Venezuelans are taking extra precautions to protect ourselves and our belongings. What are these precautions, you might ask? Well, to give you a sense, we made this short list over lunch hour … and let’s just say that we decided to skip dessert.
The saddest part of it all is that most of the things on this list are not infrequent. They are the pan nuestro de cada día.
Invisibility Cloak
It helps if Venezuelans are able to walk down the streets unnoticed. Since we can’t buy invisibility cloaks –you know, scarcity and inflation affects all sectors of the economy-, there are a few things that we Venezuelans can do to achieve the same effect:
- Don’t use flashy clothes in the street. Cheap earrings for the women and cheap watches for the men.
- Careful with the cell phone. It’s better to place it in the front pocket of your pants or inside the sweater or jacket of your choice. No talking on the streets. Crazy enough, keeping a close guard on our cell phones means they are turning into landlines: we pretty much only use them “inside”.
- When leaving the supermarkets, some use a made-up invisibility cloak for their purchases: black plastic bags. This way others can’t see what you bought. Is not that you don’t want to tell others what you found, but you don’t want others to try and steal your “precious”… i.e., cooking oil, or corn flour, if you’re lucky to find any.
Can you tell me where you got…?
Always have a spare
Burglars are not particularly choosy. They will always take something as long as its valuable. So it’s better if they take material stuff over your health or life –yes, it’s as horrible as it sounds. If you don’t want to lose certain possessions in the hands of thugs, here are a few tips:
- Some people carry an extra wallet with some cash and an old cell phone to have something to hand over.
- If you’re on foot, keep a close guard on your wallet, but have extra cash to be able to give to burglars. A friend also hides enough cash for a taxi in her shoe, in case she gets robbed and needs to get to a safe place.
- If you’re behind the wheel, you could/should: (1) Put your bags in the trunk. (2) Some hide their wallets and cell phones under the driver’s seat. (3) Some women put an old purse with rubble inside, to have something to give to the robbers. (4) Careful with using the cell phone, see above. It’s obvious that we shouldn’t text/talk and drive. But we have to also be careful about texting/talking while in traffic, because it’s the perfect opportunity for burglars.
- Wedding rings have become a rather popular amongst thugs. Some friends have had replicas of their wedding rings made, so they can use on then on the streets.
Locks and chains 
- Toilet paper rolls are under lock and chain in public bathrooms in some shopping malls and universities. In others, there’s simply no toilet paper, so bring your own.
- Another popular trend: people are putting locks on their car batteries.
- This is, by far, one of the most extreme cases of lock and chain we have heard: a couple took a trip, and decided to weld their apartment door to prevent invasions.
Crazy cabs
- Taxis and Mototaxis (morotcycles cabs) can be your best friend … or your worst enemy.
- If the taxi is a regular car with just what seems to be a plastic homemade sign on the roof or just a sticker that says “TAXI”, avoid at all cost. The same goes for Mototaxis, especially if the bike doesn’t have license plates.
- Venezuelans should have the number of a couple of trusted taxi driver in their contact lists. Another option is to use the EasyTaxi app.
- A new and really sad trend is what we could call bag-lifters. Taxis wait for single buyers to leave the supermarkets and offer them their services. Half way to the final destination, the driver asks the client to step out of the vehicle but to leave the bags.
The ultimate irony
In the words of Laureano Márquez, “Venezuela es el único país del mundo donde te roban lo que aún no es tuyo”… the only country in the world where people steal what isn’t yours yet. The days of walking carelessly around the supermarket are gone. Nowdays, you have to guard your potential purchases from being robbed from your shopping cart. As they would say in Venezuela: toca reír para no llorar.
***
We know that many of you must have even more safety measures or sad anecdotes. Share them with us on the comment section.
And may the force be with you.
Caracas Chronicles 
No one believes me (here in the UK) the fake wallet/mobile tactic. They all think I’m exaggerating how bad things are under la peste roja.
