Venezuelans have to work hard, but they also like to play hard, and take advantage of every opportunity to spend time with family and friends. Social and gregarious by nature, they prefer to spend their free time together, and the hot climate means that the parks are always full on weekends with children’s parties and picnics and the beaches packed whenever there’s a long weekend. Food plays a big part in social life, and everyone is a master at setting up a barbecue in an instant, or putting a big pot on to boil for a fish or chicken soup. For those days when there’s nothing better to do, they’re happy to head off to a shopping mall and spend the day window-shopping, snacking, and people watching.
Venezuelans make the most of the tropical fruits and vegetables available to them, the grass-fed beef of Los Llanos, and the tasty tropical fish and seafood from the Caribbean. Food is also a reflection of the country’s history, combining gastronomic elements from the indigenous inhabitants, the flavors of Spain and Africa brought over during colonial times, and the more recent tastes of Italy brought by immigrants after the Second Word War.
The most distinctive local dish is the arepa, a corn-dough disk that is baked or fried, opened up like a pocket, and filled with grated cheese or other ingredients. Until the 1960s the process of shucking the corn kernels, grinding the corn by hand in a wooden pilon, and then preparing the dough made it difficult to mass-produce arepas, which were mainly consumed in the home. The arrival of precooked harina (flour) in 1960, however, sparked a boom in areperas (arepa bars) offering a large selection of fillings (see this page). These are popular breakfast and lunch spots, and also get busy late at night with clubbers looking for a snack to soak up the booze.
Just as popular are cachapas. These are pancakes made from ground and grated corn, cooked on a flat griddle, and served with a slather of margarine and a slice of queso de mano, a soft white cheese.
They are often sold in the street, and are a staple at the Creole-style restaurants that serve pabellon criollo (see this page) and arepas.
Along the coast and in the main cities, there is a large choice of Caribbean fish such as pargo (red snapper), mero (grouper), and carite (kingfish), usually served with tostones (fried plantains), rice, and a simple salad of grated carrot and tomatoes. The Andean state of Mérida has excellent trucha (trout).
Restaurants playing music from Los Llanos—with an obligatory cows’ head on the wall for that rustic feel—specialize in parilla (barbecued food), serving up large steaks, chicken, chorizo (sausages), and morcilla (black pudding) with side orders of fried yuca (cassava). Carne en vara is beef cooked on a stick over an open fire. Try the guasacaca, a runnier version of Mexico’s famous guacamole sauce, made with avocado, parsley, coriander, and bell pepper.
Mondongo (cow tripe and heel soup) is filled with thick root vegetables like ñame (yam) and ocumo (taro), and is believed to work miracles on a hangover. Other hearty soups are auyama (pumpkin), lenteja (lentil), and sancocho, a combination of cassava, plantain, potatoes, corn cobs, peppers, and coriander boiled up with chicken, beef, or fish. Cruzao is a sancocho with two or more meats.
In most towns and cities you will find street stands selling empanadas (fried corn-dough turnovers) filled with cheese, beef, or chicken. Empanadas of cazón (baby shark) are popular at the beach. These are excellent snacks to stave off hunger between meals.
The local panadería (bakery) is useful for much more than bread. It’s the best place to get your coffee in the morning, and they serve juices and snacks like savory pastelitos (pastry turnovers filled with meat or cheese), cachitos (soft pastry half-moons filled with chopped ham and served hot or cold), sandwiches, sweet pastries, and golfeados (cakes).
Venezuelans have a sweet tooth and enjoy desserts like quesillo (crème caramel), torta de jojoto (corn cake), the sticky dulce de lechoza (green papaya boiled up with brown sugar) and dulce de guayaba (sticky guava), and bienmesabe (sponge cake soaked in liquor and topped with coconut cream).
The emblematic dish of the Andes is Pisca Andina, a soup made with potatoes, milk, and coriander. Trout is another local staple, with trout farms producing a ready supply of this delicious freshwater fish. Andean arepas are made from wheat flour rather than corn.
In the arid deserts of Lara State, goats are the only livestock that prosper, and chivo al coco (goat in coconut) is a regional delicacy. In Zulia they prefer conejo en coco (rabbit in coconut), and prepare iguana in a similar manner.
Lau-lau (catfish) is fished from the Rio Orinoco and served up all year-round in Ciudad Bolívar, while another local fish, the sapoara, is eaten only in August at a festival in its honor.
