Caracas Chronicles

So, a spell of weekend procrastination took me to Trip Advisor’s Caracas Hotel pages and… well, it really is an excellent way to waste half an hour.

Behold the gringos utterly baffled by multiple exchange rates and the resulting, batshit crazy room rates!

Guffaw at the outright ripoffs!

Marvel at a Brit’s first encounter with chiripas! – “There was no hot water (hardly any water at all) and the bathroom was in a very poor state. We tried complaining however at midnight there was nothing they could do… The worst was still the come: when we turned off the lights out came the tiny cockroaches, they were everywhere!!!!. We hardly slept.”

Keep a running tally of phrases like “this is the worst hotel I’ve ever stayed in”!

Chuckle at the reviewers reaching for dramatic emphasis in their warnings! “Avoid [Residencia Anauco] like you would a wounded rino!!!”

Shudder at the thought of the poor gringo who paid $250 a night (with his gringo credit card!) to stay at Hotel Alba Caracas and soon realized that, on top of the shabby rooms, drab cheap paint, faulty plumbing, old tatty furniture from the sixtys, and poor (expensive) food, he couldn’t actually walk outside after dark!

Quiver in horror at the miserable sods who thought the word “Hilton” or “Intercontinental” on the wall would actually shield them from good old atrocious Caracas-standard service!

A shockingly small number of Hotels acquit themselves honorably from this catalogue of woes. Hotel Avila does ok in the Faded Old Gem category (“A Quiet Oasis in the Middle of Hell”), Altamira Suites has some actual admirers as does Hotel Paseo Las Mercedes, and the shiny new Pestana seems a favorite with the Expense Account crowd. For the most part, though, the city seems over-run with $400 a night 5-star ranchos in the sky.

I suppose a lot of you must have spent some time in Caracas Hotels. Got a favorite horror story? Do share!