Day 29 Maracaibo, Venezuela – Cartagena, Columbia (14 August)

(Written at Rosa and Monica´s house in Cartagena on 16 August)

We woke up after a good but cold night on the bus, and arrived in Maracaibo shortly after. As we got off the bus various voices were calling for Maicao, a town on the other side of the Colombian border. After some deliberation we accepted the services of a shared taxi – an old car with an older driver - that would take us three and two other men to the border and then to Maicao. He stopped in town for fuel and Jansie got out tolook for a stone. The driver wanted to know what she was doing and when she explained she was looking for a stone as a souvenir of Maracaibo, one of the attendants found her a whole hand full of oily gravel stones. She took them all thankfully. The long dry journey to the border was punctuated by more than 6 police checkpoints where they checked our passports and smiled at us. The border was no problem and as soon as we could change money we bought water… the theme of I THURST had really been re-enforced for Venezuela by our poverty there and the lack of clean public drinking water.

We got to Maicao we were just in time for one of the last busses to Cartagena. In the rush to get the bus we forgot one little piece of luggage in the taxi: a bundle with some books and our financial bookkeeping of the trip so far. The bus was already a few blocks from the terminal when we realized this and we felt a great sense of loss. We realized that we have to stick together tightly, no matter how hectic the environment.

The ride to Cartagena was beautiful and long! We managed to find food and were thankful. We arrived only after 10pm and Emmanuel and Monica were waiting for us at the bus station. They brought us to Monica and her sister Rosita Siso´s home where we were enveloped in hearty hospitality and love. We were in bed soon and slept very well.