In Amazonas State, indigenous tribes make a spicy sauce from ants called katara, which is eaten with casabe (flat disks of cassava bread). In the Gran Sabana, indigenous people from the Pémon tribe make a similar sauce but add termites for a crunchier texture.
The small mountain town of Colonia Tovar, a few hours’ drive from Caracas, continues traditions brought by nineteenth-century German settlers from the Black Forest. Weekenders now make the drive to the high, cool valley to enjoy plates of pork knuckles, bratwurst, and sauerkraut, finishing off with locally grown strawberries and cream.
Pabellon criollo is, without doubt, Venezuela’s national dish. The name means “Creole flag” because of the colors of the ingredients, although for some it represents the mixture of races that has made Venezuela a country of beauty queens. The main ingredients are carne mechada (shredded beef), arroz blanco (white rice), caraotas negras (black beans) and tajadas (fried plantains). It is generally served with a few arepas, a slice of avocado, and salty white cheese grated over the black beans. If you order it a caballo (on horseback), it comes with a fried egg on top. Along the coast and on the island of Margarita the shredded beef is often replaced with cazón (baby shark).
The most exotic version of the pabellon is served during the Catholic fasting period of Lent when you may find chiguire (capybara) meat instead of beef. For some reason in colonial times the Catholic Church classified this giant rodent from the Llanos as a fish. Odd, but true!
Venezuelans will not leave a generous tip unless they feel the service they have received is particularly good, but will generally leave a few coins from the change or a BsF 20 bill rather than nothing. Generally, the more expensive and fancy the restaurant, the more likely a Venezuelan is to tip. There is no set amount or percentage for tips, and a 10 percent service charge is already included in the bill in restaurants. If you do receive good service and you want the waiter to remember you next time, tip 5 to 10 percent of the bill.
In hotels it is customary to tip porters the equivalent of a few US dollars. Tour guides should generally receive a tip, especially in remote areas where locals receive very little in the way of remuneration for their work. Tipping them is a good way to inject money directly into poor areas and show the benefits of tourism.
It is not typical to tip taxi drivers, but if you have hired a driver for a few days you may want to reward him with a small token of your appreciation.
Most Venezuelans can only afford to eat out on paydays, which are every two weeks, so restaurants can get very busy on a payday Friday. For those with money in Caracas, there are a great many chic restaurants to choose from, options ranging from French, Italian, Thai, Peruvian, and Japanese, to every form of fusion food you can imagine. The main areas for elegant dining in Caracas are in Altamira and La Castellana, but Las Mercedes has many good restaurants and the upscale shopping malls in big towns and cities all have a variety of restaurants, bars, and nightclubs.
| ORDERING AREPAS |
| Aguacate – Avocado |
| Aguita ’e Sapo (lit. “Frog Water” – don’t let the name put |
| you off) – roast pork in its juice, served with fried cheese. |
| Found almost exclusively in Maracaibo |
| Caraotas negras – Black beans |
| Carne mechada – Shredded beef |
| Chicharrón – Fried pork rinds |
| Chorizo – Spicy sausage |
| Diablitos – Deviled ham |
| Domino – Black beans and grated white cheese |
| Ensalada de Gallina – Chicken salad |
| Montaña Rusa (lit. Russian Mountain, a roller-coaster ride) – Quail’s eggs in mayonnaise |
| Morcilla – Black pudding |
| Orejas de Cochino – Pigs’ ears in sauce |
| Pata-pata – Beans, yellow cheese, avocado |
| Pelua – Shredded beef, grated yellow cheese |
| Perico – Scrambled eggs, chopped tomato, onion |
| Pernil – Roast pork |
| Pollo guisado – Chicken cooked in a sauce |
| Queso de mano – Soft white country cheese |
| Queso Guayanes – Soft white cheese |
| Reina Pepiada – Chicken, avocado, mayonnaise, and peas |
| Sifrina – A Reina Pepiada with grated yellow cheese |
For those with less cash there are the usual food franchises like McDonald’s and other US restaurant chains, as well as pizza parlors, restaurants specializing in spit-roasted chickens, Arabic places, Spanish tascas, and parilla places selling Creole food.
There is no culinary experience more Venezuelan than eating arepas at an arepera, especially if you drizzle them with guasacaca (avocado sauce) and picante (hot sauce). You can go for a simple filling such as jamon (ham) or queso (cheese), but for the more ambitious there is plenty of variety.
