Our next stop was the village in Barlovento to pick up the Afro-Venezuelan Community Center Director and then we went to go pick up his daughter at a small local college. We went on a quick drive by the shore. Our excursion then brought us out of the town through a wooded hilly area to the cacao (chocolate) farm. We then drove down a little more and came to the chocolate factory, which was a small building that was basically a kitchen. It was opened six months ago by the Polar Corporation (one of the largest companies in Venezuela predominantly a beer brewer) as a community outreach program to help the rural villagers start industry in their area.
We then headed back to Barlovento to see an Afro-Venezuelan drum performance at the Community Center. After the performance we headed for lunch at a hotel outside the village called the Hotel Tasca Restaurant. We finished lunch at like 5pm and then started our two hour ride back to Caracas to the Las Mercedes section. We arrived around 7pm and had time to look inside one of the many malls of Caracas. There are numerous malls in Caracas and they all are very americanized. We ate at a very good restaurant called Restaurant Caracas where I had pizza to complete my goal of having pizza in every port.
Random Stuff:
- There are so many Chili’s and TGIFriday’s Restaurants.
- Baseball is like the national sport. I was real excited when I passed a TGIFriday’s in the mall and saw an American Baseball game.
- The Venezuelans call us Estado Unidocions (United Statesians). They bring up a good point that everyone in North and South Americans are considered “Americans”.
- Gas in Venezuela is real cheap. It costs 7 American cents a liter compared to the cost of a liter bottle water of 25-50 American cents.
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