A new state of play?

Some of you may have noticed (hopefully you did anyway!) that there hasn't been a new post up here for some time. 

In fact, November was the first ever 'dry month' in terms of new blog stories since this page went live back in December 2011.

There have been a number of reasons for this. Now, while I enjoy having this little outlet to put my 'musings' about various things out there, the focus has been elsewhere of late.

The Colombia Cast: Off the ground, for now anyway ...

Newborn: The Colombia Cast

Since my return to Colombia in late October after a refreshing break back in Ireland followed by an interesting week in New York, and having kicked English teaching to touch, more energy has been put into IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz". My little baby let's say, one of almost four years of age albeit!

"It's best not to assign a sex to it in the current climate."

Now that baby has a sibling (I won't say what sex either one is lest I offend anyone). This latest creation was a long time in the womb — gestation for new projects, especially in these parts, is substantial. Nonetheless, it's alive and kicking, for now at least.

The Colombia Cast, in conjunction with Semana magazine, is the latest addition to that growing world of podcasts. In a similar vein to IQuiz, it's purely a labour of love, for the moment at least.

'Show me the visa (and the money!)'

Alongside this, though not quite in the labour-of-love category, is a new full-time gig at a global marketing company — work visa pending, but I've already started (not sure of the legalities of that one, guys).

So after over seven years as an independent worker in Colombia, being my own boss to a large extent, I've now entered the full-time workforce. Or so it appears: La Cancillería has to give it the official approval yet.

My mantra for most of the last seven years had been that I wouldn't work full-time for a Colombian company.

"The 'quantity of hours over quality of work' culture permeates."

Not only did I — and still do — value my independence, but the ridiculously long hours that many Colombians seem obliged to spend at work, whether they're actually doing work or not, is something I said I wouldn't sign up to.

The thing is, it's not actually a Colombian company I'm working for. Nonetheless, the quantity-of-hours-over-quality-of-work culture that permeates through many organisations here seems at play. It is early days, so I might be a bit off on that one. I hope I am in any case.

So in a year where it looked odds-on that my stay in Colombia was coming to an imminent end, it now appears I'm about to commit for a bit longer (visa pending of course!).

I might just be here for the opening of the new Irish Embassy in Bogotá after all.
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Saving ourselves (planet Earth is fine)

These seem to be especially frightening times we're living in. One could be forgiven for thinking things have an end-of-days feel to them.

The end of the world as we know it?

The global political picture seems as divided as ever. Well, you could argue it's similar to Europe in the 1930s, so we've been here before, with people finding comfort in the darker corners of the Left and Right, depending on how the Facebook algorithms roll for you.

Therein, of course, lies one major difference: Europe in the 1930s didn't have the internet and its "social" media to contend with (it did have a good dollop of censorship all the same).

Whatever the case, there's nothing really novel about the political — and economic — situation of any period troubling the masses. It would nearly freak us out more if this wasn't so.

Doomed

What appears to be setting these worrying times apart from previous eras are the natural disasters looming that look set to seriously alter the way we currently live — and where we live, too. (At 2,600 metres above sea level, Bogotá's inhabitants should be safe enough from rising sea levels a fair bit longer than most other major population centres around the world.)

'The optimistic view is that we can still turn things around.'

As the almost weekly scientific reports from respected quarters tell us, if we don't change our ways now, that is to say use green energy sources as opposed to those that contribute to global warming, catastrophe awaits.

That's the optimistic view: Time is still on our side, it remains in our hands, just about, to avert the worst-case scenario.

A lot of the language used in this battle for survival is about 'saving the planet'.

Solid Earth

Yet, as the late, great (most of the time, anyway) US comedian George Carlin pointed out years back, the planet doesn't need much saving. 

Barring some unprecedented meteorite attack, a calamity with our sun, things of that magnitude, the future of Earth looks pretty solid for the next few million years.

OK, we can only go on past form, but as advanced as we humans like to think we are, it's unlikely that it will be our dirty work that spells the end for the planet.

The most likely scenario, think dinosaurs here, is that the planet will continue on well after the last human on it breathes his/her (or whatever other gender is out there now) last.

'If we're going down, we're taking a host of others with us.'

What we sophisticated humans are indisputably doing, and here I differ from Carlin, is making sure that as we go down, we're taking a host of other species with us. And we're doing a pretty good job at that.

As Carlin put it, for the planet we're probably like fleas. An irritant, no more, no less. Now if the planet had its own way, it would most likely just get rid of us and keep the majority of other living things (yes, even those dastardly mosquitoes).

But can we change our ways?

However, as the host doesn't directly interfere in how its parasites go about their business, bar the occasional earthquake, volcanic eruption and the like, our actions ensure — and have ensured — other, more low-maintenance users of the globe cease to exist.

So, rather than thinking of 'saving the planet', we should be thinking of 'saving ourselves', collectively that is.

Yet, it's the self-centred nature of many of us that will put paid to that. Forget the utilitarian 'greater good for the greater number' school of thought. We seem happier with 'the greater destruction for the greater number.' 'Heck, if we're doomed anyway we might as well live to the max rather than inconveniencing ourselves fighting a lost cause.'

Oh well, it's one, whisper it "final solution" to our money and political woes.
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Leaving behind the Bogotá standard

After almost seven years of having Bogotá as the base, the greatest, um, achievement — let's not get caught up in the semantics here — has been my assimilation into the working-class Bogotá barrio life.

While many locals with aspirations to improve their lot try to get away from it, I found myself actively seeking it out.

Sure where else would you want to be than in the local tienda?!

