... in response to Out of idle curiosity..., posted by Cali vet on Sep 6, 2003I happened to have attended the last TLC party in Caracas. I recall it was Thanksgiving towards the end of 1999. I had gone to another TLC party in Bogota just prior and wanted to check Caracas out. I actually had a good time but I would say the TLC party was a real dud..
The gringos that showed up were all great guys and I made some real good friends that I have to this day. I do not recall exactly how many gringos came - but it may have been close to 50?? There were even a couple of guys who flew in from Ireland, if you can believe it. They spent many hours on a plane to get there. I felt a little sorry for them - not sure if they hooked up with someone or not.
The party was held at the Caracas Hilton - a really nice 5 star hotel. I made several trips back to Venezuela and I fell in love with their cigar store. I was able to get many good Cuban cigars from them and they would actually deal with me on prices. These cigars were actually in good condition compared to many stores. Best cuban cigars I ever found was when I was in Jamaica visiting a friend living there. He had local connections where I was buying FRESH COHIBAS for $6-7 each. I brought back several boxes and my friend also brought back some boxes for me when he returned to Denver. Man o man were those good cigars - mainly because they were had just arrived from Cuba - FRESH and what a difference that makes.
Anyway - I digress.
I recall that we were picked up at the airport by a nice bus. I immediately focused on one of the interpreters that they brought along- Paola. She was originally from Peru, very pretty and very few gringas can walk like she can. I had a good conversation with her and I was looking forward to seeing her again.
The party on Friday night was really quite disappointing because of the low turn out and the caliber of ladies. If there were 150 ladies - that would be a generous figure. At these parties - many ladies show up who are quite older or they are friends of someone who was invited and they are not really interested in a relationship. There were a few stunning women running around - but overall - not that good a selection IMHO. Paola ended up hooking with another gringo. As a group later that night - we went out to an all night disco. There were some fantastic dancers there.
Saturday night was even WORSE. Maybe a 100 women. I met a nice one that I danced with all night. I ended up giving Paola a ride home later that night because her gringo had stood her up. He wasn't really interested in her.
So we had one more TLC event planned - the pool party on Sunday. I showed up a little early and was smoking one of my Cubans. Lo and behold a real beauty came in sat across from me at the outdoor bar. I was actually talking with another gringo from the tour and I could not keep my eyes off this beautiful woman. (although my wife is 10 times as pretty as she was!) She had a friend that the other gringo was attracted to so we both went over and started to talking with them. We spent the rest of the party together and went out on a double - date that night. I sent her roses the next day and we went out again that night before I had to leave. It turns out she was actually a colombiana who was living in Caracas with her half sister - Monica. Monica was a Venezuelan citizen because her father was from Venezuela. Monica actually looked alot different than her sister. Darker complexion and hair. She was also beautiful and was working in some kind of card room with lots of drooling men. On one of my later trips, I met up with some of her friends who also worked there and there were alot of gorgeous women in the room :-).
I heard later from one of the interpreters that I made friends with, Margot - that there was a very unflattering newspaper article that came out about the TLC tour. It was actually in one of the lower tier newspapers. I am not sure if anyone recalls - there was a guy who used to run the tours for TLC back then - not Bruce White the owner, this guy had split off from Bruce and formed his own agency. He had a tour to Caracas about a year earlier and there was an allegation of one the ladies having been raped by one the gringos on his tour. I think this article mentioned this. Anyway - after that article - I do not believe the TLC has gone there again. I talked to my contact at TLC a year or so later and he mentioned this article and said that they had no further plans to go there.
My impression of the women in Caracas - I tend to think the women in Cali are generally prettier. Not to say that you cannot find some beautiful Venezuelan women - but overall, Cali has them beat IMHO. I do think that many gringos could find a woman who they think is beautiful and be quite happy with a latina from Venezuela. I met some men in my travels there who worked in the oil industry and they all had Venezuelan girlfriends. My general impression is that they would love to meet more gringos. There are no international agencies I have heard of there.
Caracas has some nice barrios and modern malls. I also liked their subway system. In this type of city it really helps to get around. Bogota could really use a subway like this because the traffic can be so bad there. I found it overall to be much more expensive in Caracas than Colombia for many restaurants and hotels.
One one of my trips there, my novia needed to go back to Colombia because her passport and visa had been stolen from her on the subway. We took the bus back to the border city of Cucuta in Colombia where we spent a week. This is actually the city she grew up in. She had spent some years in Cali also so she was familiar with it.
My last trip there when we split up we ended up going to la playa in a pueblo called Chichiriviche. Her sister Monica's novio called Fernando, who was a Spaniard, had a house there. It is north of Caracas on the coast. I understand many people go up there to scuba dive. Fernando was quite a character, he and Monica had a fight the night before we were to leave Caracas so he went with another of his girlfriends. This gave my novia fits, since her sister was left behind, and they were shooting darts with their eyes at each other for the next three days. He was a great host and we had some good times.
I do not have much experiences for places to go in the interior of Venezuela. One of the other guests invited by Fernando was a man named Luis Suarez and his girlfriend. He works for an ecotourism company. Check out their website at www.akanan.com. This may give you some ideas. I remember that Fernando and Monica had treked for something like a month in I believe the Orinoco Basin with Luis. Just your cup of tea :-).
Also you may recall that our mutual friend Malandro has traveled many times to Venezuela, since he lived in Puerto Rico, and I believe he has done many things in the interior.
Disfruta!
