General sources

• http://wikitravel.org/en/Venezuela
  • Here is still potential for us to contribute!
• http://www.buyusa.gov/venezuela/en/businesstravelinfo.html

about visas:

• http://www.mipunto.com/venezuelavirtual/000/001/005/003.html

and some important specific information distilled from them:

Electric current

Venezuela uses 110Volt / 60 Hz, and most houses and apartments have 220 Volt connections available for air conditioners, kitchen ranges or clothes dryers
Source: http://www.buyusa.gov/venezuela/en/businesstravelinfo.html

Tips from Jose

This is an up-to-date down-to-Earth version of the links posted on the Caracas Trollparty: Information for Travellers wikipage. First, the two most important things:

1. Electric Current

Venezuela uses 110V/60Hz. electric current. Even if there're 220V plugs in some houses (for Dryers, Washers and other appliances use them) I think that you shouldn't count on that (some setups, like my house's, have a strange plug)

You should bring appliances that accept 110V/60Hz. Laptops do this by default, so will most cellphone and digital camera adaptors. You should check them before plugging them into the wall sockets. I don't think your appliances will break apart if you plug them into a lower voltage output, but they will definitely not work.

You'll need a plug convertor. You use round plugs, we use flat plugs. The place where you'll be staying might have round/flat sockets, but since we don't know yet where you'll be staying I can't assure this. If you can't bring the plug convertor, I'll do a walk to the nearest toolshop.

If you need to charge AA or AAA batteries, I have a GP charger which works with 110. I guess you can use it, or SAPI might be able to buy one for you to have in the apartment. I'll check this.

2. Currency

Please note that Venezuela is currently under a currency control. Under this system, the government controls every exchange operation done in the Country. This was initiated after the terrible National Strike that made some institutions to take their money away from the Country.

Under this control, you can sell your currency at this fixed rate, in an Exchange House like Italcambio:

• 2144 Bolívares for each US Dollar
• 2254 Bolívares for each Euro

This operations are legal. If, in the airport or anywhere in your stay, some people offers you a selling trade, you should be cautious. Even if you can get 2800 VEB or more for your EUR, this is an illegal operation.

I recommend you that you use Credit Cards -VISA being the most accepted- most of the time (accepted everywhere you see a VISA/MC/AMEX/Maestro logo, which is almost everywhere) and just bring the smallest ammount of EUR/USD possible. You can always retrieve money from an ATM (please contact any of the Venezuelan guys on site for this).

If you carry on Bolívares (which is not a bad idea, if it's not too much money) bring it in small bills. 1000, 2000 and 5000 bolivares bills are OK and everyone will have changes. Coins are also regular, specially the 50 and 100 Bolívares.

3. Consulate Services / Embassies and Visa

There is consular representation of Brazil, Canada, the United Kingdom, France and Spain in Venezuela.

Brazil, Canada, France and Spain Nationals don't need Visa to enter Venezuela. In the flight you'll be asked to fill two forms. The biggest one is the Customs Form, the other is the Admission Form. You should fill them, hand out the Admission Form to the Government Officials in the boxes just after leaving your flight and before taking your baggage, and the Customs Form must be handed to a Military Officer before leaving the Baggage Claim Area.

IMPORTANT! Please check if United Kingdoms nationals need Visa to enter Venezuela. This is very important, and I can't find information. If you can, give the Venezuela Embassy a call: (020) 7584 4206/7 in London.

4. Weather

You'll be enjoying a nice weather. Right now it's cold and rainy in the afternoons and nights and cold and sunny in the mornings. It's definitely warmer than France and Canada in January, but you won't burn yourself (yet in the Airport you'll probably feel a bit uncomfortable with the climate, remember it's 30 minutes away -and 1000 meters lower than Caracas-)

Bring a sweater, for your airplane travel needs. If you have a raincoat, you can bring one too, if you have space. Dress lightly, but I won't stop in this point because I saw photos of you and it seems like you dress ok for the Weather here. We definitely won't be helding formal and social events, so formal dressing shouldn't be necessary.

5. Transport Information

Airport taxes should be payed (this should be included in the ticket price) and we should arrange transportation from the Airport. Just FYI, Airport Taxes surround 40$ and the Taxi Fees surround 30$. We should cover this.

A single use Subway ride costs 350 Bolívares, which is like 0,16 USD, even less EUR. A 10-ride ticket costs 1,60 USD. The Metro de Caracas is clean, fast and good. This should be a main transportation medium for moving between the WSF venues (in case some of you are interested in visiting other events, which is valid).

The bus system is slow and is generally of lesser quality, yet it's very pithoresque, and you can arrive virtually anywhere just hopping on/off buses. There's no bus numeration. Buses have a "copete", a colored top in the front of the unit with a color and all the destinations and stops posted in the front window.

