Venezuela

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Venezuela

Border Crossing from Macau (Colombia) to Venezuela, a 4 hour bus journey to
Macauibo it was starting to look like the end of Colombia, as stated in my guidebook it was a shabby bus station with everyone wanting to take you somewhere or sell you something, so I paid for my ticket to Marricibo from the Colombian border town and not a bus as I expected but a old chevelet car this is the normal kind of transport for crossing the border and onwards to further towns.

So we arrived at the border and I received my Colombia exit stamp and then I had to obtain my Venezuelan entry stamp well the immigration officer could not find my exit tamp and nor could I, so I had to run back to the Colombian side to ask where it was I had so many stamps in my passport and in the end yes it was there but very unclear so once again I had to run to the Venezuelan side and to obtain my entry stamp, so after this we left for Maracibo in the taxi car and every ten minutes we was stopped for identification checks by the police, In total I only had to show my passport ten times to officials and empty my bags twice, so crazy the most and bizarre in south America so far.

One immigration official was very interested in all my different currencies that I had in my possession from different countries in Asia that I had previously visited last year, asking me how much is this worth I had lots of notes with lots of 000´s accounting to no more than about 50 dollars. So in-between the 2 hours of the Identification checking of bags etc we was on route to Maricabo and our taxi car broke down with a broken fan belt so we was stranded on the side of the road between Colombia and Venezuela, we had not yet past the sign for Bienvenidos a Venezuela !!!.

So the driver decided to walk to the next pueblo (village) to buy another one, but within 30 minutes another car similar to ours said he could take us so we was back on the road, so we arrived to Maricabo at around 7pm in the evening and I was fortunate to make friends with a Colombian guy in the taxi so we went to find accommodation for the night and it was more expensive than Colombia a room for me cost 30 dollars and It seamed that it was a love motel which is popular in Venezuela, so on to Merida the adventure capital of Venezuela,

I arrived in the evening to Merida the bus was only four hours late due to more security checks, My Venezuelan friend called Jorge that I met in Ecuador came to met me and helped me to find accommodation he took me to the tourist area of Merida and we would meat the next day, just after checking in and getting changed the power cut off so after speaking to the manager this apparently it is normal in Venezuela at this time as there is a shortage of water, so every day for 2 hours in the afternoon and the evening (no set times) the power is switched off for a total of 4 hours per day

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