Caracas, Venezuela
Well, made it to Caracas safe & sound (& tired) after two, not quite "Bus Rides from Hell", but challenging nonetheless. The 1st bus ride from Cartagena to Barranquilla to Santa Marta featured a Japanese horror film, played a bit too loud. The movie was played back to back, from Cartagena to Barranquilla, then from Barranquilla to Santa Marta (4 hours total). The movie was about 2 hours long, 90 minutes of the soundtrack consisting of a woman screaming & shrieking, a baby crying, & glass breaking & shattering. Indeed the movie was a true horror. Thank goodness for earplugs & the iPod.

The next bus ride, about 17 hours (!) from Santa Marta to Caracas featured the movie "The Bourne Identity". It was shown in english, in english subtitles. I didn´t notice anyone complaining & even saw the 2nd driver (on most of these long distance journeys there are 2 drivers), look at it for a while, but he didn´t do anything to change the subtitles to spanish.

La Frontera (The Border)
The border crossing was slow & disorganized. We had to disembark & wait in line in front of the immigration office to officially exit Colombia. Then we had to walk through a noisy, crowded, trash strewn area to another, unmarked building to officially enter Venezuela. We stood in line about 2 hours. Finally, a guy, don´t know if he was Venezuelan or Colombiano, pitched a fit at one of the Venezuelan immigration officials. And this is why: there were about 100 people waiting line. The Venezuelan immigration "office" consisted of 2 windows, one marked "SALIDA", the other "ENTRADA". The "SALIDA" line, oddly enough, moved quickly, but the "ENTRADA"window moved at a snail´s pace. And even when the "SALIDA" line was emptly, the immigration agent would not take a person from the other line, those of us waiting to enter the country. After 2 hours, when i finally got to the window (a blue tinted window with a small slot at the bottom, and a circle about 4 inches in diameter at face level), what i saw was this: a fat, uniformed guy in a small, naked room, sitting & chatting next to a scantilly dressed woman, displaying much cleavage, sitting with her legs crossed ala Sharon Stone in "Basic Instincts". He thumbed back in forth through my passport enough times to give me the impression he was intentionally taking his time (as he continued chatting with Sharon). Then, apparently satisfied that he had made everyone wait a sufficently uncomfortable & inconvenient amount of time, he stamped my passport & gave it back to me. Not a particularly stellar introduction to one´s country i must say.

The remaining bus ride to Cartagena featured a western flick (before screening i heard folks asking the driver to make sure it was not in english). The air conditioning was set at 19 degrees celcius (66.2 degress F) , so the ride was a bit chilly & i found it difficult to sleep.

Applied for my Brazilian Visa this morning. It will not be available until next Friday, the 27th. So looks like i´ll be doing a Caracas Christmas.

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