Sept 10 – Saturday

Tried to get $ exchanged for Bolivars at the hotel, no luck, but the clerk told me I might want to check out a shopping mall close by at Centro Sambil, which is located in the Zona Estado Leal.   It turned out to be a HUGE mall with 4 stories of shops and many banks.  Unfortunately ALL  their ATMs would not accept either by debit card, or my credit card and none of them could exchange hard currency because it was Saturday !  and I still would only get half the true value, but I was getting desperate.   I even tried going into some stores to see if they would exchange hard currency (since some of them  will let you pay for items with US $;  but no luck there either.  I spotted a travel agency and went in to either purchase an airline ticket to Columbia, or see if I could book a tour to Angel Falls.   There were already people waiting in line and  two of them were Americans and we started chatting about the difficulties of obtaining Bolivars.  Turns out they have been working in Venezuela for a number of months.  When I explained my dilemma, they both offered to  exchange some money for me and pulled out a wad of cash from their pockets ! ! !   So nice of them to exchange my last $100 US  for  $800 Bolivars.  They also said that Venezuelans get a 10 to 1 exchange when they convert it back.  So why the reluctance for Venezuelans to exchange funds ?   Because it is against the law for them to do so.    Bottom line is that I now have enough money to eat !  

Presidente Chavez is one weird character.    In the news before leaving Canada I had heard that Chavez was undergoing cancer treatments.  News Flash:   Everyone I have spoken to about this (Venezuelans) do not believe that he is really sick.  They think it’s a political ploy to get pity votes at the next elections.

It was taking the travel agent ages to get anything done, there were 2 other clients ahead of me, so I decided to go get something to eat instead.  Ended up walking back to the area near my hotel and called it a day.  I spotted a travel agency closer to my hotel, so I’ll go there on Monday to book a flight to Colombia and try again to see if there is any possibility of going to Angel Falls (Will have to be all inclusive paid with my Visa card).