"Sing along with the common people."

It´s 9am in Merida, Venezuela and we have finally had a warm shower and are in bed for a decent sleep. More importantly, after more than a month of peaceful and easy travel in Colombia adventure has found us again in Venezuela.

A backpacker fact is that although one has some discretion over decisions that are good versus decisions that are bad, one mostly hopes for decisions that are lucky. Being armed with "information", "knowledge", or even "caution" rarely gets you to where you think you are going.

We awoke early Saturday morning knowing some "facts":
- We needed some US dollars for our foray into Venezuela. The official bank rate in Venezuela is 2,150 Bolivares to the dollar but the prevalent black market rate is 4,500 Bolivares to the dollar. Given the instability brought on by Chavez´s new Bolivarian socialism the day to day economy in Venezuela is a joke. Prices and exchange rates are arbitrarily set with little relativity. Actually a totally new currency was introduced January 1, 2008.
- We would take a four hour bus to Macao, mentioned in the Lying Planet as a "lawless" border town where travelers are advised not to stray away from the bus terminal.
- After Macao we would then take a two and half hour taxi across the border to Maracaibo.
- Finally a seven hour night bus to Merida.
With total luck we knew we would be in for a long journey.

Our 10:30am bus left right on time and we were happy that our cheapie fare got us a ride on a super comfy air conditioned bus cama (sleeper seats). We were in Macao by 2:30pm as promised. Lucky.

The Macao terminal was a dusty dump in the middle of a desolate trash ridden field on the highway. We met a woman and man who offered to share a taxi with us but after the man left us waiting for 15 minutes to make phone calls "caution" kicked in.

"Is he making phone calls to arrange for a ´robbery´ of our taxi?"
"Is he up to something shady because he knows we are Americans and likely traveling with US dollars?"

We quickly decided to ditch them. We searched for our own taxi but after being quoted varying exorbitant fares and fearing a ride alone with a sleazy driver we ditched that idea too. We instead decided on the "safest" and cheapest option - a beat up collectivo stuffed with more than 30 people (with seats for less than 20). Catherine got a "regular" seat (think small school bus seat) in the back and again I got the lovely seat up front with no legroom usually reserved for the driver´s assistant. (All buses and collectivos have an assistant. When you board the bus you do not hand the driver your ticket. Instead, halfway through the ride the assistant crams his way through the bus/collectivo collecting tickets or selling tickets. He is also in charge of picking up random riders that wait on the side of the road for a ride).

No AC in the scorching afternoon heat, no space for our bodies, no order, and no luck. We were then joined by the two large and loud female owners of the enterprise that we soon found out was more than a border crossing collectivo.

Problems arose immediately. We stalled before leaving the terminal and within 500m of the terminal we stopped twice to get oil for the collectivo.

In her characteristic feistiness Catherine asked our driver, "Quantas mas paradas vamos a tener?"

Her sarcasm and Spanish skills riled up the locals with laughter and concurring sentiments. Our 2:30pm departure became more like a 3:15pm departure and our supposed two and a half hour trip was reclassified as a four hour trip. By the time we reached the border crossing at Paraguachon just 5km away from the terminal we had stopped several times and were keen to our collectivo´s terrible oil leak.

The border crossing from Colombia to Venezuela was like wandering from the shops on Walnut Street to the shops at Chestnut Street. Strangely only four of us got off the collectivo for the slowly straightforward document formalities. We walked on the dusty dirt patch of a highway from one country to the other sharing the road with rusted banana boat Lincolns from the 70s and tons of trash. The dust was so thick that we could hardly see or breathe.

Back on the collectivo after leaving the border we were stopped every 500m for immigration checks. Venezuelan officers would board the bus, ask for identification, get a wad of cash and slick words from our two large and loud owners, and we would be off again. We were obviously smuggling people across the border and possibly contraband or drugs. Even more obvious was the overt petty corruption found in Venezuela.

After two hours on the collectivo we had traveled what would normally take thirty minutes. We grabbed our gear and ditched our friendly fellow riders and sleazy owners. We hopped in a cab and were in Maracaibo within an hour.

Another backpacker truth is that no matter how tight our budget is and no matter how much we want to "live like common people" we can always call on the privilege of Uncle Sam.