Trip to post-Maduro Venezuela: water cuts, soaring prices and miserable salaries

Special correspondent in CaracasThe direct flight connecting Madrid with Caracas was half empty days ago, and it can be said that the majority of those traveling were Venezuelans. It was easy to distinguish them by their peculiar Latin accent and because, upon arriving at Simón Bolívar International Airport, they waited their turn to go through immigration control with their Venezuelan passport in hand. “Immigration,” read a sign at the counter written in four languages: English, Russian, Chinese, and another with Arabic script. In that order. A good metaphor for Venezuela's disparate international allies after the United States "extracted" Nicolás Maduro from the country on January 3rd.This is how Venezuelans refer to the arrest of the former president of Venezuela and his wife, Cilia Flores. That is, as if it were a rotten tooth that needed to be pulled, even if it meant disregarding national sovereignty and international law.

Despite the arrest, Maduro remains omnipresent in Venezuela. His portrait, that of Hugo Chávez, and that of Simón Bolívar are everywhere. "Public works. We work for you," reads a sign with a huge photo of a smiling Maduro placed on a street in Caracas where several workers are digging a trench in the road, even though

the former president is now in a prison in New York, thousands of kilometers away, accused of drug trafficking and firearms-related offenses.

The Venezuelan government has also installed institutional billboards in the capital with an image of Maduro and his wife embracing, with the following text: "We want them back. #FreeMaduro #FreeCilia." The latter words written in English, so that whoever needs to understand gets the message. But do Venezuelans really want Maduro back?

The first thing that catches the eye when you arrive in Venezuela is that everything is very expensive, especially food. Many prices are as high as in Spain or even more. Some examples: a liter of milk costs 2.8 dollars (2.4 euros); a dozen eggs, 3.75 dollars (3.2 euros), and a loaf of sliced bread, 1.9 (1.6). Prices are usually indicated in dollars, but most payments are made in bolivars.

Dollar to bolivar exchange rate

To know how much to pay, all establishments have a government poster hanging next to the cash register that indicates the exchange rate from dollars to bolivars. An exchange rate that, by the way, varies every day. When this journalist arrived in Venezuela two weeks ago, one dollar was equivalent to 517 bolivars, according to the official exchange rate of the Central Bank of Venezuela. This Friday it had already climbed to 549. The Venezuelan currency is in free fall and the accumulated inflation for the first quarter of the year in the country was 71.8%.

But to complicate matters even further, there is another exchange rate, the so-called parallel or free market rate, which is much higher and is calculated from operations with cryptoassets, according to the Venezuelan economist Luis Vicente León, president of the market research company Datanálisis. The difference between the two is up to 30%. That is, if this Friday the dollar was equivalent to 549 bolivars according to the official exchange rate, the parallel rate was 687.

“Pants, 10 dollars, 6,500 bolivars”, read a sign in a clothing store on Sabana Grande Boulevard in Caracas days ago. That is to say, the cost is calculated from the parallel exchange rate, but the customer has to pay according to the official exchange rate. A real mess. Shops also accept payments in dollars and, in fact, prefer it because, with the current situation, no one wants to have bolivars. "My niece has bought a motorcycle. If she paid in bolivars, it cost her 1,700 dollars. On the other hand, if she paid in dollars, 1,200," explains Rosa García, 62, who works as a live-in carer and, like most Venezuelans, struggles to make ends meet. In this case, the most complicated thing was getting dollars, because salaries in Venezuela are paid in bolivars.

Despite the unstoppable devaluation of the currency, the minimum wage has remained frozen since 2022 and is only 130 bolivars per month, about 30 cents of a dollar. A real misery. To compensate for such low pay, the government forces companies to pay their workers what they call a "war [economic] bonus” of 200 dollars, and another 40 dollars for food. The problem is that these bonuses do not count towards retirement pensions, nor towards any social benefit. Nor are they sufficient to cover basic needs.

The million-dollar question

So, how do Venezuelans survive? A small business owner who prefers to remain anonymous answers this question as follows: "By having two or more jobs, or with remittances from their relatives abroad. And logically, several family members work in all households." In short, the economy is maintained by a thread and has been dragging on like this for years. The lifting of sanctions and the opening of new businesses in recent months have not yet translated into economic improvements. "A person doesn't go from being in the ICU to running the Boston Marathon," clarifies economist Luis Vicente León. In other words, it takes time, but people can't take it anymore, they're fed up. There are protests in the streets every now and then.

It's not just salaries and prices, but there are also many other problems. Another thing that surprises you when you arrive in Venezuela is that there is no water 24 hours a day. It doesn't matter where you live. Restrictions are for everyone. Only those with a high purchasing power who can afford to build a well have a guaranteed supply. The rest of the population has to ration water. Therefore, on most rooftops or in residential condominiums, there are large plastic tanks to store water for days when there is no supply, which is most of the time after years of lack of maintenance and investment in infrastructure.

For example, in a select urbanization of residential blocks in the Parque Caiza area, east of Caracas, there is only water for four or five hours on alternate days. The day there is no supply, neighbors use the water stored in the communal tank, but since it is limited, they are also forced to ration it: that day they only have water for an hour. Nevertheless, they can consider themselves privileged. In other parts of the capital and the rest of the country, there is only water once every fifteen days or once a month, and people have to resort to water trucks. Therefore, in any house you visit in Venezuela, you will find basins, drums, or buckets with stored water in the bathroom.

