I'm Ben

Tucacas is a vacation destination for Venezuelans on the northern coast of the country a stones throw from Aruba and Curacao. We had a reservation on a catamaran the next day so we packed up the Fiat with as much as it could fit and headed out. I spent the morning trying to minimize bags while my travel partners spent the morning adding more. I didn’t understand why we were bringing so much food and supplies as we were going to a town that by the looks of the maps had plenty of restaraunts and a grocery store but they were packing as if we were leaving for the wilderness.

We drove past the standard national guardsmen on the onramp to the highway. Nobody knows exactly what the purpose is of these guys. Apparently sometimes they’ll stop you and ask for your ID number. I’m not sure what they could be doing with that information, they don’t have computers to look anything up. They don’t have anywhere to write it down and they surely aren’t memorizing them. Even if they did write it down do they just have giant stacks of papers with lists of random ID numbers that got on the highway at some random time? It must be the illusion of security or something. Even when you go to the grocery store or pay a toll they ask for it when you use your credit card. If I use my American credit card and they ask for an ID we just make something up and it works.

On the exit side of the ramp there was a group of 10 or so people in white dress shirts holding up a sign as cars drove by them. I couldn’t read it but I saw something about Facebook Marketplace on the bottom. I have no idea why they would need so many people to stand there, which follows the trend I notice of people getting paid to stand around looking busy.

We got started on the way to Caracas late, as is tradition. We inteded to go as a convoy but our partners had newer faster cars than we did and didn’t wait for us in the slow lane. The highway to Caracas travels through the mountains. They’re not imposing like the Rockies and are generally filled with thicker vegetation, which got thicker the closer we got to Caracas. When riding as a passenger it was easy to forget to look at the beautiful view and look at the crumbling median, rusty light poles and run down roadside food stands. We passed another polar brewing fcaility, up and running of course. The demand for local goods exists, but that seems to be the largest and most successful example. The general exodus of people has not only weakened overall deamnd for goods but the supply of labor as well. Many of the abandoned factories I’ve seen were American companies, Kellogg’s and Ford we’re 2 noteworthy ones. Statues of Toucan Sam sat alone behind chain link fences. I wonder if someone local were to operate factories and not worry about exporting profits back to the US if they’d be successful.

The drive to Caracas takes about an hour and a half to go about 100km. Our destination was a cable car that takes you to a luxury hotel and tourist area up in the mountains north of the city. The surprise bumps and potholes in the 2 lane divided highway definitely provided a test for our wheels and judging by the proliferation of Caucheras, tire shops, many others fail the test. We saw plenty of vehicles broken down on the side of the road and we came equipped with one of the family’s spare tires. What was remarkable was that every car I saw stopped had someone else stopped to help with whatever was the cause of their issue. I saw a vintage Chevrolet Celebrity stopped helping on family. What was even more surprising was how many small, 100cc-ish, motorcycles making their way hugging the shoulders.

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