June 16th, 2010
By Dan Miller
Venezuela was once a beautiful but generally laid-back and therefore often relaxing tourist destination. My wife and I spent well over a year there off and on between 1996 and 2001. We enjoyed it so much that we thought of settling there permanently, probably up in the Andes not far from the university city of Merida.
Although much of Venezuela’s beauty remains, many things are different. What follows will, I hope, be seen as an attempt at satire comprised of a mix of disgust, love, despair, and hope. Disgust and despair may have overwhelmed love and hope.
The Venezuelan minister of tourism, Alejandro Fleming, is pushing Venezuela as an ideal vacation destination and he is right. Not only does scenic beauty abound, vacationing there would be instructive in many ways.
Fleming said the Ministry wants to give the industry a socialist twist, a claim that is not entirely new because it was the announced policy of his predecessor, Pedro “Fritz” Morejon, who has since and deservedly disappeared from the radar screen.
The State, the Minister reaffirmed, is running 11 hotels nationally and in June the Venetur chain of hotels, as they are known, will offer package tours after prices have been re-assessed and updated.
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Articles written by Dan Miller
Tags: Hugo Chavez, satire, socialism, tourism, Venezuela
Categories: Humor, News, Politics | Comments (6) | Home
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Dan – Excellent satire 🙂
The fame of el Presidente reaches far and wide. According to this, apparently Taiwanese, site, He has developed a cure for insomnia.
Dan, it’s really too bad what Chavez is doing to Venezuela. I haven’t been there, but I’ve read and often heard what a beautiful, nice country it used to be. Chavez is eventually going to destroy the country, and the final chapter of his reign is likely to be bloody and chaotic. That’s a tragedy.
Tom, Here is a link to a site entitled The Devil’s Excrement, so named because the discovery of oil (the excrement) in Venezuela years ago is seen as bringing on much of the corruption and other problems.
The linked article deals with el Presidente’s absolute rejection of any opinions contrary to his own and characterization of them as “close to a crime.”
It’s very sad, but the beatings will continue until morale improves or Chavez goes away; they may continue even then.
Interesting link, Dan. Thanks. I can already see Chavez apologists like Sean Penn and other numbskulls praising the quality of medical care in Venezuela.
Oliver Stone’s marvelous new motion picture about Venezuela’s great strides forward under el Presidente Chávez hasn’t gone over very well in Venezuela. Variety reports that
Just can’t please some folks.