Venezuela El Dorado, where gold is the currency of the poor

IN THE Venezuelan mining community of El Dorado, the majority of residents carry around gold instead of cards or cash to pay for groceries.

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They live in a town named after the mythical City of Gold and untold riches — but most of them are poor.

Merchants use scales to carefully weigh the flecks people guard in plastic pill bottles or wrapped in pieces of paper, and market goods are priced in weight of gold.

For 0.02 grams, you can get a small packet of maize meal, for one gram a pre-packaged bag of groceries that includes flour, pasta, oil, margarine, ketchup and mille powder.

A gram of gold can purchase between $85 and $100 worth of goods, but takes hours of back-breaking work to amass. If you're in luck.

“Gold is a blessing given to us so we can buy what we want, but you have to work hard,” 48-year-old Jose Tobias Tranquini said in the town of 5 000 residents mostly employed in mining — legal and illegal.