El Ávila Quebrada Quintero

I wrote about Hiking El Ávila National Park before but it's something people do again and again here. It's a great place to be in nature that's really close. The path I wrote about before is very popular for exercise but there's a right turn towards a waterfall area called Quebrada Quintero that's also really popular. Here's some pictures of that direction.

Caracas Museums

We took a tour of some local museums we haven't seen before. We started with a look around the architecture of Teatro Teresa Carreño but we couldn't see inside the theater since they were setting it up for something. We stopped in the natural science museum (Museo de Ciencias Naturales) with a lot of stuffed animals. We spent some good time in the fine arts museum (Museo de Bellas Artes). All of these buildings are in an arts district together near Parque Los Caobos. The day ended with the national art gallery (Galería de Arte Nacional).

Caracas Architecture Tour

We went on a little tour in Caracas to see two completely different eras of architecture. First was the colonial era Quinta de Anauco built in 1797. Second was Villa Planchart or El Cerrito built in the 1950s. Unfortunately we couldn't take pictures inside that one but it's high on a hill with outstanding views so I got pictures of that and the exterior. The house itself was a 1950s artistic cool inside. You can see a few pictures of that at the link above.

Galipán In The Clouds

Galipán is a small town on top of the mountains overlooking Caracas. You can hire a driver to take you up the steep roads in a four-wheel drive vehicle. The driver can be arranged by one of the restaurants. Our driver was arranged by a chocolate shop. Most of the roads are paved but it's easier letting a local take you since they know the little one lane roads around where we needed to go. We ended up going on a beautiful day since the clouds passed around us but also gave us clear views every now and then.

Parque Los Chorros

Parque Los Chorros is a park on the edge of Caracas near the bottom of the Ávila. It's narrow and follows a creek with walkways, bridges, and stairs under big shady trees and tall bamboo. It's a family park with kids playing in the water and a couple of playgrounds. The main feature is a beautiful waterfall. The stairs to the side of it lead up to another pond and a smaller waterfall. It's a fun little park to explore.

It has attended parking available under the elevated Avenida Boyacá. The price was 50 Bs a year ago but it's now 80 Bs. I won't tell you how crazy cheap that is at the current parallel rate because the math is fractions of a penny. There's a little restaurant selling lunch but we didn't eat this last time. It was decent food when we last visited. Overall it's a nice place in the city to relax in nature and is one of of our favorite parks along with Parque del Este (Parque Generalísimo Francisco De Miranda).

Caracas - Year 1 Review

It's been just about a year so it's probably time to take a look back from this halfway point. I knew there wouldn't be as much leisure travel from here like I did from Stockholm. We took short trips to Aruba and Curacao since they're so close and affordable flights were available. We only managed 2 trips inside Venezuela. There was the nearby Colonia Tovar for a night and the nice beaches in Morrocoy for a long weekend.

Our first R&R was back to Stockholm. Cost-construct actually covered the flights so that was a nice affordable vacation. R&R is a good little perk for serving at a hardship post. The usefulness of it increases in places with lower flight availability. A lot of the flights out of here are expensive so going to the U.S. or Europe was equally expensive when we did it.

Here's a very small map of this year's new travels:

Centro de Arte Los Galpones

It's nice to have a normal day where you can go out and enjoy something new instead of dealing with Caracas problems. We kept meaning to go to Centro de Arte Los Galpones, but it was closed when we tried a few months ago on a Monday. These past few months have had a lot of protests keeping us home. We'd forgotten about wanting to go there since it's near a protest area. However, today was a nice normal Sunday before things turn abnormal again tomorrow so we finally made it there. We tend to have simpler goals here.

The art center doesn't have a lot of art but it's a wonderful space to hang out around the little buildings, bookstore, gift shop, coffee stand, and bistro. There's a courtyard with seating under the trees to enjoy a coffee. The bookstore has a nice patio and inside seating for the same. The bistro has good food so it's a place we could come back to in the future. The whole center is surrounded by walls and electric fencing so it feels safe. You might be able to see the electric fence on top of these outside walls.