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I really tired of hearing Venezuelan and their continuous cry for corn flour this and that. I live in Colombia with a real war during 50 years that produced 700 thousand dead , 100 thousand missing , 5 million internal desplazados. 9 million emigrants etc. A real human tragedy and see Colombians defend their country and live their life without crying like the venezuelans I am tire of you Venezuelans and stupid corn flour , your stupid line in Zara , your stupid Laureano Marquez, and your stupid problems……
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Who’s the mean guy forcing you to read an blog on Venezuelan politics written in english?
Can’t you get him to force you read Colombian politics blogs instead?
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But Colombia’s FARC are beaten and currently that civil war of yours has produced less dead in the last 10 years than the crime wave in Venezuela in the last 5 years, you fool!
And Colombians have flour and meat and all the rest now.
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How tired are you?
—
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Start writing a cucuta chronicles blog… I’m sure it will be exciting!!
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Let us cry in peace! its funny how you complain of our crying but cannot stop crying yourself about your “human tragedy”!
In a whining competition, you sure look like a champ!
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oh! and that is probably the reason they’ve been living that hell for 50 years? who knows? Sure thing: most Colombians don’t share you’re opinion; they would be very pissed if they don’t find harina pan … (I’m not sure why they use it, but here in the UK you only find Harina pan if there are Colombians or Ecuadorians around)
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but oh how the Colombians like to go to Venezuela and buy anything and everything they can to take back to Colombia for resale….and our problems are very real… thanks to our very corrupt government your FARC is still active…our problems are your problems too.
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Today, most would say that Colombia is a better place to live than Venezuela. Until fairly recently, Colombia was poorer and more violent than Venezuela- Venezuela’s less fortunate cousin. Today, Colombia is much safer than Venezuela, and the longstanding economic gap between the two countries has pretty much closed. Back then, anyone who would have said that Colombians lived better than Venezuelans would have been decimated by ridicule.
That the relative positioning of the two countries has pretty much flip-flopped in recent years is a credit to the people and government of Colombia, and an indication of the malandro government Venezuela has had for the last 15 years.
What makes this flip-flop all the more amazing is that during this time Venezuela has seen oil export revenues boom thanks to a rise in the price of oil from $10/bbl in 1998 to $100 /bbl in recent years. How can such a relative advantage be thrown away?
Ask the Chavistas and the PSF, but they will not give an honest answer.
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Una viuda de los pedófilos farc.
Anda a llorar a casa de los asesinados por esos narcos, chaburro.
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You mean crying like you are doing now? DUMBASS
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Did your people defended your country when the mass exodus of colombians to Venezuela started in the darker days of violence some 20-30-40 years ago, or you defend it now that you have better stability and a growing economy under a “right wing” goverment.
There will always be people who remain conformist to the situation and will even support this disaster when it get even worse. I wonder how much you would be whining and crying now had your goverment allowed the FARC to take power in Colombia.
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News flash: This is not a blog about Colombia. Applying your same logic to your situation, people like, say,Syrians and Palestinians are tired of your stupid cries and complaints about the FARC, your stupid Andres Lopez, your silly emigrant numbers and your laughably inferior death tolls.
Grow the hell up.
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Excellent reply!!!!
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Then we should just shut up and let them do whatever they want. Maybe then, we will be like you in Colombia, we will suffer the same your people once suffered, and then you will accept us as your friend (which is of course what we want, to be well liked by you). Esto no es una competencia de quién sufre más mi pana, así que ubíquese.
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Very stupid comment, GDC. If you´re so tired of Venezuelans go read some other things instead of news and comments from Venezuela. Not sure if you get that corn flour has been, for some, the only nourishment for years. You can´t say which tragedy is worse. Each country and each people have their own tragedies…Maybe you only read about corn flour and Zara but there are other tragedies that are not published in media going on in Venezuela. But it seems to me you´re mind is already made and you have a strong case of what´s a real tragedy and what´s not, so it´s not really worth it to try to reason with you.
