Money, Drugs and Corruption

From the title of this blog you would be forgiven for thinking I was talking about Colombia... No, actually it is much more about Venezuela. Ever since we arrived in Venezuela there has a been a visibly large military and police presence and it has been a pain in the arse. I don't know a great deal about the cocaine trade and its impact on the surrounding countries, but as I learn more I feel it would be rude not to share some of it! The military in Venezuela, largely cocky kids with guns, are constantly stopping and searching vehicles traveling along the road from Venezuela to Brazil. Entire double decker coach loads are turfed out of their luxurious reclining chairs in the middle of the night for exhaustive bag searches over and over again! A soldier will check your passport and then go and get his mate who will do exactly the same thing for no particular reason, as if trying to call your bluff (idiots). I get the feeling they have no idea what they are actually looking at but are just going through the motions to make themselves feel big and powerful! A German guy we spoke to had to empty his bags out 3 times in one night alone, making for a very long sleepless journey! We are repeatedly and reliably informed that the bulk of the cocaine from Colombia is shipped through Venezuela to Brazil where it is then distributed around the world. Given the size of Colombia's cocaine trade and the vast sums of cash involved, the military presence along this particular road, the only one into Brazil, is fully justified. It is a shame however, that the military also take the opportunity to pick on tourists carrying small amounts, just for a bit of pocket money. I guess they've got a tough job and don't get paid very well for it.

Crossing the border from Venezuela to Colombia proved to be a lot more tricky than I expected! We took a local bus across the border, which should have taken about 2 or 3 hours... Along route we were constantly stopped by 'police'. It was pretty hard to tell exactly which ones were real and which were not. They just get on the bus, demand a bribe, and get off a little richer! Uniformed police, plain clothes police (with a 'badge'), military police with machine guns, some very hard looking frontier police dudes... all manner of tooled-up official looking people, simply taking bribes - well, demanding them - under the guise of border control! Every 200 metres it was the same story, over and over again we were stopped and sometimes had to pay a small amount to prevent them causing us even more hassle (like a full hour long bag search). I lost count of how many times we had to stop, but it was somewhere between 10 and 20. I suppose it would have helped if everyone on the bus had a passport - one girl didn't and this didn't seem to help matters. She found a way though, selling herself to the bus conductor to ensure a smooth border crossing! After 6 hours of chaos and the most complicated passport control process on the planet we did finally make it into Colombia.... phew!

In contrast to Venezuela, though there are as you might expect a lot of hard looking dudes walking around with guns, Colombia seems to be more organised and less corrupt. The bus was stopped several times on the Colombian side also, but they didn't hassle the passengers, they were fast and seemed to know exactly what they were doing. I haven't been here long so that opinion may well change but that is my certainly my first impression. My lasting impressions of Venezuela will be that it was as obviously and stunningly beautiful as the police and military were corrupt. We learned today from an American guy that Chavez is actually supporting the Guerillas (as a socialist movement) in Colombia so I suppose that provides some further explanation as to the border tension between the two countries.

So here were are in Colombia... We're in Cartegena for New Year and it's a stunningly beautiful city. No idea what is gonna be happening tomorrow night, just playing it by ear.

Happy New Year, Steve. (in an internet cafe, unblocking my credit cards as usual!).

PS. I've just seen the photo's of your Christmas dinner, Alice - it looks amazing. I had a tough old steak.. so thanks a bunch!!!!