The Boarder Crossing Of Hell......
After Los Llanos we chiiled out for 2 days in Merida, Harry went on a date with Elle
( the local girl ) again, and i went out to a bar with a few people from the Los Llanos group, it was a fun bar full of locals, they had a good DJ playing so it was good music all night, i got home around 4 am. The following day we were meant to be heading off early to cross the boarder into Venezuela because we had ran out of US dollars to trade on the black market, i was feeling rough when i woke and we didn't leave the hostel until 12 midday, which meant the 6 hour bus would get us to San Cristobal after dark, and that it did. We arrived there, planning to transfer to a different bus that would take us one hour to the boarder town San Antonio, San Antonio was meant to be very dangerous, our Australian travel website classes it as a no go zone, I said to Harry i don't want to go any further today, as we already new the boarder was closed for a week due to the Venezuelan elections. Harry and i had the equivalent of $10 US dollars we stayed in San Cristobal the night which cost us $8 US, we didn't have lunch or dinner because we literally didn't have enough money, we drank the water from the tap so we didm't have to buy water. The following morning we woke with plans to just withdraw money out of an atm which cost a lot of money at the local rate, we walked to the banks to find an atm, we lined there for an hour or so because everything in Venezuela is messed up with the banks, there are always lines at all the atm's. I went through the processes of withdrawing money until it come to the point where it asked me to put my ID pin, which is for locals only, i tried making one up, i tried my passport number, i tried everything really. There was no luck, we had $2 and still hadn't eaten since breakfast the day before, we started to panic, still one hour from the boarder and $2 to our name. We decided to go to the bus station to see how much the bus was going to be to San Antonio, We stood there lost not knowing if once we got there we could even cross anyway, we were literally stuck with no option at all, we spoke to the police in the station to try explain our situation to get some help, just randomly a guy said in English "do you need some help" we kinda looked at him strangely because very few people speak English in Venezuela, we said "yeah we do" explain our whole situation to him. He was standing the with a suitcase, he explained he lived in the US and had a flight out of Bogota, Colombia the following day and had to cross the boarder today and if we wanted we could go with him. Harry and I just looked at each other, i could almost read what Harry was thinking ( i don't no do we trust this guy? ) We sort of looked him up and down, judging his every detail e.g. Nice suitcase, clean dressed, clean cut, spoke perfect English, had an Iphone 5. So many thoughts were running through my head, we really didn't have any choice but to go with him. The crazy thing is, where any trouble or dodgy people are is bus terminals, not to mention we were within the most dangerous part of South America
( the Venezuelan / Colombian boarder ) We almost felt like we just had to go with go with our gut feeling, so we said yeah that would be great, his family friend was about to arrive in his car to drive him to San Antonio. Five minutes later we found ourself sitting in the back seat of this little bomb of a car with 2 strange men we had never met before, Harry and I were silent in the back just looking at each other shaking our heads. We arrived at the boarder town of San Antonio having to stop and all get out of the car for all our bags to be thoroughly searched. Everything was fine and we were let through, we come to the bridge over the river where the usual crossing was, there was national guards everywhere with machine guns, the boarder was well and truly closed, we drove down some back streets along the river and found lots of local offering there service to get you across the river / boarder illegally for a small fee, again we didn't want to be doing this at all, we were both nervous, but this was the only option!!
Ernesto our local friend payed the guys for us, so they would take us across the rivers and though many paddocks and banana plantations to get us to the other side, where a taxi was waiting for us. As we crossed the rivers and paddocks we heard a couple of gun shots, i'm not sure about Harry but my heart felt like it was beating in my mouth. About 30 minutes later we made it to the taxi and jumped in, we were heading towards Cucuta the Colombian boarder city.
It wasn't even 5 minutes on the road and we come to a National Guard check point where we were asked to present our passports. In my mind i was thinking "we are totally done we will have to go to the station and be put in a cell". I think the corruption of Colombian police defiantly played on our side for this one. The guards spoke between each other as we stood there almost shaking, they come to the conclusion we had to pay them $180 US, we had $2 and still hadn't eaten, Ernesto had US dollars he paid them for us, once the money was handed over the words were "Welcome to Colombia" with a big smile. Harry and I were just laughing once we were back in the cab and everything had passed. We just couldn't believe the past 48 hours it was all like some crazy dream, but it was finished and the nerves were gone. We arrived in Cucuta and got drop right in the centre, Ernesto Couldn't get a bus to Bogota because he wouldn't have made the flight in time. He went into a flight centre in Cucuta and booked a flight to Bogota whilst i went to get cash at an atm to pay him back, The feeling of holding that money was very similar to the feeling of getting cash again once landing in Cancun after my Cuban crisis. To be honest i have no idea what we would have done if we never met Ernesto, if we were in that bus terminal 5 minutes later or even not standing where he could hear us talking to the police, i don't know what would have happen, something very lucky happened to Harry and I that day, i still think it has something to do with kissing the Stone mum gave me to keep me safe... It sounds silly but the luck we had was just incredible. We could not thank Ernesto enough, we felt like he had saved our lives haha.
Ernesto chilled with us until his flight later that night, as soon as he got his flight and i got cash we went straight into the shopping centre across the road and had the biggest best feed ever, i felt sick after it but it was so good to buy some food again, it had been about 35 hours since we ate. There was wifi in the shopping centre, so we worked out a place to stay and after we ate we went to check in Ernesto come with us and he had a shower and freshened up before his flight. I would have to say that was the most
crazy / scary thing thats happened so far on my trip. The only issue now was that we didn't have a stamp out of Venezuela or in to Colombia. We spent the night in Cucuta and the next day we got a 19 hour bus all the way north to Santa Marta.
We had been talking to Chloe and Sam who we travelled with in Venezuela and they were staying at a hostel in Santa Marta so we went there to meet up with them, It was good to see them and back to normal backpacking mode after the boarder chaos. We went out for dinner with them and we all told stories about what we have been doing. Chloe and Sam left the next day to do the 6 day Ciudad Perdida trek to the lost city, which is one of Colombia's highlights. Harry and I stayed in Santa Marta for 3 nights one of them we met some local girls and they took us out to the night clubs, it was packed but heaps of fun. That day we went to Taganga a cool little hippie beach town 20 minutes away from Santa Marta. It was so hot there, we walked from the main beach around to Playa Grande which was a much nicer beach, we got some chairs and set up the ipod and speaker, we laid there for hours in the sun jumping in the water when ever we got hot.
There was a big black guy walking the beach selling coconut oil, he came up to Harry and I offering it, we said no but he insisted on rubbing it on me, next thing you know i'm laying the middle of the beach on my stomach face down with a big black man rubbing oil all over me, it was so embarrassing, but he said it was free so i guess i just went with it haha, it was the gayest thing i've ever done haha everyone on the beach was looking at me and laughing, but i just tried to enjoy it haha. It was a fun day, we go super burnt by the sun tho.
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