There, in swampy, malaria-ridden pits controlled by criminal gangs, men labour away much as they would have done centuries ago. The lumps of yellow metal they extract through backbreaking work now power the city; gold has become so pervasive that medieval-style barter is replacing hard currency across the city.
“More than half our clients want to pay in gold,” said one estate agent in Puerto Ordaz, who described a recent nerve-racking drive through the increasingly lawless city to broker a deal, following buyers carrying an apartment’s worth of precious metal.
Even the universities have been swept up in the gold rush. “In November, one of the girls who is studying here told me: ‘A degree is not expensive, because its only 2.5g of gold [for a semester],’” said Arturo Peraza, “It was the first time I learned the value of a university education in grams of gold. I could not have imagined it.”
Shopping malls have been taken over by metal dealers, who sit idly in rows of shops that once sold electronics or clothes, waiting for miners to arrive with crumbs of yellow to exchange for cash. Men with wary eyes and barely concealed guns stand near the main exits.
The men who dig for gold include professionals whose jobs were engulfed by the crisis or whose salaries have been eroded by hyperinflation to levels that will buy them a few loaves of bread, or perhaps a bag of rice.
“I have no choice if we want to eat – I haven’t been paid for months,” said Lucia, a primary school teacher who twice a week makes the 18 hour round trip with her husband and two small children, risking malaria and violence for a small markup that will keep a roof over their heads, and the most basic of meals on the table. She asked not to use her real name for fear of losing her job.
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