Chevere Caracas!

"Quien sabe que pensaran de lo que vieron, de esta ciudad salvaje, sucia, de colores brillantes y clima amable. De sus chicas pulcras hasta la frivolidad. De su pueblo, consumista y esnob, como pocos. De seguro se fueron un poco desencantados de que este pueblo anfitrion del foro, se sienta tan indiferente ante esas abstracciones ajenas a la fiesta, a ganarse el pan, a la furiosa epica de llegar a casa vivo, cada noche, en esta ciudad alucinante.." - Hector Torres, Caracas Muerde

Caracas. Statistically speaking, the most dangerous city in the world to live in. With at least 50 bodies per week piling up at the city's Bello Monte morgue, it's easy to see why. And yet, the only danger I encountered during my 1 month stay in this wild city was that of falling in love with it so much that I wouldn't be able to part with it when my time came to go. True, there is an undeclared 6 o'clock curfew for those still wishing to live another day intact in this unpredictable city of midday robberies and drunken nights. True, there are barrios that even Caraqueños are afraid of entering and furiously warn stubborn foreigners to not push their luck in trying to do so. True, the average Caraqueñan intake of alcohol on a daily basis provides a deadly mixture with the general ownership of guns scattered in this city. But it is also true that beneath its morbid exterior, there lies a character of people that make you forget just how dangerous this city is.

Violence is Caracas' biggest vice really. The bang of gunshots have become a regular, albeit quite morbid, addition to the background music here in Caracas. Along with the whistle of the biting wind blowing from dawn to dusk, and the chorus of reggaeton blasting out from the windows of neighboring apartments or houses, the occasional bang of gunshots provide that steady thump in the melody, like the slow yet sure pulse of a drumbeat. The pulse of Caracas. This phenomenon was somewhat shocking to me at first, since these bangs really did occur with worrying regularity. With the amount of bangs that I heard, there should've been at least 10 deaths per day - and these were just the ones I heard, mind you. But to my relief, it turns out that the bangs that occurred weren't always caused by the firing of some armed weapon on the streets, but also came from fireworks traditionally set off every time a new couple was bonded in holy matrimony. Yes, in Caracas, both life and death start with a bang.

But, unlike my own country, at least the violence here is not fueled by anger, rather by necessity. The crimes committed on a daily basis are mostly robberies, which have become a near-legitimate way of 'ganarse el pan' in this city that's continuously being molded into the model of socialistic utopia, but at the cost of adequate jobs for its people. A pretty bloody slice of bread indeed, but as long as it's still edible I guess for them it's good enough. So long as you're holding the trigger that is, instead of staring at the barrel.

Take away these violent tendencies caused by economic need, and you're left with regular people brimming with ambition, curiosity, hopes, desires, sefish whims, but most of all, friendliness. Expat confessions have always said that my country's citizens are the ones that most deserve this title, and yet, when compared to Caraqueños, or just latinos in general, I can't even begin to describe how much they are worthy of this title as well, perhaps more so than us Indonesians. Unless you're living on some isolated patch of the Avila mountains, there isn't a day here in Caracas that you won't say 'Buenos dias!' or 'Buenas tardes' or 'Hasta luego'. These simple two word greetings are practically ingrained into the minds of not only Caraqueños, but also Venezuelans in general. Even people who are complete strangers can expect to be greeted this way. And even me, with my veiled face obviously marking me out not only as a stranger but also a complete foreigner in this country, was greeted with the same amount of warmth and amiability that any other Caraqueño would receive, although keeping up with the conversations and curious questions about my veil that followed these greetings weren't always easy to reply to, solely due to my lack of Spanish of course.

It's quite the paradox really, considering that in a city where even hospitals get robbed for what little medications they have in stock, people should be as introverted as possible, protecting every vulnerable vestibule from potentially dangerous strangers. And yet, what most Caraqueños do is the complete opposite: they greet everyone they meet. I'm not sure if this is some kind of survival strategy that they've adopted, but in a city where danger can literally come at you from the next corner, I guess it's better to turn the next stranger you meet into a friend rather than a potentially dangerous foe. And this, I think is probably the reason why I love Caracas and Venezuela so much, for even its vices can be turned into virtues by its people that face danger with a smile.

Joyous.

Daring.

Colorful.

Caracas.

This was the little piece of Venezuela that I had the privilege to know and fall in love with. Can't wait to explore more of you next year :)