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You are a bunch of stupid and crying children over stupid problems created by your own hysterical way of living, you are vulgar consumers.Kepler in Venezuela there are between 3 or 4 million of Colombians , when I speak with their families here in Colombia, half of my colombian colleagues have family in Venezuela , they say they are just fine none of them wants to return back home, … You Venezuelans are stupid only want to produce lastima.I know people in Venezuela that have 40 kilograms of that damn corn flour in their house , Colombians buy what they need in the supermarket. The statistic on crime by the Observatorio directed by Briceño are false you know that and I know it.So you are also big liars , you lie all the time and multiply your problems by 10….
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Again GDC you seem like a professional whiner that does not like when other people whine!
Human tragedy! 5 million desplazados! cry some more babyyyyy
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Who peed in your Cheerios this morning? Seriously…take a step back, relax and drop the self rightneousness!
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I am not talking about Briceno. Even the pseudo-statistics produced by the murderer Rodríguez Torres, minister of interior, are clearly higher than the ones in Colombia.
I wonder what political stance these friends of yours have towards the FARC and also towards the murderers in Venezuela now.
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Yup, seems like you have it all figured it out. Why would you bother to read a blog about venezuelan politics I do not know.
Do not see anything wrong with being interested in a sister (brother?) country’s politics, I for one agree that Colombian has been through a real human tragedy and admire all that you have accomplished under extremely difficult circumstances, I wish your country continued success and development.
I just don’t see the point of you coming here and calling all Venezuelan whiners and claim we do not have problems. What comes around goes around, you know?
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Dear Mean Bad Guy, pretty please stop forcing GDC to read a blog on Venezuelan problems written in English. It’s making him very angry and taking a toll on his social skills.
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Los pedófilos narcoterroristas esos van presos, a lo mejor disfrutan un poco más de impunidad con el panchero Santos, pero eventualmente pagarán su narcotráfico (que hacen asociados a la basura de cuba), sus miles y miles de asesinatos, así como su terrorismo y su pedofilia.
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Culturizate: http://www.ultimasnoticias.com.ve/noticias/actualidad/economia/cronica—inmigrantes-suramericanos-dan-el-adios-a.aspx
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GDC, go read something else. Seriously, spare yourself all this anger, it’s totally unnecessary. I’m looking out for your own health – if reading this makes you hate us so much, then just don’t read it. And by the way, Colombians eat “that damn corn flour” too.
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When I’m with Venezuelans and other Latin Americans here in Canada we will inevitably talk about this. And it’s shocking to see how different Venezuelans act and think in terms of security compared to us bogotanos or people from Mexico City, for example.
I’m actually travelling to Colombia this week, so I was making a comparison of things I will also do. The flashy clothes point is interesting, I had a Venezuelan friend telling us that once she was there and her family told her “Mari, ponte ropa vieja que tenemos que ir al banco”. I mean, I’m very careful when I go to the bank or take cash out of an ATM in Colombia, but that phrase sounds completely bizarre to me.
Locking up toilet paper or your car battery or hiding your groceries also seems bizarre. Getting your door mirrors stolen, nonetheless, is not too uncommon in certain parts of the city.
The one place where my instinct agrees (and even goes a bit more) is your advice regarding taxis. After a period where paseos millonarios (secuestros exprés en venezolano) were common people in Bogota became super vigilant about taxis and as much as possible using only those called by telephone. An aside, all cab call centers are automated in Colombia, I was *shocked* when I called a taxi here in Canada and an actual human being answered the phone. In rush hour traffic that’s practically impossible and you’ll have to go out to the street, but there are regulations so that you can make sure a taxi you take is legit. And people will often text each other the license plate of the taxi they hail, or use an app called tappsi which will call a cab and even tweet its license plate when you get on. It’s also interesting how taxis also take security measures with the customers, when you phone a cab and it arrives you have to give it “the code” which is the last 2 digits of your phone number. Mototaxis don’t really exist in Bogota.
While exaggerated, the story about the family that welded their door shut also shows a big difference. I don’t feel unsafe, at all, in my neighbourhood in Bogota. I’ll go to the corner store with friends on foot at 10-11 pm no worries. Needless to say, we don’t even feel unsafe at home. Years ago, after a small earthquake, we decided to no longer “ponerle doble llave a la puerta” and we started feeling safer in fact.
