Moving on to Venezuela

There was a sense of familiarity, and at the same time a difference, getting back to Brazil. This time entering from Lethem, we arrived in Boa Vista in the northern part of Brazil, with the car limping along after the rough drive in the mud and on the dirt road. Even after the car wash in Lethem, the mud was stuck everywhere underneath, causing a rattle so we had to drive slowly.

Boa Vista was a different Brazilian city. We needed another car wash, and as we arrived on a Sunday everything was closed so this had to wait. We also needed cash, and finding an ATM was impossible. People directed us from here to there, and nowhere was a machine that took an international credit card. We also had some Guyana money to exchange, and the only place that did that was a restaurant, at half the rate. However bad deal that was, it gave us some cash to take us to the border into Venezuela.

It was now time to move on, and the border is quite famous for being one best avoided. It is in Pacaraima, so we spent a night there to be at the border first thing in the morning. We still needed cash, and managed to get some from a supermarket buying some water and getting money in return for charging surplus on the card. Again, not the best rate obviously.

The Brazilian side of the border was not as easy going as previous crossings in and out of Brazil. We ended up having to leave 20 litres of petrol behind. Entering into Venezuela was slow, but polite, friendly and thoroughly bureaucratic. The border station was the prettiest we have seen anywhere. All the officials were nice and the whole experience soothing on the stress built up from all the warnings about Venezuela.

Now we had another cash issue to deal with. At the border we learned from one of the officials how to get an 'avance', being finding somebody to sell US dollars against a charge on the credit card. We spend a night in a 'posada' in Santa Elena, and the next day we learned how to buy petrol from the vendors along the road, getting filled up from plastic bottles.

The drive through the south part of the country, working our way towards Caracas, was a mix of good and bad roads, and with beautiful landscape. Once the road improved, the scenery got more monotonous through the savanna that came after the tropical forest section of the first leg. We decided to take a couple of nights break in El Tigre, in a nice hotel, to sleep well before carrying on to Caracas.

A couple of words about the police. We went through probably 20 police checks on our first two sections of the drive north. The first day was very polite and we were met with professional checks of our documents. At one stop we were offered a cup of coffee while we were waiting for the papers to be stamped. The second day they didn't bother to even stop us, we were simply waved through all the check-points.