OK...all horrific housing crap aside, I feel I owe this place a few graphs of a first impression.

I landed late Monday, and descending into Caracas, you have these mountains immediately pressing along the Carribean coast. The mountains are dotted with the lights of the ranchos, or what they call in Brazil favelas, or what they call in Africaaner shantytowns, or what they call in the United States dumps.

At night, when you can't actually, you know, "see" the ranchos - only the scattered dots of light along the cerros (hills) - it's a pretty sight in its own way. But I wouldn't tell that to someone who actually has to live there.

Aesthetically, that's about all this place has going for it. The entire length of this long, narrow city presses up against these tall, sloping hills to the north, lush with vegetation - the peaks always hidden in foggy cloud cover. But the city itself is your typical example of overcrowded urbanization gone haywire. Dirty, dilapidated buildings thrown together haphazardly; anarchy and chaos among the cars fighting and weaving their way in every direction, with no regard for, you know, "lanes," or, you know, those "traffic law" thingies; exhaust fumes clouding the streets; carhorns blaring without end. Think Mexico City, except smaller. (I know, right?)

The AP office is located in the "El Universal" building downtown - El Universal is one of the main dailies here, and it's very anti-Chavez. The security here...you'd think you were in the Green Zone in Iraq. A few years ago, during the attempted coup against Chavez, supporters of the president started shooting at the building. (Don't worry Mom, the last bureau chief installed bulletproof windows. We're all good.)

Graffiti on the building's exterior includes various "USA"s where the "S" is a swatztika (sp).

It costs more to buy a bottle of water than to fill up your tank here; gas is practically free. To just look at the garbage dump that is Caracas, and I mean that in the best possible way, it's a striking comment on corporate globalization, that this place brimming with oil hasn't seen the fruits of its labor. This place should be a Buenos Aires, not Beirut.

But before you think I'm going off on some pro-Chavez rant...he should be met with a lot of skepticism. He's been in office for 7-8 years now, and the numbers on poverty, unemployment, and development have stayed the same - if not gotten worse.

So it's good to approach him with a degree of skepticism...but oh my god. You should see the attacks that several of the morning programs run on this guy, disguised as "news."

Fox News has nothing on the privately owned TV news here. Then you flip the channel to the state-run channel eight and you get the complete opposite. Wacky stuff.

Well, I need to run - it's getting dark and you know what that means. Oh, and apparently I don't know Spanish for shit.

I'm praying my other problems se resuelvan soon, so I can, you know, "actually set out what I came here to do."