black-market, but in fact you can change money just about everywhere from the guys selling t-shirts on the beach to bars, hotels, etc. If you went to a bank you would only get 6.8 bolivar to the US dollar compared to the black-market. Venezuela has a population of
30.41 million and it is the second largest producer of oil, pumping out around 211 billion barrels, or 15.3% of the worlds’ oil reserves. The best way I can describe Venezuela is that it is a contradiction unto itself. It is the only place that I know of that cars appreciate rather than depreciate, because there is such a shortage of new vehicles coming into the country. A dealer could order a car and by the time it arrives the bolivar has devalued so much that they can no longer sell it. The biggest mistake I made in
my travels was not taking any phone or technology with me. Nothing in Venezuela is in regular supply. It took me numerous trips into the main city of the island, Porlamar (population of 125,000) to try to buy a phone. They would have phones but no chips, or chips and no phones, or no service available to get the phones online. There are constant lineups for
everything. Banks seem to be the worst though because their largest bill is 100B, so it takes forever to manually count out the number of bills you may need for a day or week. The lineups for their government supplied rations are huge. They get corn flower, chicken, even toilet paper, but it is kind of funny that there is always something rumored to be in short supply, so there is an immediate glut on it so it does end up in short supply. On the other hand, one of the
smartest things I did was pick up a bunch of Canadian flag lapel pins from my Member of Parliament. I thought the children we met would appreciate them. In fact, the adults were even more appreciative. In honor of Paul’s brother Brian and
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his daughter Claire arriving, we had a Canada Day celebration at our favorite watering hole, Margarita Beach Bar, which sadly is no longer there. Everyone got pins and there was a hokey honorary Canadian swearing in ceremony I conducted.
We had at least 2 other Canada days before I left. It seems we never had a shortage of excuses for a party. Margarita Island is 25 miles from
the mainland with a population of 435,000. It was called the Isle of
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BOUNDER MAGAZINE 51
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