One benefit of being in the tropics is the abundance of exotic fruits available. Freshly squeezed juices of naranja (orange) are called jugos, and juices made with water and liquidized fruit are called batidos. Typical flavors available at restaurants include lechosa (papaya), parchita (passion fruit), patilla (watermelon), piña (pineapple), fresa (strawberry), mango, and the tres-en-uno (three in one), a healthy combination of carrot, orange juice, and remolacha (beetroot). These can be very sweet, as sugar is added with the ice before liquidizing, so ask for a “batido sin azúcar” if you don’t want to blow all your cash on dental bills. Milkshakes made with fresh fruit are called merengadas.
Fruit drinks sold in cartons in supermarkets and bakeries are heavily sweetened, as are chocolate milk drinks and the local chicha, a mix of milk and rice.
Water is not safe to drink from the tap, so you can drink filtered water, which some restaurants provide, or buy bottles, which are available from bakeries, supermarkets, and corner shops.
Venezuelans are big beer consumers, earning a well-deserved reputation as the Irish of South America. An ice-cold cerveza is seen as the best way to chill out after a hard day at work, and a range of lagers can be bought at liquor stores, supermarkets, and little hole-in-the-wall corner shops in poor neighborhoods. The leading beer company is Polar, a family firm that enjoyed a virtual monopoly of beer sales until the 1990s. Their polar bear brand is everywhere, and top sellers include Polar Ice, Polar Light, and Solera. Posters for the beer usually feature bikini-clad lovelies sipping a cold brew. Other beers are Brahma, Regional, and Zulia, and all are good-quality Pilsner lagers. You seldom find foreign beers in liquor stores, but some international hotel chains stock them.
Also good quality and good value are Venezuela’s superb rums. They have to be aged for four years before they can be sold as rum, so even cheaper brands will taste good and be great for making cocktails. Top brands include Cacique, Santa Teresa, Diplomatico, and Pampero. Specially prized are Pampero Aniversario, which comes in a leather pouch, and Santa Teresa 1796.
Surprisingly, Venezuelans prefer whiskey to rum, and at one time were drinking more whiskey per capita than the Japanese. Don’t buy a Venezuelan friend a cheap bottle of whiskey, or even an excellent single malt, as they favor Johnnie Walker Black Label and Chivas Regal over other brands. One unusual Venezuelan habit you might notice is the popularity of drinking whiskey at the beach mixed with ice and coconut water.
HOW DO YOU LIKE YOUR COFFEE?
Venezuela produces excellent Arabica coffee beans, and Venezuelans love to have morning coffee at a panadería (bakery) or café. Equipped with Gaggia machines, panaderías serve up coffee in two sizes: café grande (large) and café pequeño (small), equivalent to an espresso.
• A café negro grande (large black) is strong enough to give you the caffeine shakes.
• The oddly named guayoyo is black coffee that has been slightly watered down.
• For coffee with milk order a con leche grande.
• If you want an extra-milky coffee order a tetero grande (a tetero is a baby’s bottle).
• For strong coffee with less milk ask for a marron grande or an even stronger marron oscuro grande. To make it extra strong, add the word fuerte at the end of your order.
• A marron claro grande, which some Venezuelans order, is basically a con leche grande by another name.
• For coffee with an extra kick order a carajillo, black with a shot of brandy, or a café bautizado, laced with rum.
Wine doesn’t have much of a market outside the main cities, and most Venezuelans will use cheap Spanish table wine for cooking rather than drinking. The only local wine producer is Bodegas Pomar, a subsidiary of Polar, which produces a very decent range from its vineyards in Carora, Lara State.
Another local brew is the supersweet cocktail of passion-fruit juice, sugar, and aguardiente (raw cane alcohol) called guarapita. Sold at beach resorts like Choroni and Chuao along the central coast, it is guaranteed to get you in the mood for dancing to the local Afro-Venezuelan tambores (drums).
Venezuelans have a reputation for being party people. They love to dance, at home with friends or out at bars and nightclubs.
With street crime an issue nowadays, many Venezuelans will go to bars and clubs in the large shopping malls, where they feel safer, but in poorer areas, where everybody knows their neighbors, you will still find people sitting outside their houses drinking and chatting or going from house to house to hang out with friends.