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Not feeling safe in one’s area is taking a toll on our psyche.
Some time ago, a thug tried to mug me about half a block away from where I lived as I was walking to the bus stop. It was early but not too early, around 6:30 in the morning, and it was a “nice” residential area, but not a gated community. I managed to get away, even though I was on foot and he had a motorcycle.
I spent about three months getting rather anxious every time I heard a motorcycle on my way to/from the bus stop.
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The difference is huge. To be clear In Caracas you are not risking your cell phone, you are risking your family’s and you own life. In Bogota my early teenage kids go to the grocery store by themselves across a 6 lane road from my house. In Caracas they were never allowed to walk by themselves on the street, nor we would walk with them more than half a block. It is really a good measure of safety what you will allow your kids to do on their own.
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You’re spot on. 1 million cellphones were stolen in Colombia last year. 7 people died in those robberies. That’s 7 too many, but I shudder to think what the number would be in Venezuela.
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What you are using is a childish strategy if you speak about corn flour , mavesa and this and that and of course communism , the marines will save you, ohh my god how stupid you are, nobody believe you but a bunch of fanatics here and there.The only result is that you produce LASTIMA, that is all folks
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If you don’t like it. Don’t read it. Easy.
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And what about inflation? We have no right no complain about that either, huh? An inflation caused by an irresponsible government printing money like hell. We have to like that, right? Inflation+scarcity, how wonderful! We should be proud of this revolution.
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Hay alguien dando pena ajena en estos comentarios.
Pista: eres tú.
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Los narcoasesinos van presos, van presos, van presos…
Se les acaba el pan de piquito a los farcasesinos…
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By the way, GDC, “lástima” in english is “pity”. You keep writing it in spanish.
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Troll alarm…
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Peor todavía, es un cagatintas tarifado, capaz que lo mandaron desde piorrea a molestar.
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Seguramente, el chavismo destruye la razon….
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not only do Venezuelans lock their doors with aditional padlocks – welding is stupid – but the car batteries are impossible to buy and 100 were stolen in 1 day at the Sambil mall. so yes, we either take them out or we lock them in. if you don’t have anything to offer a mugger you can and will be beaten, so yes, be prepared to offer them something. i only carry colored, plastified copies of my documents, my wedding ring is in the safe. we are just getting used to the opression and lack of food, it wasn’t this bad until the last 2 or 3 years and we have the right to complain. GDC can feel free to fuck off when ever….
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It wasn’t certainly that bad, my last time in Venezuela was like visiting a foreign country…. It was a totally different country as the one I grew up. Hell, it was very different from the country I left 5 years ago!
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“…i only carry colored, plastified copies of my documents, ”
You know what’s the worst part of this? That then a cop could try to extort you because you aren’t carrying the originals with you…
Si no nos agarra el chingo nos pesca el sin nariz…
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Of my colombian colleague has two brothers in Venezuela one married to a Venezuelan girl I ask him why don’t the move to Bogota he say not you can make a lot of money in Venezuela , the could move to Miami and keep the business in Venezuela .A friend in Miami tell me than 70% of Venezuelans he knows live of their business in Venezuela. So can you genius explain that communism and oppression Carol.You are a bunch of liars and stupid people
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You are such a fool. First of all: a lot of who are making more in Venezuela now are most thieves, like your colleague’s brothers. They are Venezuelans or Colombians or the like but anyway: they are people who profit from the shameless arbitrage, the ROBOLUCIÓN. They are into something like imports, CADIVI and similar schemes or just shooting at people or dealing with cocaine.
People in Venezuela – irrespective of their origin – trying to live productive lives have a hard time today.
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Omg Kepler, all of you, SHTAAAHP!
Dont answer this bot! Is this your first time using the internet or something? Jeez.
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:)
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Sounds to me like you found an excellent business opportunity. You should definitely come to Venezuela and set up business so you can put your money where your mouth is.
