Venezuela is bizarre, and so was my taxi driver

I got a lot done here today. Well getting a lot done is relative. About a quarter of the stores that I survey closed down at one of the malls I go to, and one of the grocery stores has aisles and aisles that are nearly empty of goods. No salt, sugar, very little butter, etc. etc. These are set up/run by the Venezuelan government. Funny, I wonder if you can make a comparison of the people in (government) office to the empty shopping mall. Many of the main components that make systems work well are just missing. Much to Chavez’s dismay, if you were to ask me, Venezuela reminds me a bit of some of the large cities in Africa. Everything about the quality of it is very poor, the goods, services, government, safety. Venezuela smells dirty and unpleasant in most places, it was much more dirt-smoggy in Caracas though. My survey was very difficult because I wanted to get as many prices for quality goods as possible, but really; they just don’t exist here. Products in the mall here are crap. All crap. Further, the grocery stores are a joke. There are just aisles and aisles of absolutely nothing. It’s creepy. Though, Puerto la Cruz is actually kinda a cute little city. It appears to be built around verandas and canals of water where some really nice boats fly in and out of. Alot of the apartments appear to be very good quality, very beautiful too. I’m hoping I’ll have an opportunity to check out some of the little islands floating around on Tuesday, I should be able to get my work done tomorrow.

On the way home tonight I tried hard to resist bailing out to a great version of Hotel California, and before that Angel by the Rolling Stones. Great music! I said to my young taxi driver as I got out of the car. Man, it’s tough around here, you can’t tell who is and who is not a legitimate taxi. This guy’s car was in the taxi section but there was no sign his car was a taxi anywhere. I was a little nervous at first, but once I recognized the way to the hotel I was feeling better. The taxi I was using on a regular basis was a total nutcase. My co-worker Edit had used him in the past, and he was just bizarre. Stut, stut stutterrrrrrrrrrred all the time, but he was good to me, he always made sure I was safe and was well taken care of. I don’t think I ever saw him smile, but he was totally dedicated to his work and definitely gave me great service anyways! Every place I went he waited outside and when he would see me would whistle and give me a hand motion to go towards the car. Every now and again I get a strange text from him saying something like “I had a dream that I was in Boston and you were showing me around”.