Is Venezuela full of gold?

The areas of today's Venezuela in the pre-Columbian period were inhabited by various groups of Indians. The name Venezuela supposedly means "little Venice". From the fifteenth century, these areas lured gold prospectors into their vicinity, who were convinced by the legend of Eldorado. Eldorado is a legendary land full of gold. The word comes from the shortened Spanish term "el hombre dorado", which means "golden man". While searching for gold, the first Spanish conquistadors learned about the ritual of sticking gold dust on one of the Indian chiefs and washing in Lake Guatavitá in the Northern Andes. Over the next centuries, numerous attempts were made to extract valuables from the bottom of the lakes, including by diving and pumping water.

Venezuela, like many South American countries is not the safest country to live in. The unprecedented economic crisis is not the only gripe of Venezuela. In recent years, the country has also been struggling with increasing crime. The government in Caracas has stopped publishing statistics about it. Venezuela has a very high homicide rate, 49 murders for every 100,000 people and in 2009, for every 100,000 people, about 200 people were murdered in the capital city (an infamous world record). Moreover, this indicator has been constantly increasing since 1995.

In Venezuelan National Park at the mouth of the Catatumbo River there are extremely spectacular storms, known as Catatumbo. The lightning strikes are so strong that you can read a book with them in the middle of the night. Storms last 140-160 days a year, 10 hours a day. On average, about 280 lightning strikes per hour. Catatumbo means a lighthouse, the name comes from the fact that the lightning strikes are visible in the sky from a distance of several hundred kilometers, which looks like a huge lantern. These spectacular storms make Venezuela the world's largest natural ozone generator.

In Merida, there is a Coromoto ice cream shop with as many as 100 different ice cream flavors. It is one of the few places in the world where you can try onion-flavored ice cream, cucumber, or crab cream.

In June 2013, the government introduced restrictions on the purchase of toilet paper - only one roll a day per family. The inhabitants of this country also need to be economical with other everyday products like he soap, toothpaste, washing powder, shampoo. And as a little known fact - the name of toothpaste "Colgate" in free translation from Spanish means "go hang yourself".