Monday, smoky Monday

March 1, 2004

Today I could not go to the Caracas offices. The roads were blocked as early as 6 PM and nobody could make it there. Actually even in San Felipe somebody that lives in Barquisimeto could not make it as the highway was blocked at the level of Yaritagua. And we had to close early when we learned that some local roads in Yaracuy were beginning to see trouble.

But I am in Caracas and I can witness first hand what is going on. Unfortunately since there was no ground transportation I could only hang around in my neighborhood. Trying to do the best I visited the barricades that go from Plaza Las Americas to Chuao, that is all along of Boulevard El Cafetal. The pictures that follow are named as of the many intersections of that major avenue of Caracas.

Note: these are certainly not the spectacular pictures that one can get in, say, Altamira, that CNN and others are reporting. However I deem them interesting as they reflect the preparedness of what is a middle class neighborhood. I even saw housewives preparing Molotov's cocktails in beer bottles. Something that might not show up on CNN.

One of the largest barricades was the one from San Luis.



At Santa Sofia three women were taking a break banging pans



Santa Marta had a piñata of Chavez head hanging from the traffic light and seemed to have the people more worried about a constant flow of smoke. This pic is actually on my way back home.



In Chuao actually I took two pictures. One of people painting some street slogan, and the other a group of youth very happily closing a side road access. They posed delighted!





The Rio De Janeiro avenue, one of the main Caracas avenues was empty, at 11:30 AM! Note the biker going peacefully against the one way traffic!!!



I will give later a summary of other events and activities but this is what I owed from earlier on today.