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Guys… Methinks we have another Chavista troll with new tactics.
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Stop responding to this fucking idiot troll GDC.
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It became boring after I wrote the first response…
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people stop the madness and stop responding to GDC… dear lord.
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Time to edit/erase comments before publishing?
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Once in a line to buy toilet paper, a chaburro (yeah, chaburro, insulting term fully intended) started mocking the people, saying aloud to another guy that “If people stopped having so much diarrhea, then they won’t need paper”, obviously, this started to annoy people in the line, but none said anything yet, then the guy keep trying to be a troll and got even more vexing, saying to the other person “Well, these dumbasses are so “psicoseados” by globoterror that they run to buy paper whenever it arrives!”
People were getting more and more irritated, there was an older lady next to me that was clenching her fists, I thought she was ready to pounce at him at any time.
And then the guy tried to be funny again, saying “Nah, these morons like to be in a line, I can get all the paper I want, I may even sell some to them, dude! LOL!”
I fucking lost it in that moment.
Because I knew that beating up a 60-something “carcamal” isn’t seen with good eyes, I decided to sharpen my tongue a bit, speaking “casually” to the other people in the line, saying, words more, words less, how the “4th republic” was superior and better in every single aspect than the so called “5th”, finishing on how the lines are an invention “made-in-sucialismo” (again, insulting term fully intended), loud enough so that most of the people in the line could hear me (including the asshole that wasn’t in the line), as any school bully, this idiotic chaburro got hurt on his pretty, delicate, thin skin, and shouted two insults at me, I answered casually saying “It’s just those ‘mierdaneros’ (referring to buhoneros or street illegal vendors) who come and steal everything to resell it at 10 times the price, that’s not capitalism, that’s just being a shit-eating choro, and everybody knows that chaburros llooovveee choros :B”
The crankass couldn’t stand it anymore and offered me some punches, now, I’m not particulary strong or robust, I weight just like 65 kilos, but again, he was (or looked like) a 60-something geezer, so I just measured the distance and got ready to lunge if he tried to pull something like a gun (Because we all know that these shit-eaters are armed, otherwise they won’t be harrassing people everywhere)
The other guy grabbed him, and told him it was enough, not because I could beat him to an inch of his life, but because there were like other 200 very angry people in the line, some of them flat out furious, and more than willing to beat the crap of that idiot.
People in the streets are incredibly angry these days, and chavistas are stupid enough to think they won’t ever get any comeuppance for their stupidity, one example of that is how a couple of choros got lynched in a bus in Barquisimeto a couple of weeks ago, and then tossed in the middle of an avenue so the other cars would run over them.
That’s what the regime tries to hide the most, because it breaks their image of “invincibility that tramples over the escuaca sissy faggots and tarts”.
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@Anabella y Barbara
I would add the reflex to turn around everytime you hear a motorcycle engine to make sure the guys riding it look honest and not like thugs. It’s unfortunate how the reputation all motorcycle riders has been affected by the thugs on two wheels.
There’s hardly any private residential construction going on that isn’t a gated community and lots of old neighborhoods have been retrofitted as gated communities by closing off streets and setting up a caseta or garita de vigilancia (guardhouse or checkpoint).
When you see publicity for beach apartments and time-shares the big selling points are “its own power plant”, “water from a waterhole” and “gated community”. A direct reflection of the poor state of the power service, the water service and crime.
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Its true that for long periods Colombian residents were more exposed to criminal violence than we in Venezuela ( to very traumatic kind of violence) , since then however the threat of violence has receded in Colombia and risen exponentially in Venezuela .!! What makes us so fearful of that violence is that in Colombia it was the normal way of life , years and years of violence acclimatized people to its existence while in ours violence was by comparison much more tame and infrequent and then has during the last decade had a huge surge which broke with the normal measure of our expectations . Thus the high level of fear and concern that being exposed to violence causes in ordinary Venezuelans.