There are plenty of options to choose from if you want a night out in the big cities. Caracas has a host of nightspots for every pocket, from sweaty salsa clubs like El Mani Es Así to chic joints playing electronica. The Centro San Ignacio shopping mall in La Castellana is where you find the smart set, and prices to match, at laid-back joints like Sukabar. The 360 Rooftop Bar on the nineteenth floor of the Altamira Suites is a popular spot for sipping mojitos and enjoying panoramic views over the city, and the nearby Ávila Lounge Bar in the Pestana Hotel offers similarly chic surroundings.
You don’t have to wear a suit and tie at these places—smart casual will generally do—but the dress code in Caracas is quite conservative, and people are turned away from some of the smart clubs, bars, and restaurants if the doorman considers they are not appropriately dressed.
Caracas also has a vibrant live music scene, with rock and indie acts playing clubs like Teatro Bar and the tiny Puto Bar and jazz acts playing the Juan Sebastian Bar, which is a veritable institution.
The university city of Mérida, with its large student population, also has great nightlife, with a circuit of cheap bars playing music in the center and shiny discos in modern shopping malls.
Venezuela’s sports are dominated by beisbol, which was brought to the country by US engineers working in the oil camps in the 1950s and adopted as a local religion. Games between the top rival teams, Los Leones de Caracas, and Los Navegantes del Magallanes, are major events, with fans so loyal that it can cause divisions in families. When the Caracas and Magallanes meet, the atmosphere at the stadium is like a huge party, with men and women dressed in their team colors quaffing beer and cheering wildly throughout the game.
Everything stops for a major baseball game. President Chávez, a huge baseball fan and a promising player in his youth, would never interrupt a game with one of his marathon speeches. He once joked that supporters of his team, Magallanes, would make good wives, because they stay loyal.
Many Venezuelan players have gone on to play Major League Baseball in the USA, including Luis Aparicio, Omar Vizquel, Andrés Galarraga, and Johan Santana. The Washington Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos made international headlines for all the wrong reasons in November 2011, when he was kidnapped near his home in Valencia, Venezuela, and held for two days before being rescued. The incident highlighted the country’s serious crime problem.
Compared to other South American nations, football (soccer) is nowhere near as popular as baseball and basketball, but it is rapidly building a following and the national team La Vinotinto (The Burgundy) have beaten some top regional teams in recent qualifiers. Venezuela has never played at the World Cup, but the dream is getting closer.
Most large shopping malls have multiplex cinemas that show all the latest Hollywood movies with subtitles in Spanish. Art house movies are shown at specialist cinemas like the Transnocho in Las Mercedes, Caracas.
A recent initiative to boost local movie production, La Villa de Cine, has sponsored several historic dramas about independence heroes and the acclaimed Postales de Leningrado, a magical realist tale of a group of guerrillas in the 1960s, directed by Mariana Rondon. The biggest movie to come out of Venezuela in recent years is Secuestro Express, directed by Jonathan Jakubowicz. The Tarantino-style black comedy stars Edgar Ramirez, a Venezuelan actor who has had international success in The Bourne Ultimatum and starred as Carlos the Jackal in a French film about the Venezuelan terrorist’s turbulent life.
The most famous Venezuelan actress in Hollywood is the ex-supermodel Patricia Velásquez, who comes from Zulia and has Wayuu indigenous roots. She had a starring role in The Mummy movies, appeared in the US TV Ugly Betty series, and recently starred in Cenizas Eternas (Eternal Ashes), a film about the Yanomami Indians.
The most popular movie to feature Venezuela as a backdrop is the Oscar-winning Pixar-Disney cartoon Up! about a grumpy old man who travels to Roraima and Angel Falls in a house carried aloft by balloons.
Caracas has a number of very good private art galleries and museums, including the Museo de Bellas Artes, the Galería de Arte Nacional, and the Contemporary Arts Museum, which owns works by international artists such as Picasso, Miró, and Botero.
The most famous modern Venezuelan painter is Armando Reverón (1889–1954), who lived as a Robinson Crusoe hermit with his maid Juanita in a stone and bamboo house he built himself near Macuto. Reverón tried to capture the blinding tropical light of the coast in expressionist works painted in shades of white.
Other artists include the nineteenth-century master Arturo Michelena (1863–98), who painted an iconic image of independence hero Francisco de Miranda languishing in a Spanish jail. Modern artists of note include kinetic artist Jesús Rafael Soto (1923–2005), who has a museum of his work in Ciudad Bolívar, and his contemporary Carlos Cruz-Diez (1923– ), whose monumental kinetic works are found on the Caracas Metro.