R&R Cost-Construct

Cost-construct doesn't follow common sense. It follows government negotiated rates for some routes, perhaps some influence from consumer demand, and apparently a bit of good fortune when the cost-construct gods smile on you. I've learned it pays to at least ask.

The R&R point for Caracas, Venezuela is Miami. There's heavy demand for those flights, so prices are generally high. We wanted to cost-construct R&R to Stockholm, Sweden. I asked. The surprising answer was that a flight to Stockholm via Paris on Air France was a little cheaper than going to Miami. Who would think?!? No money out of pocket! Yep, R&R is in Stockholm. :-)

Hiking El Ávila

El Ávila National Park is the distinctive mountain view in the background of most Caracas pictures. Usually we're looking at it from the city or from the hills where we live on the other side of the city from the mountains. It looks nice from down here so why not get a closer look?

The park has many trails and you could hike all the way to the top given enough time and energy. We don't have that kind of energy so we hiked up the very popular Sabas Nievas trail. It's sad to see on the map how little we actually climbed when it felt like so much more! I saw on a map there that we went from about 1,000M to 1,300M.

It was a lot of work but definitely worth it for the views. I guess the exercise is good too. This is a nicer way to exercise and lots of locals use it as a workout. If it isn't enough to climb all that way then there's an outdoor gym where we turned around. Crazy people!

The entrance we used to the park is a tunnel under a road that runs alongside El Ávila. There were vendors selling drinks and snacks to the large crowds that run up and down the trail.

Caracas City Tour

We took a secure guided tour to see the heart of downtown Caracas with government buildings, churches, and museums. We normally can't go to these areas so this was a rare treat to visit some of the local national treasures! Click on the pictures for bigger versions.

Asamblea Nacional (National Assembly)

Parque del Este

Parque del Este is a huge city park here in Caracas. It's about 200 acres with plenty of walking and jogging paths. It's a pleasant getaway inside the city since it's full of vegetation, ponds, a ship replica, and other interesting things to see. There's even some zoo animals on display along with the occasional sloth just hanging out in the wild up in the trees. It seems to be pretty safe. The park is full of families just wanting to relax, exercise, or play some sports. Here's some pictures from this weekend and probably many more to come. Click on them for a bigger view.

Paseo de los Próceres

Paseo de los Próceres (Promenade or Walk of the Heroes) is a monument to the heroes of Venezuelan independence. It's a wonderful place with fountains and walkways to enjoy a beautiful day in Caracas. There's a shopping center with parking near one end and the other end turns into a long military parade ground. It seems safe with all of the military around. It may not be safe at night on the streets of Caracas but there's some great park areas to enjoy in the right areas at the right times of day. Click on the pictures for larger versions.

Strange Things Afoot - Inflation

2 1/2 months at post and "strange things are afoot at the Circle K." (Circle K is a convenience store chain founded in Texas and referenced in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. Be excellent to each other!)

It's already hard to find some items like milk, sugar, toilet paper, deodorant, or other various imports people actually need for a normal life. Regardless of their lack of Circle K stores, I have a feeling strange things are afoot here. Prices are all over the place from really cheap to expensive when I compare them to home.

There's 3 different exchange rates at play. It makes it harder to understand why anything is priced the way it is. I'm sure a lot of the pricing troubles are caused by these various exchange rates.

Caracas Apartment

I finally moved out of the hotel and into the apartment after 6 weeks at post. I came in at the end of the summer rush and post had to expand their housing pool again, so my assigned apartment was still being renovated when I arrived. It might be another 3 weeks until our stuff arrives including a much delayed Unaccompanied Air Baggage (UAB), so living out of 2 suitcases continues. It's good that my wife was held up with a visa issue and doesn't arrive until tomorrow.

