Tourist businesses get creative in cash-poor Venezuela

CHICHIRIVICHE DE LA COSTA: The outboard motor splutters to a stop and the boat drifts on the Caribbean swell. Nancy Rodriguez reaches down into a blue cooler and pulls out an electronic terminal and a handful of credit cards.

A mile out to sea, it’s an unusual place to make a transaction. But this is crisis-worn Venezuela. In a country whose people can no longer rely on cash because of hyperinflation, the credit card – not cash – is king.

But cards require terminals, terminals need the internet, and in Chichiriviche de la Costa – a snug, hill-surrounded diving resort northwest of Caracas – the only internet signal can be found out at sea.

So four times a day, Nancy’s crew fires up the outboard and takes her out to sea, where she can get an uninterrupted fix on a signal from Catia La Mar, down the coast.

Only then can the stocky 43-year-old restaurant owner charge up her customers for their fried fish and beers.

On this trip, each of 13 cards is wrapped in a piece of paper on which Nancy’s customers waiting on the beach have marked their ID number, the amount owed, and the card’s pin code.

“Some are distrustful, others no. Those who are hungry have to trust someone,” she said, smiling, as she keyed in the numbers and the amounts, fighting the rocking motion of the boat.

The oil rich country’s economic crisis means serious shortages of food, medicines, supplies and spare parts. And cash. Venezuelans have to join long lines at ATMs. The withdrawal limit is 10,000 bolivars a day, which these days will buy you a cookie.

President Nicolas Maduro attributes the cash crisis to mafias accumulating cash in order to speculate. But economist Tamara Herrera told AFP that hyperinflation and money being printed without supporting measures in the economy is the cause. – AFP