Theater, ballet, and opera companies put on well-attended shows at the very modern Teresa Carreño cultural center in Caracas, and an International Theater Festival in April–May brings international groups to enrich the city’s rich cultural life.
Venezuela throbs with music, and everywhere you go you hear salsa, merengue, and reggaeton. The most surprising musical phenomenon in the country, however, is the profusion of classical orchestras and the quality of music being played.
There are thirty-plus symphony orchestras and more than 125 youth orchestras in Venezuela, all thanks to a foundation started in 1975 by economist José Antonio Abreu called El Sistema, which teaches music to some 250,000 children, the vast majority of them from the poorest homes. The biggest star to emerge from El Sistema is the conductor Gustavo Dudamel. He started his career with the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra and has become one of the hottest properties in classical music, constantly shuttling between Sweden and the USA as lead conductor of the Gothenberg Symphony Orchestra and musical director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Salsa star Oscar D’Leon, the Lion King of salsa, is another homegrown hero who constantly tours the world. Other musical talents are the Latin Grammy-winning tropical-pop-rock group Los Amigos Invisibles, veteran ska group Desorden Publico, and upcoming art rock band La Vida Boheme.
Dressing up in new clothes, wearing designer labels, and having the latest gadgets are all part of the Venezuelan lifestyle, and shiny shopping malls have sprung up to cater to every need in Barquisimeto, Mérida, Maracaibo, and Porlamar on Margarita.
The Sambil shopping mall in Caracas is one of the largest in South America, housing more than five hundred shops, banks, and pharmacies. People spend the whole day there, shopping, window-shopping, getting their hair cut, and showing off their new outfits. For kids, there is an aquarium and fun park; for adults there are fast-food outlets, cinemas, and bars. With virtually everything imported, prices are generally higher than in the USA.
Foreigners looking for souvenirs in Caracas should head to Hannsi in El Hatillo, a treasure trove of folk art from around the country. Coffee beans, sipping rums, and indigenous handicrafts also make great gifts.
In rural areas, head for the colorful street markets that sell local goods and regional foods. In Puerto Ayacucho the indigenous market sells beads made from jungle seeds, bows and arrows, and spicy sauces made from termites and ants.
With Caribbean beaches just an hour away from Caracas, it’s tempting to adopt a Florida-style approach in the street and wear shorts, but it’s worth noting that this is not considered appropriate attire for entering banks and other offices, and you could be barred entry by the security guard—a time-consuming delay that is best avoided.
Venezuela is so vast and has so many spectacular tourist spots that it is impossible to see them all in a short visit. Here are a few must-see attractions.
The most iconic natural wonder of Venezuela is the highest waterfall in the world, Salto Ángel (Angel Falls), a single cascade of water that plunges 3,212 feet (979 m) down a sheer rock face. The base of the falls can be reached only by dugout canoe from the landing strip at Canaima, which has helped to preserve the pristine forests surrounding it.
Margarita Island is a typical Caribbean resort destination, with a different beach to visit each day, clubs, casinos, and world-class windsurfing at El Yaque.
Bird-watchers head to the seasonally flooded cattle plains of Los Llanos to see waders and birds of prey, but are equally impressed by herds of capybara and rivers teeming with snappy piranhas and caimans.
The Andean valleys around Mérida make for great hiking, but you can also paraglide, mountain bike, and go white-water rafting as the area earns a name as the adventure sports capital of Venezuela. Rising high above the city are the craggy peaks of the Sierra Nevada and Venezuela’s highest point, Pico Bolívar, at 16,342 ft (4981 m). It has the world’s highest cable car, which is currently undergoing a major refurbishment but is expected to be operating again soon.
The artistic and cultural capital of Venezuela has plenty to offer in terms of sophisticated nights out, great restaurants, interesting museums, and historic monuments. Fear of crime limits visitors to the safer east of the city.
Just forty minutes in a light aircraft from Maiquetia airport is this Caribbean paradise of tiny coral sand islands surrounded by warm, crystalline waters. Honeymooners bask in the waters and relax, families snorkel, adrenaline junkies dive or kitesurf, while sport fisherman fly in from around the world to enjoy first-class bonefishing.
Hikers can’t get enough of the six-day trek from Santa Elena to the summit of Roraima, the mountain that inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to write his adventure book The Lost World. The highest of the towering tepuis (table mountains) that make the topography of the Gran Sabana region so memorable, Roraima is an eerie place of labyrinths of ancient sandstone, carnivorous plants, and hopless prehistoric toads.
