Venezuela

How to get away with a bribe

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The following is a story that happened to me while trying to see a little town in Venezuela, just an hour away from the Colombian border.

I was staying in Cúcuta (Colombia) for a week as part of a job assignment. I got there early on a Sunday morning and I decided I wanted to cross the border to Venezuela.

I had already done it in Arauca – Apure a couple of months before this trip, so why not doing it again.

That time I crossed without any concern about stamping my passport or checking in at a police office, I just took a boat that went to the other side of the river. That’s what I was told to do.

I thought it would be the same here in Cúcuta – San Antonio border. However, I was mistaken.

This was once considered one of the world’s most dangerous borders, mainly because Colombian revel groups crossed to Venezuela to get some help from the Venezuelan army and to scape from the prosecution in Colombia.

Also, this border had seen a terrible humanitarian crisis when hundreds of Colombians living in Venezuela where deported by force through a border that was closed—people had to carry their possessions on their backs across a river to get back to Colombia.

With that in mind, well, not so much at that moment, I decided to go with a coworker to Venezuela without our passports.

As I said before, it was Sunday, so a lot of people from Venezuela were crossing to Colombia to buy groceries they can’t find there.

We changed some money, which multiplied when converted to Bolívares.

We asked some guy if there was a nice place to go to see nearby. Her said “Peribeca”, apparently a colonial town just an hour away.

We took the bus and off we went.

I had already crossed some other borders by land in Central America and thought this would be easy business. Wrong!

Venezuela is currently under strict measures to prevent smuggling, so the army stopped the bus to do identity checks and to oversee what items people were carrying in.

We showed our Colombian IDs, thinking that it would be enough, as it is for us in the rest of South America, where they are accepted as travel documents.

They said nothing, even though I was freaking out, because the army officers where carrying full size guns inside the bus! Then I remembered that TV show called “Locked Up Abroad” and feared the worst.

Army Checkpoint

Nothing happened and we thought nothing could stop us then. Wrong again! There was yet another army checkpoint and our documents were requested and we handed out our IDs.

This time they took us down the bus and then we were taken to a kind of “changing room”. There, the army guy asked where were we going and whats were we doing.

We told him we where going to Preiveca and that we wanted to get back the same day, because we had to work the following day.

He believed us, but then he asked for money to let us keep going. We accepted. I couldn’t believe I had given him so much money, I just wanted to get to that town and get back.

When we returned to the bus, I was scared and ashamed. Everybody knew we were asked to give a bribe to the army guy. They told us what we already knew: we had given them too much, they had used their power against us. However, to be fair, we had entered a country without permission. We didn’t even care to look for the admissions office, so it was “kind-of-okey”.

We continued along a two lane road that had risen quickly from the valley into what’s known as the “Andes” in Venezuela, a cuter lower version of Colombian highlands.

People got on and off along the way and no more police or army was seen along the way. We were feeling calm again and according to the map there wasn’t much road left.

We got to this town called Capacho, where we were supposed to take a short taxi ride to Peribeca.

We were sticking to that plan when the police stopped the bus right in front of Capacho main Square. They asked for everybody’s IDs, so we decided to better step out of the bus and tell them the truth in hopes they would let us through.

I had already heard of stories of people being robbed by police officers in borders, so I decided to hide my pocket money and my bank card inside my socks before the officers got off the bus.

We were taken to the town’s police station, our documents taken and our bags and wallets checked.

I had only left a few pesos (Colombian currency) in my wallet together with the Bolívares I had got at the border.

My coworker wasn’t that lucky. She hadn’t hidden her money, which they were saying she had to declare before entering the country—it was roughly less than $50 USD/ 45 €).

I was seeing it all and I was trying to give them some reasons to let us go, but they kept refusing.

They said they had to call the chancellor and file a report to the ministry of international affairs. In sum, we would be detained at least one day until our deportation was processed.

Then, I imagined myself featured in Locke Up Abroad and feared a lot. Lately Venezuelans and Colombians haven’t been getting along very well.

So, suddenly, I was taken, by force, out of the police station while my coworker was left inside. I feared the worst, they could rape her or worst. My mind was crafting all sorts of outcomes.

I kept sneaking through the door and I could see her and grasped some of her words.

She was saying telling them we wanted to get back to Colombia that very day, that we thought it was okey to present our IDs, and that we couldn’t miss our day of work.

The officer saw me sneaking and told me to go away. After a few minutes, that felt an eternity, my friend was released and our IDs returned.

A taxi was parked right outside of the police station. We asked him how much was the ride back to the border, enough to be paid with the Bolívares we had.

We remained silent all the way back.

Before descending the mountains, we saw Cúcuta, thus we were closer to our homeland: Colombia.

The driver left us some blocks away from the border and we walked the rest of the path, we crossed the bridge and returned to safety.

Many foreigners are concerned about their safety in Colombia. I would tell them fear not! Just look at what happened to us just in a couple of hours out of own country.

Once we were at a safe place, my coworker told me they had taken all of her Colombian money (> $50 USD / 45 €) and told her to leave immediately.

That’s how you get away with a bribe while crossing a border in South America.

San Antonio, Venezuela

Todo lo que se puede hacer de viaje / My personal bucket list