Caracas: Land of Legends, of Great Warriors and My Home
Photo taken by the author: A Blurred Sunset in Caracas
By: Andrés Vargas Arévalo
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the KCL Latin American Society or El Cortao.
On October 3rd, 2019, I decided to take a leap of faith; I would turn a short voyage to Caracas into a one-way trip. I had been living in Mexico City for the previous fourteen months and, as my mother used to say each time we vacationed outside Venezuela: “I would return with double the eagerness that I had had when I left”.
Mexico City and Caracas have much in common: they are chaotic and perhaps unfriendly. I see them as chiral, as though they were mirror images, yet different, and sinister. Mexico City was handed to me in the same way I was handed Caracas: without a choice. Each city came with its own implications, pains, and gains. Yet the only thing I wanted whilst living in Mexico City was to be back home, in my brutalist, concrete jungle. Now that I am living in Caracas, I sometimes miss Mexico City and the good memories I have of it, but I have always had one - and only one - place which I call home.
My memories started to resurface as the plane began its landing at Simon Bolivar International Airport. It was the first time in years that I was landing at night given that my mother thought it would be better to return using daylight flights for security reasons. To my delight, it wasn't the case this time and I would now be able to see lights that I could only recall as fragments of my childhood days when I’d go back and forth between Caracas and La Guaira on weekends. As my uncle drove up to Caracas, I was greeted by the magnific Caracas-La Guaira highway, a testament to the former glory years of the 1950s. On each side of the highway, the lights of the barrios took me back to my childhood since I used to fall asleep to them.
I was hungry, I had had a long layover in Bogota before departing for Caracas and the flight had not accepted international cards to pay for meals. My uncle took me to a hot dog stand called ‘Joao’ in Las Mercedes, where I used to eat every week with my high school and college friends after a night of partying. It was a sad moment because I haven't seen many of those friends in years, and I knew that life takes turns and perhaps I won’t see them in what remains of my life. Caracas has given me everything and has taken a lot from me, but I still love her.
Just after getting home, I decided to surprise one of my best friends, Mort. As he entered my house, I jumped on him and started to laugh. He took me on a ride to one of the most sacred places for a Venezuelan patriot: the house where El Libertador was born, which is now bordered by cafes. There was a certain joy in the streets that night, with lights which were strange to me. You had to be crazy to go out after sunset to the center of Caracas due to the fear of getting mugged, but I didn'tfeel any fear whilst drinking a frappuccino almost at midnight.
We drove back to Las Mercedes to eat arepas and get a couple of drinks. Pilsner beer was something I’d missed while in Mexico City; negritas, as we call them, have a unique taste (In Venezuela the word ‘negro’ isn’t racist, it is actually used as a synonym for friend and as an affectionate nickname). I was surprised to learn that a nation in which it used to be illegal to have dollars, or any other foreign currency, now uses them as its main currency and that foreign credit cards could now also be used. Even using a credit card seemed surprising; previously it had been a nightmare to use one because the card terminals never worked.
Caracas wasn't the ghost town that I had left behind on July 27th, 2018. Somehow, she had come back to life. I still had friends left, my first alma mater was still standing and there were still opportunities left to grow up in the former land of opportunities; opportunities to rejoice, to mourn, to go out and to face the world.
Some may argue that I'm short-sighted, which as a matter of fact I am. There is still an unimaginable misery in Venezuela that shocks everyone, with news of the elderly and the young dying alone of starvation. The witches - as we call the policemen - roam in the shadows waiting for an unlucky soul to snatch. This is still the capital of the Animal Farm, ruled with an iron fist by our very own Napoleon. But it would be an insult to me, to my family, and to all hardworking Venezuelans lie to you saying that we are hopeless. We have stood up to tyranny many times before and we have always won; from Carabobo to Boyaca, from Junin to Ayacucho, and to our very own streets, we have fought and won. It's only a matter of time before we win again.
Even in the darkness of the pandemic and of the economic ruin, we still wake up to work for a better life, just like the millions of wartime refugees of long ago who spent weeks walking towards ports to board ships, seeing no daylight until they had reached the ports of a land of grace called Venezuela.
I see you, Venezuela, each day as I go out to work; I see your fear dwarfed by your immense ambition for a better life and your courageous struggle for happiness. I see you, delivery guy, I see you, entrepreneur; old and young, I see you all. You are the true lights that stand up to the darkness, and the guiding star to a new dawn.
You are the heart of Caracas. Soon the carcasses of the buildings that lay dormant will rise, and we will become again the city of the eternal spring, the branch of the heavens, the home that so many have missed.
Andres Vargas Arevalo is a second-year student of Chemical Engineering at Universidad Metropolitana. Born and raised in Caracas who has lived in Canada, Mexico and Spain. A passionate entrepreneur and founder of @TuMetroCondon.