Julio Blanco, a 34-year-old motorcycle driver in Caracas, said he now allows trusted clients to make payments by bank transfer because there is simply not enough cash available.
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“I prefer food as payment,” said Blanco, while waiting for customers at the poor west end of Caracas. “I do services for food in order to survive.”
In the hillside Caracas slum of La Vega, home to 124,000 people, Alfredo Silva offers a haircut for 1 million bolivars, about 30 cents at the black market exchange rate.
He accepts transfers or food but sometimes takes clients to a nearby butcher shop and asks them to buy him something worth the same as the haircut.
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