Yesterday afternoon I was watching Chavez giving a speech on TV. He does it every Sunday and sometimes during the week too, when he feels he wants to talk. Apparently he can talk for many hours without eating and what he talks about is insincere (I was told).
Then Neo invited me to Santa Rita; to get there we had to cross a very long bridge (9 km) called General Rafael Urdaneta bridge. Santa Rita is a lovely town, we had some local food there.
In the evening we went to the Vereda del Lago park (the most important park in the city where a lot of concerts and sport activities take place): Neo, Zoe, their mum, nephew and I. I did aerobic class with the mum and a dance therapy class with Zoe. The aerobic class was quite boring but the dance class was ok (although with no lambada!!).
Today I met Jose' for a drink, I did a yoga class in La Estancia and then we went again to see a French film with Spanish subtitles "Asessinas" (good film). After that Zoe picked me up with a friend who owns a music studio and rents it to bands so we went there to listen to some rock music. We also had great conversations in the studio. For example (I will never forget this conversation) we talked about the culture of "machismo" in South America and Zoe's friend said that it is all mothers' fault. When their sons are little, they ask them: how many girlfriends do you have? - and if the child says five for example everyone is laughing and is happy. The boys grow up convinced that having five girlfriends is something positive and socially accepted. So it is actually not men but women who created machismo...
Machismo
Neo has been working all day today as he works in an oil well in the middle of the Maracaibo lake and he does 24-hour shifts.
I have been so busy in Maracaibo... thanks to these wonderful Couch Surfers: Neo, Zoe, Jose', Luis, Lilly and Juan.

Tomorrow I am leaving to Colombia, to a small seaside town called Santa Marta.
Do I like Venezuela? - yes, very much!!
What do I think about the places I visited? - the three cities are very different.
Caracas: very beautiful and clean (I think the most beautiful city I have seen so far - beauty in a complex meaning), with many good salsa clubs.
Merida: small and boring unless you want to hike all the time as the mountains are very nice, kind of Lake District in North West England.
Maracaibo: there are beautiful places here but there is also a lot of rubbish in the streets.
I like people living in Venezuela and surprisingly I have felt very safe (comparing to Brazil). What I don't like in the country is that there are many great projects that have been started some time ago and never finished, or that there is so much potential in the country but nothing is done about it. For example: in Caracas renovation of the hotel on the Avila Mountain, in Merida repair of the cable car system, in Maracaibo many places where they started building something nice for the people (like a library or Parque La Marina) and they never finished the project.

I have spent 300 pounds in three weeks in Venezuela. I would have spent about 70 pounds less if I had brought more dollars and exchanged them on the black market. Do not make the same mistake I made.
I spent the money on travel between cities (43 pounds), public transport, food, occassional taxis and restaurants and it also includes my trip to Santa Marta in Colombia (30 pounds). Again, there is no accomodation cost.