Venezuela's Margarita island, once dubbed the "Pearl of the Caribbean", is now littered with abandoned hotels, many shops stand empty, and there are regular power outages. The country's economic collapse, high crime rates and growing international isolation in the wake of bitterly disputed elections have caught up with the island of 500,000 people.
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00:30because this looks like a desert.
00:32It's desolate.
00:33I mean, it's not like Margarita from years ago.
00:51Vandalism has affected the trade,
00:55bringing and reselling aluminum and others.
01:00And, well, those of us who are here,
01:03we remain present to prevent this looting.
01:13Like the phoenix.
01:14I consider it like that.
01:15It's a rebirth.
01:17There are many spaces that were icons at one time,
01:21like the corner, it was half orange, etc.
01:23But this evolves, and I think it will evolve for the better.
01:48There are many shops and many restaurants,
01:51but they are all abandoned almost.
01:53So it looks like it's for at least 10 times more tourists,
01:59but there are no tourists.
02:01And for the travelers, maybe it's good.
02:04For the business, it's bad.
02:05Absolutely.
02:16We depend on Venezuelan tourism,
02:19but the tourism that is coming now, which is Russian,
02:23they don't leave anything.
02:50They don't leave anything.
03:03And, well, as you can see,
03:05here we work with the candle, with the rechargeable bulb,
03:09with the phone flashlight,
03:12to be able to continue working,
03:15because we have to work,
03:18we can't stay here doing nothing.
03:23Here we are four.