San Cristobal is a leafy, prosperous city of west Venezuela. The city is in a mountainous valley in the temperate green hills of the Andes bordering Colombia.
The city struck oil in the late 1800s at a site now known as "La Petrolera", and has attracted investors and business innovation.
San Cristobal is known for its industrious people, relaxed nature and relative safety when compared to the other cities of Venezuela. The city is an attractive haven for Venezuela's emerging middle class and successful business entrepreneurs, particularly those involved in financial services and commodities.
Take a 30 minute drive uphill to "Chorro del Indio", a remote mountain waterfall rich in blue butterflies and people enjoying a bathe in the cool waters often enjoying a cold beer.
Events hosted in the city are either related to sport, the arts or tie in with agriculture and cattle farming. The big annual events held in the city, reflect this. The city centre of San Cristobal is crowded and somewhat dangerous, therefore many events are held on the edge of the city, and particularly near the Stadium of Pueblo Nuevo, where Tachira state soccer team play.
Also in Pueblo Nuevo, La Corrida de Toros, which is a celebratory fortnight of bull-fighting held in mid January. The Bullfight season attracts the world's best bull-fighters, from the Americas and Spain. During this yearly event called La Feria Internacional de San Sebatian, temporary arcades and fairground rides are set up making Pueblo Nuevo very busy until the early hours. Both events in Pueblo Nuevo bring a lot of people to San Cristobal, to enjoy the animal sport, clubs and bars, but also to trade livestock.
The city's most popular and cheapest place to do shopping is downtown (5ta and 7ma Avenues).
There are some popular market places such as el Mercado de los Pequenhos Comerciantes in la Concordia thatoffer traditional handcraft and different types of food. It is inexpensive, but it is located in a part of the city that is not very nice. There are many small shopping centres. The most popular ones are: C.C. Plaza (in Barrio Obrero), C.C. del Este (East part of the City, Unicentro en Angel(Barrio Obrero), Boulevard Los Mangos (Barrio Obrero), Paseo La Villa (La Guayana), C.C. Guarauno (Downtown), C.C. El Tama (Quinimari), C.C. Santa Teresa (Santa Teresita), C.C. Pinar (Las Acacias) C.C. Sambil (Las Lomas), C.C. Baratta (Ave. Ferrero Tamayo), Bouleverd Pirineos (Barrio Obrero), Centro Civico (Downtown),
Barrio Obrero is in the upper part of the city and it is becoming the most commercial and trendy part of San Cristobal. There you can find shops, restaurants, night clubs, banks. hospitals, schools and other services.
The University of Los Andes is in San Cristobal, close to Pueblo Nuevo, and therefore the city homes a large number of students. The popular student and popular culture hangouts, include, the Sambil Mall (in Las Lomas)the various sport clubs (El Democrata, El Latino...) and primarily, La Plaza de los Mangos. The area around Plaza de los Mangos is popular because of its numerous eateries, bars, nightclubs and modern clothes shops. More exclusive night-spots are appearing around San-Cristobal, such as "Cinnamon" and "8 and a half", also hangouts and events are often held at social clubs like at El Latino and El Democrata sport clubs.
Safety in the city has traditionally been good, however frontier problems, "Vaccine" payments, kidnapping threats and exponential population growth have made the city a place of increasing unrest and insecurity.