Caracas is Caracas .

My Caracas, the city I know, is not the same as my Mom's Caracas.

Caracas is no Havana.

Caracas is mine, it is part of my history.

Caracas scares me, in a deep and distressing way.

And then it reveals the Caracas of my dreams.

Because I used to love Caracas very much.

I guess that's how my mother remembers Caracas.

But I experience the city in a different way.

But it's Caracas, and I love it.

But Caracas is different, it has a sense of identity.

Caracas, Venezuela, viewed from El Avila National Park.

Caracas is dangerous because it's unpredictable, she says to me.

In 1777, Caracas became the capital of the Captaincy General of Venezuela.

In Catia, Caracas, a traditionally chavista area, voters were surrounded by armed people.

Because for her, Caracas is more than a city it represents a threat.

But Caracas is also a memory of what it could have been.

That is philosophy, she says. Caracas has never been so dangerous or cruel.

A modern, advanced and cosmopolitan Caracas, a city seeking to overcome simple problems of urban development.

In February, Caracas was forced to devalue the local currency to 6.3 bolivars per dollar.

Mom remembers a Caracas that is no longer there, and that I can't even grasp a city with lively streets and a radiant nightlife.

You and I are united, Caracas, by this vision of the world that we once shared.

The Caracas I know is a different city a tough one, destroyed by indolence, broken by the weight of pain, poverty, and indifference.

Caracas can be this broken and chaotic city, with its old quarter halfway rebuilt and the diverse neighborhoods that grew around it.

It might be history itself, a history that considers itself forward looking and that is retold day after day.

Illustrative Image by andresAzp, available in Flickr Evening protests on February 15th in Altamira. Caracas, Venezuela.

All this is true, but in spite of the profusion of symbols, ideas, and approaches, Caracas keeps going against all odds.

We have no choice but to love Caracas, says F, a fruit juice seller in front of the Church of Altagracia.

What a wonderful moment, where Caracas becomes almost beautiful with the dome of the church gleaming in the sun and this warm, pleasant feeling of eternal summer.

According to unofficial data, which the agency cited, Caracas could nonetheless decide to reduce the rate of the national currency after municipal elections in December.

Out of Canada Beijing, Boston, Cambridge, Caracas, Cotonou (Bénin), Jerusalem, Lahore, Madrid, Manila, New Delhi, New York, Nicosia, Santiago, Vienna.

I think about this as I'm sitting in El Calvario Park, looking down on Caracas, a silent, and in its own way an almost simple city in its chaotic beauty.

I go wandering around there from time to time, trying to rediscover Caracas, to remember how it was even if I did not know the city by then.

A visual artists group organized an event including Indian motifs body painting in downtown Caracas, Venezuela, as part of the October 12 celebrations, known today as the Day of Indigenous Resistance.

Targeted repression, imprisonment of opposition leaders, press censorship, shortages, inflation, and wanton violence Caracas is one the world s most dangerous cities have created a situation that appears untenable in the medium term.

In spite of this constant transformation, the insistence of looking at it as part of history and at the same time as a metaphor for a young, nascent country, Caracas becomes what we want it to be.

Caracas is the consequence of this country's history, more than any other region or place in Venezuela, she tells me. Caracas started as a dream Guzmán Blanco dreamed of a beautiful, Frenchified, but at the same time, phony city.