I took this pic of the riot police from the backseat of my friend’s car as we tried to find a way away from the protest

Just a quick note today since I’m trying to get back into my normal posting schedule of 1-2 times a week!  Today I am working on posts about Brazil and Chile!

Today is a is a day full of protests.  The economic crisis, high prices for food and basic necessities, the blocking of Capriles from government office, and the brief takeover of the legislative branch of the government have brought about massive protests today. The largest protests are in Caracas, but they are happening all over Valencia too.

My friends and I have the day off of work and we are too tired to do anything fun like go to the beach like some people. Instead, we were going to go out to brunch here in Valencia. We decided to go to a restaurant that we could get to without crossing any of the major streets in town.

I took this pic from my taxi just as we were arriving back in Valencia on Sunday the 16th (there have been daily protests since I got back)

We got 3/4ths of the way there, only to have streets blocked off by riot police. We tried to go around them and found people walking through the streets with Venezuelan flags draped over their shoulders. Everyone from gray-haired ladies to young kids were wearing Venezuelan hats, flags, or shirts representing their nation.

Locals drape themselves in Venezuelan flags to show pride for their country as they go out to protest

People love their country and they are ready for a change.  The fact that Maduro has armed 40,000 civilian militia members has some people scared but from all accounts, that has not stopped them from protesting today even after one teen was shot dead.  I don’t think, “A gun for every militiaman!” is the answer and I hope that the protests in Valencia are more peaceful than those in Caracas.

Even though this was just midday you can already see that the protestors plan on blocking all major intersections

*Please excuse the poor quality pics today as all of them were taken while I was sitting in the back seat of a moving vehicle and were then reformatted to a small enough size so my excrutiatingly slow internet would be able to upload them.