27 April
I got up early about 6.30am so I could get the bus to San Cristobal. 5 or so hours later, I was in San Cristobal where I met a fellow traveller, Nikola from Greece. We asked in our very limited Spanish and between the pair of us, found the small bus we had to take to San Antonio del Tachira.
Nikola had been very ill in Merida, so had not seen any of it. He had been on Isla Margarita too and I think he probably contracted the illness that most of the rest of us got there. He had been in this horrid hotel with cockroaches crawling all over him for a few days and had not eaten or drank much water, so was a bit the worse for wear. San Antonio is 20 minutes from the border with Colombia but I didn't want to negotiate to the next town after the Colombian border, on the same day as it wasn't a nice town. We got to one hotel but when Nikola saw it he hated it and was not impressed with the staff either, so we ended up at another. luckily they found 2 rooms for us. There wasn't a great selection of hotels. Finding food was even harder. Nikola wasn't ready to eat yet, as he believed that starving his illness was better. So I had chips and battered chicken. Just about edible.
28April.
Today we got up early and got our exit stamp from the Venezuelan customs and walked to the Colombian border, 10-15 minutes away from our hotel. At the Colombian customs, I was glad we started early, as there was no queue. It took all of 10 minutes. I changed my Bolivars to Colombian Pesos. We then crossed and got a por puesta to the nearest Colombian city (Cucuta) and just as quickly got out of it. It must have been the easiest crossing I have ever done.
I had formed a bit of an itinerary and as Nikola didn't know what to do and wasn't in a fit state to decide, he just tagged along. 5 hours later at Bucaramanga, we got a little bus to Giron. Again at Giron, we had a few problems trying to find a hostel as they were booked or expensive. Eventually got to this really nice place. Giron is just gorgeous. A small village of 4000. Whitewashed small houses and buildings. No modern building at all in the village. It was incredibly well preserved and restored. As is my wont, we went in search of food. We got some street food, as Nikola was still not ready to eat much, but it was nice.
Nik is a bit of a talker. I thought I was bad... He mentioned that he was wondering where all the beauty queens had come from in Venezuela. Venezuela has had the most Miss worlds etc in the world. Caracas has 900 beauty salons, 1 salon to every 2 restaurants. Unreal. Beauty consciousness and plastic surgery are very big industries. Infact, in Margarita. it was spot the woman who hasn't had a boob job. However, I had to admit that I was wondering the same thing and not just with the women. There were many beautiful men and women in Brazil. I find the same here in Colombia. There is a wide variety of different people. Slim, not so slim, heavy, Obese, but a variety. Faces varied from round to incredibly slender and all colours of skin type. In Brazil especially in Rio and Jeri, one didn't spot the men with 6 packs, they were a dime a dozen, it was spot the 8 pack. Yes they do exist. I saw them. HONEST!! I guess a lot of men and some women do capoera. Also they are quite active, be it work, walking, sports or dancing.
However, in Venezuela, the only 6 packs I spotted were in the off-license. The physique was more the rugby type of body. Shortish and chunky, mostly veering on overweight. And if you saw a group of older men, not even 60 rather large abdomens were the order of the day. Similarly the girls were very curvy often in a good way but very few really slim women. Faces tended to be rounder as well and a similar shade of brown. However, on the same point, most people in Venezuela are normal as such, not ugly just normalish, if you know what I mean.
I tried to figure out why. I guess there is less of an African or Carribean influence, where I was and maybe that explained some things. Also Venezuelans seem to be less active(Although this was not so in Margarita where things were a bit different.) and the food there is much much greasier. In Brazil, fruit and juices were very popular, as was Acai. The street food too was less greasy even though similar to Venezuelan. It is the same here in Colombia. The street food just isn't greasy. Not sure why its so greasy in Venezuela but it is. However I didn't visit a lot of places so will have to compare when I return.
The other funny thing about Venezuela was the huge amount of old Classic cars from the 60s and 70s, Chevrolets, Lincolns etc. All American big cars which wold be so at home in Holllywood circa 1960 or present day Cuba. Really cool cars, albeit many just rust buckets. I really liked that. On the other extreme, the new cars are 4wd and huge. Mostly American. I didn't/dont find that in Brazil or Colombia. There seems to be more of a mixture of US and European, and if they are old, they aren´t classic cars.
My other observation was how clean Brazil is compared to Venezuela. The Venezuelans just discard, cans, bottles etc on the streets whenever they finish using them. Although apparently Chaves has started a campaign to change this. Brazil. however, was so much cleaner, although not so much on or near the favelas. My first impressions of Colombia is that it is also very clean, at least what I have seen of it. The buildings we have seen so far seem to be in good repair, clean and freshly painted or at least not so chipped. However, in venezuela, I rarely if ever saw anyone peeing on the streets in the main cities especially. The same so far in Colombia. However in Brazil, the smell of urine would assail your nostrils on such a regular basis and one nearly always spotted someone peeing in some corner without discretion. You very rarely saw anyone living on the streets in Venezuela, so this may have had a lot to do with that, whereas Brazil, there are many who's abode is the street.
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