On top of all this, there are power outages. In Caracas, there is electricity 24 hours a day, but it is an exception, a showpiece that has nothing to do with the reality of the rest of the country, where outages are usually daily and can last from four to eight hours. Who can endure all this?

The US Embassy

What has changed after the arrest of Nicolás Maduro is that the United States embassy in Caracas has reopened after years of being inoperative. It is in a diplomatic area located on the hill of Valle Arriba, where the capital can be seen almost as if from a bird's-eye view. As if that were not enough, on May 23, two American military aircraft were flying over Caracas for a good part of the morning because the embassy justified that it was carrying out an evacuation drill in case of emergency, for which the Venezuelan government, surprisingly, gave its approval. Something unthinkable just five months ago. In fact, the day before, the Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs himself, Yván Gil, made an institutional statement to warn citizens not to be alarmed by the presence of United States aircraft flying over the capital. The supposed drill did not cause alarm, but it did generate all sorts of conjectures. "They were possibly scanning the city from the sky," many commented.

While Americans arrive, many Cubans are leaving. "The Cuban doctors who had been in Venezuela the longest or those who were on vacation have left," says a doctor of this nationality who prefers to remain anonymous and works in one of the many comprehensive health centers that Chávez opened in popular neighborhoods. However, he denies that they have all left. He himself is still there and plans to stay for another full year. The center is almost deserted, with hardly any patients. On the other hand, there are three large portraits of Simón Bolívar, Chávez, and Maduro in the reception.

In fact, in Caracas it is possible to find truly surreal things. Although the United States is now an ally, there is a square in the capital dedicated to Russia and the victory of the Red Army over Nazism, with a monument, a red flag with a hammer and sickle, and a giant screen to commemorate the anniversary. Likewise, the best-selling car in Venezuela continues to be a Chinese-made one, the Jac Arena, as explained by Yoselin, a saleswoman at a Caracas dealership.

Moreover, there are still those who define themselves as Chavistas to the core and, by extension, unconditional supporters of Maduro, despite everything. This is the case of Carolina Campo, 49, who lives in a working-class neighborhood in Caracas and is in charge of distributing the food bags that the government continues to distribute each month in some poor areas of the city for a symbolic cost of 400 bolivars, less than a dollar. “He also distributes packages with chicken, mortadella, and vegetables for only two dollars, and gives away gas canisters – she says with pride –. Maduro agreed to be detained to avoid bloodshed.” On the other hand, she admits that she doesn't quite understand why the government now allows the United States to rule Venezuela.

Paramilitary groups

"The government gives away gas cylinders, but only to those who support it. If they know you are critical, you have to buy them on the market and that is almost impossible: they are very expensive," assures the owner of a small bar in another popular neighborhood of Caracas, 23 de Enero, considered a historic Chavista bastion. It is characterized by its tall apartment blocks, up to fourteen floors high, which look like beehives. The man speaks while salsa music plays loudly in the background, making conversation difficult. But this way he feels safer. "If they hear me speaking badly of the government, they can close my bar," he says, referring to the colectivos, the armed paramilitary groups loyal to the government who dress in civilian clothes and continue to roam the neighborhood.

"This is a horrible time when you don't know what can be said. Before, at least you knew you couldn't say anything," jokes the Venezuelan comedian José Rafael Briceño from the stage of the Pizpa Comedy Club in Caracas. He has almost 600,000 followers on Instagram and his monologues are a hit because, if one thing characterizes Venezuelans, it's that they know how to laugh at their own miseries. "For now, we can't do political humor, because we don't know what will happen next," he clarifies before starting the show. Currently, uncertainty defines Venezuela.

“According to the Constitution, Delcy Rodríguez could not govern for more than six months, but now everything is relative”, affirms the Venezuelan historian and doctor in social sciences Margarita López Maya. "First, legitimate institutions must be created. Now there are no minimum conditions to hold reasonably democratic elections", she highlights.

For the moment, in Caracas, there is not a single portrait of Delcy Rodríguez in the public space, even though in recent decades Venezuela has been a country very prone to venerating its leaders by placing their photos everywhere. Nor are there portraits of the feared Minister of the Interior, Diosdado Cabello, who is believed to be the one who really pulls the strings of the regime. What has changed is the area of the capital where the acting president lives: there are military personnel deployed on various islands.

A negative image of Maduro

According to a survey conducted jointly by AtlasIntel and Bloomerg this May, 58.7% of those interviewed disapprove of the way Delcy Rodríguez is leading the government. 59% have a negative image of her, but Nicolás Maduro's is even worse: 68% view him unfavorably, according to the report. 57% of those surveyed defend the official dollarization of the Venezuelan economy, but only 32.6% would agree to the country becoming another state of the United States, as Donald Trump insinuated on May 12 on his social network. 60.7% consider that Venezuela's main problem is corruption.

The return flight from Caracas to Madrid, unlike the outbound one, was completely full. There wasn't an empty seat. The majority of those traveling were also Venezuelans. "I'm from a city called Punto Fijo, where there are two of the largest refineries in the world. Despite this, we only have water once a month and, to survive, I had to work selling cakes even though I had studied journalism," explains a woman about 35 years old who is traveling on the plane and who took her studies at the Bolivarian University created by decree by Chávez. However, she confesses, she has grown tired of waiting for change: “In Venezuela, for now, I don't see any future”.