BeTraveler

Vicky Baker is a freelance journalist who is currently travelling around Central and South America guided by the local people she meets on social networking websites. This week she is in Caracas, Venezuela.

Over the next few days we will publish excerpts of her adventures while she is putting Hospitality Exchange networks like BeWelcome to the test.

On a Caracas hillside, in the working-class barrio of San Augustin, breeze-block structures defy gravity. Stacked on top of each other, using every inch of space, they look like they have been thrown up in a day and could fall down again at any moment. Yet many residents have called them home for years.

Inside one lives Felicia, a single mother who works at a supermarket meat counter to support two teenage sons, and an unlikely recruit to the travel-networking site bewelcome.org. The 37-year-old has signed up so that she can host tourists in the little space she has, and show them her way of life. "We don't have much money, but we have a lot of affection," she says, standing over the stove cooking arepas, a type of cornbread pancake.

Felicia is still getting to grips with the computer she bought on credit. She came across the small, 3,000-member site bewelcome.org early on as a result of her friendship with one of the founders, Caracas-based student Pierre Marais.

Laid-back on the outside, a fired-up Chavista on the inside, Pierre, 24, was my first contact and host in the city. It was Pierre who put me in touch with Felicia. Originally from Normandy, he came to Venezuela two years ago to study architecture, and has fully immersed himself in local life. When I contact him through bewelcome.org, he instantly invites me to stay at his student flat near Sabana Grande, one of the city's main commercial arteries.

Caracas is often described as being "nestled between hillsides", when really it seems to have exploded into its location. With its concrete-choked downtown giving way to sprawling shantytown barrios, it's easy to forget you're a stone's throw from the calm of the Caribbean sea. Fortunately, respite can be found in the temperate climate (averaging 25°C year-round), while the traffic-clogged roads are soon forgotten when immersed in a roadside chess game on Sabana Grande or walking round the lakes of Parque del Este.

Travel networking comes into its own in a place like Caracas. Most travellers are put off visiting a city that has few standout sites, limited budget accommodation and a daunting reputation. It is certainly a place best understood when staying with - or at least meeting up with - a local.