Good article.
I spent a good deal of my childhood in South America. Shortly after I was born my family moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina where we lived for 4 years. I went to grade school in Bolivia, and Venezuela. I wouldn't trade my childhood memories for anything in the world. Latin America, especially South America, is a wondrous and captivating place to live.
Having said that... Hugo Chavez is a misguided idiot. He's trying to drag Venezuela into a Marxist dream that has been proved, time and time again, to be a utopian fantasy. Before the people of Latin America can enjoy real progress and economic success they must choose a future that includes real democracy and free trade.
I lived in Caracas from '93 - '96; Chavez got out of the clink during this time and about 280 of his fellow coupsters came back from Peru, where they had been living in exile (a few ended up in some Central American countries as well). Chavez talked a good fight when he got out of jail and one could pick up small lapel pins and campaign-type buttons from the street vendors - you would often see posters featuring Chavez and Che Guevara side by side, and this should have clued people in as to Chavez's ideology. However, he had and still has his supporters and financiers... it's a shame that he wasn't martyred like Che - he certainly hasn't done his country much good as a living "revolutionary".