines have to cut down on service, jam their airplanes with fixed prices fares so that at least they manage to stay even, at best. I fear to think about the security of these planes....

And Izarra, the tourism minister, former propaganda minister, claims that if there are not many tourists coming to Venezuela, it is due to people like me writing ill of Venezuelan conditions. Yeah, right.....

PS: reading the paper I find out that Giusti had a much harder a time at Caracas airport to go to Margarita than I had travelling from Valencia....

Vagabunderias y permanente subdesarrollo chavista en Venezuela

Este fin de semana vimos dos cosas que deberían dejar pensativo a muchos en Venezuela. De un lado nos decretan un tal Instituto de Altos Estudios del Pensamiento de Hugo Chávez y por el otro leemos que analistas piensan que Mexico es el mejor candidato para ser un líder en tecnología, un Silicon Valley Latinoamericano. Empecemos por el segundo que es mas prometedor de futuro.

Para crear un valle de la silicona (y no de la usada por la estética que para eso Venezuela si está posicionada) se necesita talante humano, una masa critica de creadores, estabilidad y garantías jurídicas y preferiblemente cercanía al principal inversionista en la materia, sea Europa o EE.UU. México gana según el artículo. ¿Porque pierden los otros?

Chile, a pesar de su desarrollo, pierde por su poca población y su distancia. Perú y Colombia porque arrancaron la carrera tecnológica tarde. Argentina, que se supone hubiese sido un excelente candidato, tiene una economía y sociedad en franco deterioro mientras que los otros están en franca expansión. Los otros países son demasiado pequeños, obviamente. ¿Pero porque pierde Brasil frente a México? Porque México tiene un ambiente mas favorable a la creación intelectual, porque es mas fácil crear empresas que en Brasil, porque hay protección contra piratería. Y agregaría yo porque Brasil todavía se satisface mucho con ser exportador de materias primas semi transformadas mientras México entendió que ya no le es posible.

¿Y Venezuela? El articulo no la menciona a pesar de tener población superior a Chile, a pesar de tener recursos mas accesibles que Perú, a pesar de no tener (todavía) guerrilla mortal como en Colombia. Este artículo sencillamente nos recuerda otra vez mas que Venezuela se ha vuelto irrelevante en la economía mundial, a pesar de sus ventajas petroleras y de su cercanía a los mercados desarrollados.

Lo mas triste en este asunto es que Venezuela no tiene perspectivas de mejoría, ni siquiera en el largo plazo. Mas que nunca somos una economía basada en la exportación de una única materia prima. Estamos hoy en un sistema que cierra el paso a la innovación y la tecnología porque la corrupción y la ignorancia nos carcomen. Nuestra base educativa crea graduados de un sistema de gobierno cuyos títulos no valen nada mientras que los centros donde todavía si se puede estudiar careras productivas están asfixiados porque no se quieren rendir ante una ideología ya descompuesta.

Ante este desolador panorama para nuestro país, ayer nos dieron otro golpe. El Instituto decretado por Maduro va a estudiar el pensamiento de un tipo cuya violencia dividió a nuestro país, que creó una corrupción material inaudita para sustentar una corrupción peor, la política y moral.  El tipo ha pasado sus 14 años de poder en cortar la cabeza a cualquier innovador que despunte, que le cree la mas mínima sombra. Hugo Chávez a pasado su vida entera en retrotraer Venezuela al caudillismo del siglo XIX, y por si fuera poco, la convirtió al final en colonia del país más atrasado de América Latina: Cuba. Ahora se pretende que la cháchara que Chávez eructó durante 14 años se destile en un "pensamiento" preciso que, imaginamos, servirá de excusa para mantenernos en la esclavitud de la ignorancia.

¿Cual esperanza?