A Letter to President Hugo Chavez

Dear Hugo

I am in Maracaibo, Venezuala, my first time on your continent and thus in your country! My bag isn’t though! That never came out of the carousal and is somewhere between here and Edinburgh or so American Airlines tell me!

Getting here was a three plane journey consisting of lots of walking, sky waitresses (old and new), security checks and an eye-opener at La Chinita International Airport as I watched a full Boeing 757 disgorge itself of hyped up Venezuelans and some ‘self-inflated’ oil workers into an airport that was designed for nothing more than a Fokker light aircraft! Sir, you seem to have this idea that one pumped-up immigration official with a hole in his desk where the stamp has worn through and the snail like x-ray of luggage as the passengers leave the airport is the correct thing to do! I spent two and a half hours trying to get out of the airport – by the way, I jumped the queue as my bag had gone walkabout and I was completely fed up!

I checked into the Hotel Cumberland courtesy of the local shipping agent. I had previously sent him an email that held the words “please book me a good hotel” and so as I sit here, too afraid to leave my room in-case my remaining luggage goes AWOL, I am wandering what a bad hotel in Venezuela is like!



I considered the rooms safe for a fleeting moment, an option to place my valuables in whilst I ran out to get some essentials like a toothbrush but unfortunately the safe came minus a lock!

The view is nice from my room on this day, 19th February 2008. I have switched the air conditioning off as it heats rather than cools and I have opened up the window after forcing it open with my room key ring – sorry, but this now lies in two pieces!



I have also prised apart the pages of a Spanish language magazine for something to do, reread the strange notice that informs me that if I plug in any electrical equipment I do so at my own risk and I have fixed the bed leg to the right angle so that should I fall asleep I will no longer feel like I dozed off whilst skiing!

I had a brain wave this morning! These things come to me every so often, especially when hungry and desperate to leave the confines of a hotel room! I called the agent up and told him that I had checked out of the hotel and that he should now find me another one that would provide me with a certain modicum of security and perhaps a towel without cigarette burns in it.



To give the agent his due he turned up three hours later and proceeded to find me a hotel, in the process giving me the bonus of a whole afternoon’s tour of Maracaibo. From the North to the South, from the port to the Financial District we drove and at every “good” hotel we stopped at the receptionists shook their heads and said “no room available”! Every, four star and five star hotel in Maracaibo was today full of Oil Workers, football fans (Argentina was playing away against Venezuela) and gamblers and so after much soul searching and non-committal silence, where I kept my arms folded, I suggested that we return to the sanctuary of the Hotel Cumberland! A port in a storm!

Sadly they were also fully booked out by the time we returned! And so despondently I climbed back into his battered vehicle and we drove on! I mentioned many times to my semi-helpful agent that we could possibly use his telephone to book a hotel but he seemed to be taking this mission personally and so with the foot on the gas and the brake left out of the equation we persevered!

The Venezuelans have a certain death defying attitude toward driving a car. At every crossroads previously bumped and damaged cars all head toward the middle of the road in a sort of Russian roulette for cars type battle! Typically two cars scrape through leaving those stuck or bumped cursing and swearing. My agent drove in this style, sometimes he won and with aplomb simply ignored the cursing and swearing of the other drivers behind and other times he lost and his arms waved wildly and the curses flowed!

We found a hotel eventually, the aptly named Hotel Maracaibo has become my new residence for the night and to be very honest it is frightening!

The Hotel Maracaibo is a self-issued Venezuelan three-star, a possible Fiji two-star and a British one-star hotel! I was after my long-tour of the hotels of Maracaibo starving but the restaurant was shut this day and as I once again did not feel like leaving my valuables alone in the room I opted to persuade the exhausted looking receptionist to get me something to eat, through waving loads of Bolivares, the local currency around!

In true lackadaisical fashion a 48,000 Bolivar (25 US dollars) pizza rolled up two hours later! It’s a good pizza, I’ll give them that but then at that price it should be! I’ve eaten most of it and I’ve tried to watch some telly but my window doesn’t close!



Outside I have a farm of pigeons cooing up an orchestra on my windowsill (I’m sure I can hear them shitting as well) and a four lane motorway to prevent any noise from the television reaching the bed two feet away!

As I lie here on my bed for the night (I don’t even have the luxury of a chair in this room despite the fact that it says “suite” on the door) I can’t help but laugh at myself and at the situation in which I find myself in! I feel like calling up an expression like “the grass isn’t greener on the other side” or “what goes around comes around” but then I might just stick with “if you don’t try you don’t get”!

Gee, that cockroach looks big!