The longest day of my life I- On the way to Colombia. Le jour le plus long de ma vie, I- En route pour la Colombie

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(Francais en bas de page)


This day has actuelly been so long, I´m going to have to divide it into 3 entries, don´t feel obliged to read it all but if you do, well you´ll understand exactly what I mean... This is the 1st bit:

After 11 hours (an hour early!!!) on a rather comfortable bus, I finally arrived to Maracaibo. The last major cityof North West Venezuela before Colombia.
I´m pretty pleased with myself, I quickly managed to find a bus to take me to the border on a very cheap fare. Only one problem, the bus is basically empty and I wonder how long it´s gonna take before it fills up with people and we can actually leave Maracaibo...
I should probably have used the competition to try to find a bus which leaves earlier, but nevermind it´s cheap!
After an hour and a lot of talking, i got evicted of my bus and pushed into a shared taxi or " por puesto" as they say here. Same principle as the bus i was going to get in but smaller so quicker to fill up. I wasn´t very happy when that happened because of the very cheap rate I had just negotiated for the bus. So, straight away I demanded to the bus guy to refund me. That´s when he told me that the money i had just given to him was actually the regular fee every one had to pay to use the lovely,Maracaibo bus terminal. Oups! I didn´t know that. The difference was huge. The price was actually 20 times what I thought was a great deal brilliantly negotiated by myself. Nevermind I paid the man and squeezed in that taxi, an old black american chevrolet with at the front, the driver, a 30 year old colombian girl and myself. At the back at least two very young kids and 3 women. And in the trunk, a guy and his young son. 30degrees outside, a 2h30 journey ahead, that should be fun....
It´s just before to get in that car, that I got called a " gringo" for the 1st time since I arrived 2 days before in South America. It made me feel good! I thought, hmm, now I´m back home (since my 4 months stay in Peru 3 and half years ago, and I´ve always felt a bit South American, I know it might sound weird to some of you...).
I have to say that it was the taxi driver calling me a gringo, obviously I had talked to him before and even if my spanish isn´t too bad, that wasn´t difficult for him to figure out that I´m not South American, therefore, a Gringo.
Anyway, the 10 of us eventually managed to squeeze in the taxi for what should be a 2h30 journey to the first colombian town of Maicao.
As you can easily imagine any border, in any South American Country, with Colombia is highly protected, but that´s even more true when the neighbour is Chavez Venezuela....
I don´t want to talk politics here but to explain you the context, let´s just say that Urribe (Colombia´s right wing president) was a very very good friend of GW Bush back when he was president, and Hugo Chavez ( Socialist Revolutionnary president of Venezuela) wasn´t...
Two totally different ideologies and politics. Anyway, Colombia has received a lot of support, human and financial from the US, which strongly make the Venezuelan neighbour unhappy. And gosh , you can feel it!
I can´t recall how many check points we had to go through on the way to the border. Lots. What I didn´t realise is that most of the people in the taxi with me are Colombian and I clearly had the impression that the Venezuelan army was on a mission to harass every single Colombian citizen leaving their country.( But to be fair, when I cross the border by foot after I fullfilled the formalitites with both sides of the immigration authorites, I notice that Venezuelans leaving Colombia to their country are getting quite a bad time too with the Colombian army.)
And some other times, I had the impression the soldiers were actually targeting the two most dark skinned guys in the car, The 30yo Colombian girl at the front...and myself. The taxi driver seemd to share the same impression...
Apart from that, my european passeport didn´t bring me too much unwanted attention or financial solicitations...
Just the tax that you have to pay if you leave the country by land. I didn´t budget for that, I thought that was only when you leave the country on a plane. Once again , I got a bit angree when that happened but there was no way I was going through without paying.People who come from the Andes neighbours (Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia) seem to be exempted. I am not so south american after all.
Otherwise, apart from a couple of other formalities i had to go through with, I didnn´t feel put under pressure by the militars but at each check point I had a weird feeling of mistrust towards them, and that wasn´t only due to the AK47 they were carrying on their shoulders.
But 30min early, I arrived inMaicao, last bus journey before the caribbeans, finally.


PS: pictures to come soon.