People respond to certain experiences by comparing them to other experiences which they had become accostummed to , which they had become familiar with, so that the bigger the difference the more live the new experience becomes to us . If youre accostummed to easy fluid traffic for years and then traffic suddenly becomes very congested in your city , the congestion will seem worse to you than if the transit system had been congested for much of the past .
About the business opportunities last year I heard people who have business in Colombia and Venezuela state that while doing busines in colombia is not as fraught with difficulties and menaces as in Venezuela , the opportunity for good profits is better here , something to do with the unorganized spendrift and happy go lucky manner of Venezuelans making for a more fluid business scene where some businesses can find better opportunities than they find in Colombia ( this from people who are not the least bit regime friendly ) .
Not sure that continues to be true this year , things have tightened up quite a bit since the artificially induced electorally inspired bonanza ceased after all the vultures came home to roost and the regime ran out of all its money . But for a while at least there was this paradoxical situation of a busines hostile enviroment where it was still possible for some business to do well.
The thing is why if we have a regime which purports to have reduced poverty very substantially, which has had a hundred times the money resources that colombia has ever had to improve life in Venezuela , which has had 15 years to tackle security problems in this country through enlightened well funded social policies its failed so miserably that never have we venezuelans experienced more crime and violence than we do now. In fact setting world records for crime and violence. !!
There is a telling story behind these comparisons between Colombia and Venezuela .
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The authors offer good tips for the traveler.
Something I am curious about: how common is it for Venezuelans to carry firearms? I hear about it and see them from time to time, but I really don’t know how common is the practice. (For the record, I’d rather not be sharing a car with someone with a gun).
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Weapon licenses are banned and illegal since may of 2002 (Even as the march of april 11 that ended in the power vacuum was composed of entirely unarmed people), so carrying firearms is illegal if you’re not a law enforcement officer like a cop or a soldier or are working in a security company (And those have hell to pay if they give weapons to their guards).
Not that such measure stops thugs as the colectivos of having part of the 10-something million illegal firearms inside Venezuela that end slaughtering people anyway.
Weapon control laws are just for keeping the population defenseless against malandros and colectivos so the regime can repress and kill with all impunity.
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Agreed with previous comment. Stop feeding the troll. He´s just that, a troll. People with real arguments don´t insult and stubbornly call stupid to others just because their countries have different ways of living or surviving. I´ll stop following this discussion now.
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So you can read something interesting beside reading between yourself and el Nacional and Poleo
Click to access Summary-of-Results-and-Findings-of-the-2011-International-Comparison-Program.pdf
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Unfortunately, crime and lack of security is not a major factor in undermining Vzla’s disguised neo-dictatorship:
Those who still favor Chavismo, mainly the uneducated lower to middle class, or the thousands of enchufaos in positions of power, those people are used to crime, or can live with it. Of the 25 murders a day, or whatever, how many are in the poor barrios? Atracos, robbery and all that, well they deal with it if they have something to be stolen. Most of us in danger of being kidnapped for ransoms or killed for a good watch or car, left the country a long time ago.
Sadly, what will eventually overthrow this corrupt regime is la Escasez, more than crime.. A worsening Economic situation, la Inflacion, not violence or the dead. Lack of Harina pan y papel toile”, not the fact that people can’t even go out to the movies anymore..
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For those genius that speak about the Colombian economy , most data of DANE is
to say the least false.This country is like an African country , I am tired of watching people without even shoes.The middle class eats every day potatoes with chicken, because they don’t have any money after they pay services , education and rent. Not even 40% of Colombians own their house…..all are now dreaming to go to chile.Those in the Venezuelan frontier live of the rebusque in Venezuela smuggling even those depreciated bolivars.This economy is a gigantic money laundry machine , but they keep quite ….they desperate to change their image
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You forgot the key one. If you drive, drive an old beat-up car that is hard to be chopped in parts for profit. When in Caracas I drive a 1994 Civic, that will live forever but it is hardly a lure to get you kidnapped.
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I’d take it. A friend’s father (lawyer) can take the stolen car and do some stuff with the papers and it’s legal in punto fijo for example. Nothing is impossible with the right maraña
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