22 - 23 March Maracaiba and crossing into Colombia

Angela, Duncan and I went out for dinner in a revolving restaurant. With our limited wardrobes, we tried to dress up and somehow, they didn't notice the flip flops. The waiter must have thought we were being really cheap as we asked the price of everything we ordered. We were just keeping a tally though as we were leaving Venezuela the next day and were running our funds down. Luckily, we had brought spare cash from others in the group to spend. :-) 6 Gin & tonics, one glass of vino, 3 starters and mains.....£53. Venezuela rocks.

La Casa Del Whopper! Love it.


Yep, that's machete's she's selling


Interesting scaffolding


Typical political stuff


The next day saw our earliest get-up yet. 4.30am alarms for an early getaway for what Pete predicted might be a tricky border. It was. We got there at about 10am and left at 4pm. It wasn't so bad for us as we could walk around the small town and get to the truck and our things but Pete just had to wait in line or nearby. People fainted and fights broke out in the line for immigration.


Food for sale at the town near the border


Heather passed the time by alphabetising the truck library


This chap passed the time in a hammock under his lorry





They like their big, 70s American cars here......which they keep driving once they have fallen apart


We saw some corruption here, even small scale stuff. The policeman who demanded money as we just got through the border, picked Pete at the wrong time. We didn't get to see just how successfully the warm coke we gave him had been shaken up. Ha! Oh, CRAZY number of roadblocks ever side of the border. The truck was boarded by police or army several times as we got into Colombia. We finally felt able to put our passports away near the end of the day.

M16 not in shot!


Oh, I may have mentioned before the jugglers and unicyclists at traffic lights in South America. Well, here, on this day, I saw a chap doing dance/spinning tricks in a wheelchair, and a machete juggler!

2500 peso to the £......another tricky one!