Caracas, Venezuela 2015: Living in one of the world's most dangerous cities

How do you jog, take an evening walk, or go to the movies in one of the world's most dangerous cities?

The answer is that you do it and take the risk, as we see in this NY Times article about Caracas:

Twice a week, Mariela Virguez ventures out for an evening ride with a cycling group that scales the hills of El Hatillo, a colonial-era district in the south that has seen a rash of kidnappings.

"I refuse to give this up just because of the situation in this country," said the 50-year-old computer engineer. "We don't have food, we don't have toilet paper, we have to wait in long lines — and they're going to deny us physical fitness, too?"

Good for Mariela and the others in Caracas. Nevertheless, she is a rather brave lady, especially when you look at violence in Caracas:

Venezuela has the second-highest homicide rate in the world, according to a report releasedMonday by the NGO Venezuelan Violence Observatory.

The Observatory placed Venezuela’s homicide rate for 2014 at 82 per 100,000, with a total of 24,980 killings recorded for the year. The figure marked an uptick from the group’s estimate for the year prior, which stood at 79 per 100,000.

There are many reasons for the violence, as my friends in Caracas tell me.

Opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez and other opposition prisoners started a hunger strike a few weeks ago in Venezuela.

The Speaker of the legislature (the “John Boehner” of Venezuela) has been named as the head of drug trafficking operations in the country by authorities in the United States.

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