WorldWideKittyGlassesProject : Cucuta, Colombia to Merida, Venezuela

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Cucuta, Colombia to Merida, Venezuela

I took a flight early in the morning from Bogota to Cucuta. The flight was just 45 minutes. I met up with my friend and I changed my money. I changed 50 USD and what I got were STACKS of money. I couldnt believe it! The offical exchange rate is 1 USD= 6 Bolivares. On the black market its 1 USD=179 Bolivares!!!!!! Such a HUGE difference. We needed to take a taxi to get to the border. Then we walked across the border. First I needed to exit Colombia. That was easy. Then we crossed into Venezuela. The immigration office is not where you would expect it to be...at the border. We had to walk into the city and hunt it down. For reference, the immigration office is at Calle 7, Carrera 9. You need to get an entrance form for a shop across the street that costs 10 Bolivares. To exit, you must get another form. After I got my entrance stamp we took a taxi for 1.5 hours to San Cristobal. It was a shared taxi and it cost 300 Bolivares, USD 1.50. From San Cristobal we took a bus to Merida. The bus took 5 hours and cost 200 Bolivares, which is just a little over USD 1. Once in Merida we took a taxi to the apartment my friend is renting. It was a tiring day, but I only had to do this one way........my wonderful friend did this round trip just to help me with the border!!!! Thank you sooooo very much. You have lots of travel karma coming your way!!! On our first real day in Merida she took me to a place where she wrote a story about a drink they make. It has a LOT of strange ingredients. If you want to see what I really drank, you can read her article here.... http://munchies.vice.com/articles/the-26-ingredient-aphrodisiac-energy-smoothie-that-keeps-the-andes-wired