In to Venezuela and the beach of Adicora

We took a bus from Cartagena (Colombia) to Maracaibo (Venezuela). The bus was another luxury style bus and this time an international bus! It was going all the way to the capital (Caracas) but we wanted to spend a couple of days on the coast before getting to Caracas which we had heard nothing good about!

The border crossing was quite tense due to everyone's bad stories and the fact that some other friends had told us that they nearly got left at this border crossing a year earlier, except for the fact that one of them spoke fluent Spanish! With my Spanish best described as a combination of 2 word sentences and charades, I felt a little nervous. We followed people from our bus to the Colombian border post where we got stamped out. We then walked the 150m or so across 'no man's land' to the Venezuelan border post. As everyone lined up there was 2 girls there filling out everyone's forms for them and then giving them a small tip. So we handed over our passports and they filled out our forms. My occupation was a squiggle and Melinda's something similar! So I guess that was good as we could just make it up?!

We were 25m in Venezuela with no problems and waiting around with our driver and fellow passengers while the bus in front of us had all their luggage searched. The sun was setting and the driver went over to talk to one of the Venezuelan police men. The driver came back and shooed everyone on the bus. It seems we had come to some 'agreement' of 5 Bolivars per passenger (about US$1.25 at the black market rate/ $2.50 at the official rate) and our delays would 'disappear'. So we were off again towards Maracaibo, our destination.

As we came in to Maracaibo, the drivers asked me where I wanted to get off. I told them I wanted to go to the bus terminal. 'No this bus doesn't go to the terminal' they told me. OK, take me to the town centre. No, we don't go there either. Then they suggested 'Plaza de Toros?' What the bloody hell would I want to go there for I wondered as I madly looked at my guidebook map. Next thing, he has stopped the bus and his assistant has got off to get our bags. We jumped off the bus to keep an eye on our bags. He got them off as I kept on asking (in Spanish) 'where is a taxi???' over and over. In this part of the world, not all taxis are yellow with big signs on them and some of them are dodgy people who like to take you for a ride via several ATM's (cash machines) while you empty your account for them. The cheeky bastard looked around and then ran and jumped on the bus as it took off.

Shit.

My first words to Melinda was 'try not to look nervous', followed by 'welcome to Venezuela' and some other choice adjectives about the bus driver, his assistant, their ancestry and my hopes for their near future. In fairness, there was lots of young, professional looking people around who also looked like they were waiting for taxis. I finally managed to see the tiny 'taxi' sticker on an old bashed up car. We got in and I told the guy where we wanted to go. It turns out he knew the hotel and was very friendly and gave us his phone number in case we needed any help (or another taxi ride). We got to the hotel and after a long discussion in Spanish and a few kilometres walking around the area looking for an ATM I finally came to an arrangement of how to pay for the hotel up front. (Everywhere else in South America so far let us pay when we left).

The next day we left Maracaibo ASAP and headed for Coro. As it was Melinda's birthday the next day we splurged on a nicer hotel and hung out in town. On Melinda's birthday, we caught a collectivo/taxi out to a famous windsurfing town on the Caribbean coast called Adicora. So after a day and night on the beach, it was time to start our long journey to Caracas and on to the plane to New York.

I wont bore you with the details but in summary:

- An overnight bus to Caracas
- My belly decided it was time to get sick for the first time on the whole trip at about 3am (on the bus)
- 3 hours waiting for dawn in the bus terminal (bus was 3 hours early!!!!)
- 10 hours waiting in the airport terminal