Oil ... Stains

FOR SOME strange and inexplicable reason the country of Venezuela has been in the news a lot lately. With its former dictator/president/numero-uno bus driver and his wife currently on extended vacation in the US, you’d think our intrepid media would find something else relevant to that interesting country to write about. They appear to be talking a lot about petroleum.

Why does everyone say ‘oil’ instead of ‘petroleum’? Because it has fewer syllables and is therefore easier to pronounce? I reckon I shouldn’t even be talking about it, as this is neither a political nor economics column. If you want to learn about oil/petroleum, read the excellent book about the petroleum industry, The Prize by Daniel Yergin.

I think perhaps people could relate better to the situation if instead of oil, oil, oil, they were told a little more about the beauty of the country, the charm of its people, and other less viscous attributes of one of our nearest South American neighbors. But all the current administration seems capable of focusing on is oil (okay, it’s also easier to write than ‘petroleum’). There is tourism, ranching, agriculture, forestry, mining — especially gold mining, even though much of that industry is wholly corrupted and environmentally degrading. Lots to see and do besides pump some of the most difficult-to-refine oil in the world — alias ‘heavy crude.’ Thick and full of sulfur, it’s one of the last oils anyone wants to buy on the open market. When it comes to the difficulties of refining, perhaps only the Alberta tar sands have it beat.

Sorry. I was going to talk about the country’s beauty.

Kilometers and kilometers of gorgeous beaches, glistening green rainforest. The open, animal-filled plains, the llanos. The Gran Sabana and the tepui country. The isles of Los Roques, every bit as beautiful as their neighbors Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao. So much to see and do. So much the media and our government ignore.

With all the chatter on the news recently about Venezuela, did you ever see or hear mention of any of those places or resources? How about we talk about chocolate? Of the three (sometimes given as four) principal types of cacao beans, only about 3% is criollo. Criollo is often mixed with the more common types (trinitario and forestero) to enhance the flavor of the end product. Guess where the best criollo comes from?

That’s right, and I’ll take top-grade chocolate over oil any time. Ever hear Venezuelan criollo mentioned in any of the news reports on that country? You can find the end product for sale online, either in its pure form or blended with paste made from other cacao beans. Keep in mind that chocolate is like wine: different flavors and blends appeal to different tastes.

On the open llanos there is (or was, it’s been years) a wonderful place called Hato el Cedral, a huge ranch whose owner decided to preserve as much of the local wildlife as possible. Think Pantanal-north. Claimed to have the largest population of capybaras in the world, over 20,000. The skies fill with thousands of birds of every imaginable kind, the land alive with every manner of northern South American mammals, rivers populated by caimans, the occasional pink dolphin, anacondas, and the genuinely menacing Orinoco crocodile. I don’t know what has happened to it since the advent of the Chavez/Maduro regime, but it was a spectacular place to view wildlife. Fly from Caracas to Barinas and then it’s a bit of a drive to reach your destination. Worth every dusty mile of it.

The only oil you might encounter on the trip is in the truck’s engine. I doubt that any member of the current US government has ever been there, except maybe an adventurous member or two of our diplomatic corps, back when such exploratory visits were normal.

More likely a few, the fortunate ones, might have visited or at least flown over Angel Falls, the tallest waterfall in the world, which spills off the top of Auyan tepui in Canaima national park (if you’ve seen the Disney animated film Up, you’ve see a Canaima tepui). Marco Rubio needs to take a swim at the base of the falls and spend some time looking out over the jungle and Devil’s Canyon. It would provide much needed perspective on Venezuela. And life.

Yet all those politicos charged with taking care of us, and now to a certain extent the Venezuelans themselves, can talk about is oil. And cocaine. Not chocolate. Not Nature. Not beauty.

If Venezuela is on the news tonight I may just change the channel. It will be all about what the Maduros are wearing in jail or how much oil Trump says he’s going to control. I think I’d rather watch a rerun and dream of quesillo.