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From: 60d
Category: Other stuff
Date: 30 November 2003
10 minutes max walk from anywhere in Caracas and you are in a zone full of street commerce. half of the city streets are paved with stalls. legal, illegal, and mostly half legal (where the government charges them for being there but would never check what they sell) what they sell includes the widest choice of copied/surrogate/imitated goods, from oster kitchen blender spares, to roxy clothes, to levis to all football, basketball and baseball shirts, chinese tools, books illegally printed -unfortunatelly not with illegal contents, but rather cheap best sellers- and all kinds of cds and dvds, programs, even 2004 computer programs, the latest films, the covers of these can be professionally printed, inkjet-home printed, or just photocopied. sellers can be fanatics kof what they sell, be it salsa or the latest international hip hop. prices are lower than a blank cd in a suburban shop in, say, london: 50 pence. there are still 'normal' music shops in caracas. i do not understand to the day how they survive. like with most shops. imports are rare, but still the countrie´s industry is not developing as it should. and of course you find food. Venezuelan food reflects all the cultures that made this country, and the current difficulty to bring imported ingredients. amerindian, including the andes culture. portuguese, galician, spanish, african, italian. basic street food include arepas and empanadas, patties of round or half moon shaped corn bread. spiced but not hot meat, black beans, and soft white cheeses are the usual fillings for these. today i saw a sunday street market with live chickens killed and feathered to the taste every minute. I hadn´s seen that for some years now. wonderful. JUICES in every corner you can find a stall that will squeeze 3 oranges for you in a plastic cup for less than 10p and every food shop will have the best choice of juices in the world: guanabana, guava, passion fruit, watermelon, pineapple, mango. a big glass of these would still cost you no more than half a dollar, or 1500 bolívares. you can certainly live on these juices, they are made with just enough water as to make the oster blender work. but what explains this citie´s rythm best to my view is the way you drink coffee. here it is a service, not a luxurious thing. is like in some places in italy or portugal where people drink small coffees standing up, on their way to somewhere, just when you need them. and as hourly services they are priced and served. hope this is enough to bring you here. soon i will post reports on the art world and more.
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