Let's see, pack out was 1 week before departure, 6 weeks of home leave, 4 weeks in DC for training, and now 6 weeks at post to get into an apartment. That's 17 weeks of feeling homeless since the end of June. I've never lived out of 2 suitcases for so long and I'm still doing it! Well, at least we have a nice apartment to start feeling like home again. We'll get more familiar belongings delivered and then it will be a home for 2 years. After that, it's time to start the whole process all over again. :-)

Here's a few pictures of the nicely renovated and furnished place. The bed will be replaced with our own, but otherwise the rest of the furniture is here to stay. The first picture is the very important water tank added because of frequent water outages, which should really hit hard during the dry season in the spring. There's also a filter for the sink because of quality issues. We may get power outages but not enough to justify a generator... yet. Otherwise, it should be a nice apartment to live in while avoiding all of the crime outside.

Sambil Mall and Hard Rock Cafe

I finally ventured out and went to a big mall to see how it is here in Caracas. Sambil may be the biggest with plenty of American and local stores. There are American fast food places like KFC, Wendy's, McDonald's, Burger King, Subway, Quiznos, and a few others I'm probably forgetting. There's 3-5 floors to this place depending on which area. There's a really nice Hard Rock Cafe on the 5th floor with covered outdoor seating.

Plenty of people wandered around. There were huge lines for the ATMs and banks as people need lots of cash with the inflation. The restaurants were kind of dead but the fast food places were busy. It seemed like a lot of people were there like me to mostly look around since it was a nice place to do it. I didn't see a whole lot of shopping even though the stores were full of stuff to buy.

Prices ranged from a little cheaper to a bit outrageous from my perspective. Most of it hovered around U.S. prices as far as I could tell with the exchange rate. Local wages haven't kept up with inflation so everything's probably much more expensive without dollars to transfer into the country. It's good for me that I get paid in dollars. :-) If this is what their inflation has done so far then I'm not looking forward to next year if it gets more expensive than this. Hopefully the exchange rate keeps up with inflation. Here's some pics of the mall:

Caracas - Week 1

Shipments

I had 4 shipments out of DC for the move to Caracas. A company came the day before flying out to load my vehicle on a trailer and take it away for loading in a shipping container. They said it'd go from the port of Baltimore to Miami before heading to Caracas. It joins the rest of the stuff in Miami waiting on clearance to proceed including a Household Effects (HHE) shipment from Stockholm.

The other 3 shipments were the Unaccompanied Air Baggage (UAB), Consumables, and a supplemental HHE. If there's any HHE weight leftover then it's surprisingly easy to ship some more stuff from DC or home leave if you need to buy new appliances or anything else for the next post. It just has to be over 200 lbs of stuff or it isn't worthwhile to ship and the request will be denied. Now it's just a matter of waiting for all of the various stuff to get here which could be several months to transit and clear local processing.

Flights

The flights were good with a Miami connection breaking it in half. It's easier flying for 6 or 7 hours when the time zone doesn't change. It definitely makes going to work the next day a more wakeful experience.

Above was the only decent sign I noticed in the airport as a sort of welcome sign while waiting for my bags. SENIAT is their version of the IRS. I didn't have time for picture taking or pulling out a phone for any reason when I came out of customs. I was surrounded by guys offering me taxis or to change my dollars to bolivars since I looked like a guy lacking bolivars. I quickly found my driver and left.

2nd Tour is... Caracas!

I received an email from my Career Development Officer (CDO) announcing my 2nd tour. Next summer I'm heading to Caracas Venezuela!

This was #22 on my list of 42 choices. It was a medium choice out of the high, medium, and low categories we had to tag on the list. It's a 20% differential post with a COLA currently similar to Stockholm since the COLA here has been dropping. This means there's a 20% pay raise to offset the somewhat harder life there compared to the 0% differential Sweden. There's also 2 R&R trips with paid airline tickets to Miami (or equivalent pricing somewhere else) for the 2 years there so that'll provide some nice breaks.