Caracas in 3.6 Hours

It was breezy in Caracas this past week. It was breezy in Caracas when I last visited five years ago. I think the reason for this is that Caracas ~ the capital of Venezuela ~ sits at 2,500 feet tucked in under the Avila mountains which rise to 7,800 feet.

In September 2003 the weather was wet and blustery. In April 2008 the weather was cool and fresh. White, puffy fair weather clouds drifted around the high hills overlooking the city.

There’s a lot of hot air, too, these days surrounding the relations between the US and Venezuela. President Hugo Chavez’s self proclaimed socialist revolution is obviously at odds with America’s relentless cry for democracy. Chavez is sitting on a ton of oil money so he is managing to tweak everyone’s nose including multi-national companies and his neighbors.

He’s even changed his country's place in the north-south longitude field by making Venezuela 30 minutes ahead of Miami. Our flight attendant stumbled when she said “welcome to Caracas ~ the local time is 7:05. Opps! make that 7:35. I’m sorry ~ it’s the other way. The local time is now 6:35 ... I guess”.

While I was there, the Minister of Education, Adan Chavez ~ Hugo’s brother by the way ~ announced the details of a new curriculum. Apparently, it is going to be highly prescriptive and nationalistic. The university curriculum now has mandatory readings from Karl Marx, Fidel Castro and the revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara. One can guess that elementary and high school students will probably expect something similar. Oh, dear.

I would say it is one thing to bully the big boys such as oil companies, banks and the IMF ~ but it’s another thing to muck around with kids. In this flattened world of interconnectivity, globalization and the internet ~ it’s seems a shame that Venezuela’s educational system will be taking a step backwards.