You can hop in / hop off almost anywhere, if there's no traffic obstruction. You can stop a bus making signals like if it were a taxi. If you prefer, you can wait in a stop, which is easily recognizable because it's... a bus stop. You should ask people around what bus to take to arrive to a certain place.

A bus ride is 600 Bolivares worth, around 0,27USD (yes! more expensive than the subway) and you should pay it in coins or with a 1000 bolívares bill. Cabs are around anywhere, you can identify them because they're white with yellow and black squares in a stripe, and a yellow plate.

There're Line Taxies, which have identifications of their line all around (Servitaxis, Centrataxis, etc.) with their phone number, Mall Taxies (which have a big announcement in their tops, with the Mall name) and Other Taxies which don't have anything and are generally cheaper.

The smallest taxi ride is 2,50 USD but a normal taxi ride inside Caracas should cost around 5 USD. Taxi drivers can't take foreign currencies, but they usually have change for your high denomination bills.

6. Security

Carry a copy of your passport with you, because military or police can ask you for it anywhere. Since you're probably going to be with one of us, and there's gonna be lots of foreigners in Caracas, please keep a copy with you and leave your passport at the room, where it's ok. But yes, not likely European Countries, you have to carry a Photo ID here all the time.

Sometimes you can find a corrupt officer (most likely a Police Officer) and this is just an indication FYI, you don't have to be afraid of anything, just ready. If your bag is solicited for an in-place inspection (which is legal in Venezuela) you should be very careful and keep an eye on the bag all the time. You should figure out why.

Walking at night around the venues should be OK. Caracas is a big city and it has poverty and crime, like other big cities. Things you should be aware of: subway is secure, yet you'll find pickpockets there. The bus are less secure at night, but in the day it's OK. Taxies are OK as long as they look good (I know this seems like an stereotype, but it works like that).

When walking, watch your back. If you're being followed, go to a bright place, stop a taxi, get a bus, enter the subway, enter a store or give half turn and start walking the opposite direction and check. These are just techniques to take in mind. People who lives in Caracas usually isn't afraid when walking, or living in this beautiful City.

In the east side of the city there're several parts where you can walk late night, specially Chacao and Altamira. And of course you can stay at Mall's, Cinema, and Nightclubs as long as you can without problems (stay away from Western-style looking bars, they usually end their nights with a fight, Western-style)

7. Communications

GSM/GPRS service is available in the whole city, provided by Digitel TIM (734-02). Those of you with a GSM-enabled phone can just roam into 734-02 network (as soon as you turn on your phone you'll receive spanish messages with the information of use) if you don't have a prepaid plan and your network has agreements with TIM (most likely)

If you have a CDMA/TDMA/CDMA20001X phone in a network which happens to have agreements with Movistar or Movilnet, you'll have service here too. If you don't you can buy a SIM card for your cellphone here to be communicated inside the Country. It will cost around 20 USD with some prepaid money inside of it.

Communication Centers, Internet Points and Public Phones are everywhere. We venezuelans are technophiles by nature. You can call home cheap (if IP-Phone doesn't satisfies you, which is bad) from a Communication Center, and even from a stand in the street. Costs are ridiculous, like a quarter of USD or even less for a minute to Spain/France.

Int'l code for Venezuela is 58, Local Area Code for Caracas is 212.

8. Timezone

It's UTC-0400, America/Caracas. Calling 119 from a phone in Venezuela will tell you the hour (synchronized with a clock-to-voice atomic clock in the Cajigal Observatory) Any GSM phone synchronizes the time and date with the network.

Days here starts at 7:00 AM and ends at 7:00 PM. Variations in dawn and dusk surrounds just 1 hour. We have really longs days. People in Venezuela are used to wake up early (4 AM, 5 AM) to get to their jobs on time, and highways in Caracas usually get long queues until 11 PM.

9. Language

Venezuelans speaks Spanish. A special government program is achieving 100% literacy in the Country. A small percentage of the population can speak/read/listen English, and a smaller percentage can speak French.

I can speak and understand English well, Sandra and Eduardo can read it but not write it nor talk it. Police and military can't talk english either, neither do bus drivers nor subway controllers.

Away from Caracas, in the Western side of the Venezuela and the Southern side (frontiers with Colombia and Brazil) lots of population speaks native languages. They're also into government programs to achieve literacy in their idiom (not in Spanish, they're not asked to learn Spanish, they have schools and education in their own languages)

Venezuelans can't speak Klingon.

More information (stats and so on) is available from the CIA] which definitely knows more than I do (yet all their base are belong to us)

I will be glad to clarify any further information you have about Venezuela or anything I said here. One of my personal projects is to build a collaborative database of Venezuela Travel Info from the inside with useful, up-to-date information, and I'm starting with this.

-- Jose