Ce jour vraiment fut le long de ma vie. Pour cette raison je vais devoir le diviser en 3 parties. Vous n´avez pas a tout lire mais si vous le faites vous comprendrez ce que je veux dire par la. Desole pour l´absence d´accent et les apostrophes bizares, je me familiarise a ce clavier

Apres 11h de trajet (soit 1h en avance), je suis finalement arrive a Maracaibo, derniere ville majeur au nord ouest du venezuela avant la frontieres avec la Colombie.
Je suis content de moi, jái reussi a trouver un minibus pour me faire trvaerser la frontieres. Probleme il est pour ainsi dire et je me demande quand est ce que l´on va partir. J´aurai sans doute du faire jouer la concurrence un peu plus et je serais deja en route. Mais bon je me suis trouve un tarif plutot tres avantageux donc je ne me plains pas.
Apres maintes tergiversations et une heure plus tard, je me suis fait expulse de mon minibus et pousse dans un taxi collectif ou "por puesto" comme ils disent ici, parceque mon minibus ne se remplissait pas assez vite. Le taxi collectif marche sur le meme tarif que mon minibus mais etant plus petit, il est plus vite remplie.
J´etais pas tres content sur le coup ayant negocie ce que je pensais etre un superbe tarif pour le minibus. Aussi, exigeais je de me faire rembourser par le gars au minibus, pour m´entendre dire que mon superbe deal etait en faite la taxe normale, que chacun doit payer pour utiliser le maginifique terminale de bus de Maracaibo. Genial....
Le changement fut soudain. le prix est en faite 20 fois superieur a ce que je croyais payer initialement. C´est ainsi que je me suis retrouve dans une vielle chevrolet americaine avec a l´avant, le chauffeur, une colombienne d´environ 30 ans et moi meme. Derriere, 2 bebes je crois et 3 femmes. Et enfin dans le coffre un homme et son jeune fils. 30 degres dehors, 2h30 de route devant nous, ca promet d´etre marrant...
C´est juste avant de monter dans ce taxi que je me suis fait interpelle par le nom "gringo!" pour la1ere fois depuis que je suis arrive en Amerique du Sud il y a 2 jours de ca. Ca ma fait plaisir. Je me suis senti de retour "a la maison" (depuis mon voyage de 4 mois au Perou il y a plus de 3 ans, je me sens un peu Sud Americain, allez comprendre...).
Bon faut dire que c´etait le chauffeur du taxi qui m´a appele ainsi, donc je lui avais parle avant donc il lui etait facile de deviner que je ne suis pas Sud Americain meme si mon espagnol n´est pas trop mal, donc, un Gringo.
Bref, me voila entasse dans un taxi avec environ 10 personnes pour ce qui est cense etre un trajet de 2h30 en direction de la premiere ville colombienne de ce cote la de la frontiere, Maicao.
Vous vous doutez bien que n´importe quelle frontiere avec la "bouillante" Colombie va etre ultra protegee et controlee, mais ce la est d´autant plus vrai si le voisin est leVenezuela de Chavez.
Sans faire de politique disons juste qu´Urribe le President de droite, Colombien, et Chavez, tres a gauche et soi disant revolutionnaire ont desideologies et politiques radicalementopposees. Et quand le 1er s´appuie sur le soutien inconditionnel des US pour tacler ses problemenes internes, le second s´est toujours illustre pour une posture tres anti US....
Et mon dieu, que cela se fit sentir!!!!
Je ne peux me rapeller combien de check points nous avons du franchir mais il y en a eu une multitude. Ce que je n´avais pas compris avant de monter de le taxi, c´est que la majorite de mes co passagers est colombienne. Et j´ai clairement eu l´impression que les militaires venezueliens avaient pour mission d´harceler chaque citoyen colombien quittant la republique bolivarienne pour rentrer chez eux.
Et d´autres fois j´avais l´impression qu´ils ciblaient en faite les 2 personnes les + noirs dans le taxi, la colombienne de 30 ans...et moi meme. Le chauffeur semblait partager cette analyse.
A part ca, mon passeport europeen ne m´a valu aucune sollicitation financiere irreguliere.
Juste cette taxe de sortie que je n´avais pas budgeter.
Encore une fois, je me suis un peu enerve sur le coup avant de me rendre compte que cette taxe est tout a fait normale a moins que tu viennes d´un des pays andins. Je suis pas tant que ca ala maison apres tout...
A part ca, et 1 ou 2 autres formalites, je ne me suis pas senti trop presse par les militaires venezueliens mais a chaque check point je ressentais beaucoup de mefiance a leur egard....et pas seulement a cause de l´AK47 qu´ils portent sur leur epaules.
Mais 30min en avace j´arrivais a ma 1ere etabe colombienne, Maicao, mon ticket de sortie pour les caraibes, enfin.

PS: photos a venir prochainement...

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