Today started out slowly… waking up semi-late (can’t really sleep late in Caracas thanks to honking and such) and spent some time relaxing and reading before heading into the University area to get some food and sun. I stopped in at one of the little food-carts by the main enterance to the Central University and ordered up a hamburger with some help from a nearby cabby who spoke a bit of broken English. Though… to call it a hamburger really isn’t the right word… it was more of a “take a bun. Shove everything ever cooked in it. Drop a burger on top of the everything. Serve” Seriously… it had a burger, pulled pork (I think), Chicken (Again, I think), a few eggs, some hash-browns, some lettuce and tomatoes, and even some freaking potato-sticks. I mean… DAMN it was good, but I could barely move after the first half, and I had to take a short break before trying to tackle the second half.

After eating and reading and people-watching some more I headed towards a place called Altamira, vaguely translated as “highview”. Its another place full of contradictions: it has VERY nice buildings, fountains, and statues, but theres random spots where buildings used to stand, but now there’s only rubble. And there are large concrete walls with barbed wire every few blocks.

Strangely enough, it was the concrete walls that I came to check out. See, Venezuela is a Socialist state, and one of the many governmental programs is a “city beutification” project that employs graffiti artists to make amazing paintings on otherwise dour and depressing places. And so, right next to the perfectly gleaming Bank buildings, on the dark concrete walls topped with barbed wire, were some of the most amazing pieces of spray-art I’ve ever seen. I only spent about 30min taking pictures (so I wouldn’t seem like too much of a tourist; I was going for the “I’mma art student!” look) before heading out to meet Ana in Caribe, a town about an hour North of Caracas.