Maracaibo is an important part of Venezuela. This is where the oil comes from and the wealth that seems to touch on every aspect of national life. Here we find a once colorful Caribbean village dunked in a sea of oil, coated in a vast sea of concrete, and somewhere, lurking beneath that painful skin of modernity, a fun-loving Caribbean soul, that maybe, just maybe, pangs for yesteryear and the uncomplicated life the oil took away. Walk trough the old town, if you have a day or two, and sit in the shade of the leafy plazas, enjoying a fresh icy coco frio. Wander through Las Pulgas - the flea market - getting lost in the seemingly endless variety of hawkers and sellers and merchants of all sorts. But at night, stick to the new town, just for you safety, and for the myriad restaurants to be found there, where Maracaibo's oases of pleasure cluster, as though seeking refuge from the littered, barren streets.