Trip Advisor: Caracas

Sounds like a luvly place for a vacation, huh? The start of the season for two premier teams in this baseball-loving nation was thrown into doubt after thieves...

The fashionable district of Las Mercedes...
The fashionable district of Las Mercedes…

Sounds like a luvly place for a vacation, huh?

The start of the season for two premier teams in this baseball-loving nation was thrown into doubt after thieves stripped vast amounts of copper wire from the lights in this city’s main stadium. Basic items are often so hard to find that when a truck driver slumped dead at the wheel after a highway accident last week, motorcycle-riding looters swarmed in to grab the cargo: tons of red meat.

Prices are soaring, the country is plagued by electrical blackouts, some neighborhoods go days without water, and protests tangle the already stifling traffic. To top it all off, the cheap beer that helps people let off steam at many a weekend party has suddenly become scarce, too.