Indeed, in the last couple of years, with the departure of some good foreign friends who would regularly force me to change scene, I have become even more entrenched in this environment.

Mixing it with the masses

Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with this. I'm a rural, working-class man at heart, so it could be said that I was just finding my level in terms of mixing it with Colombia's normal masses rather than a minority elite, or those wishing they were part of it at least.

"Ireland's working class isn't quite the same as Colombia's."

Yet, at the risk of sounding arrogant, most of Ireland's landed working class (it exists) aren't quite in the same sphere as the majority of Bogotá's working class. Having much easier, more affordable access to quality second- and third-level education plays a big part in that.

Now, while it wasn't by design, from a personal perspective this gap has closed in recent years, monetary speaking that is if nothing else. Alas, this has had more to do with my decreasing earning power rather than the locals getting richer (and, dare I add, better educated).

A passport to riches?

So if you're a peso-pinching, non-dancing Westerner who's not a big fan of dating, any appeal that this previously imagined rich foreigner had with the local women quickly wanes. "Best to stick with our own kind if this 'gringo' isn't a passport to riches" appears to be the general thinking.

"I might yet regret this conservative approach."

Whether that's fully true or not, I've come to accept it anyway, and in a rather indifferent manner in the barrios I frequent. An old conservative head on relatively young shoulders, you might say, happy out in what are practically gentlemen-only drinking dens.

Paradoxically, I might come to regret this old-school attitude, this 'missing out on the action' when I am older. You know, as the saying goes, 'You can't put an old head on young shoulders.'

Nonetheless, the likes of Santandercito and La Perseverancia have remained the focal points. Good friends have been made, some of those friends for life I'd like to think.

My Bogotá experience would have been much different without them. Some people might believe it would have been different for the better, but that can't be said with any certainty (if I ever get this book sorted, there are plenty more tales to tell on this front!).

Barrio blues

Back in 2008, when I took my first solo steps in South America, one of my biggest worries was leaving behind Gaelic football in Ireland. I saw it as a fundamental part of my life. It didn't, however, take long for me not to miss it. I found other attractions along the way.

Ten years on, I'm now wondering how life will be without the barrios, and by extension the regular mini-escapes to Colombia's small country towns that I also enjoy exploring so much.

They will be missed if I do have to leave them behind indefinitely. Yet, there'll be other things to embrace, wherever the road may take me.

New barrios await to be broken, so to put it. Though, to borrow from the film Casablanca, "We'll always have Bogotá." For better or for worse.
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Flying the flag for political incorrectness

Many people still don't seem to get it. Or they wish it wasn't so in any case.

Basically, a significant reason US President Donald Trump proved to be — and still proves — popular across Middle America, away from the east- and west-coast echo chambers that is, is that he speaks a straightforward language.

Trump: Middle America's president. (Photo from Twitter.)

He tells/tweets it as he sees it — for better or for worse. Unlike mainstream, establishment politicians, not everything, nay nothing in terms of tweets anyway, is precisely planned, framed in must-not-offend diplomatic speak.

In the politically correct West, where the leftist discourse has taken a strong hold in the universities, shaping in such a way many of our current and future key opinion leaders, somebody deviating from the accepted script is bound to find favour with those not in the club.

This is not to say that all Trump supporters are dumb hillbilly racists, the standard charge levelled at them.

Indeed, many Trumpists I know find his controversial, excessive tweeting irritating. Neither do they agree with all his utterances — in fairness it can be hard to keep up with them in any case.

Yet, it's the feeling that despite his many flaws, he is about as honest as they come. He doesn't hide behind political advisers. What you see is what you get.

In this day of carefully groomed, mannequin-esque politicians, this resonates. (That the US economy is performing well under Trump's watch is another important plus point.) 

It's a question of, 'Who do you really trust: Somebody who comes across as "holier than thou" or a guy seemingly showing us his warts and all?'

"Now name calling does hurt us."

Trump's presidency and other similar eschewing of the standard political system elsewhere have been the inevitable backlash against the over-the-top political correctness we've had to stomach for the last couple of decades.

Where did our childhood act of defiance towards hurtful words go? You know, the old schoolyard rhyme, 'Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me.'

We realised back then that acts of real violence could be lethal, but name-calling? Whatever. We could rise above it.

Now, however, many of our law-framers and influencers have become too cool for school. 'You can have your free speech but you can't say this and you sure as hell (OMG, did I just say "hell"?) can't use that word.'

We're in the process of creating an impotent, sterile bunch of human beings. Like the announcer at the bumping cars — do they still exist or have they become too unsafe, imparting evil habits in our young? — at a funfair used to say 'one way round only', now it's 'one discourse only', even if it goes against biology, to name but one area of contention. (How many genders do we have now? It's difficult to stay, um, abreast of the accepted pronouns these days.)

The British intellectual, amongst many other things, Stephen Fry has a refreshing approach to all this craziness. At a debate on political correctness earlier this year he said that if somebody wants to call him a 'fagot' — he is gay — then so be it. It's not the end of the world. There are far greater things we should be crusading against.

It's not the case where we want things to become overly verbally abusive — radicals or fundamentalists on all sides are adept at that already — but we don't want people having to consult a lawyer every time they want to speak lest they offend some unsuspecting bystander.

Fry's common sense view is nothing more than we'd expect from a man of his standing. Yet, worryingly, he doesn't seem to be in the majority in the intellectual world.

In Colombia, one of the refreshing things about life here is how it's normal to call somebody by their outward appearance. So you have people being affectionately called 'fatty', 'blacky', 'thinny' and so on.

Imagine how that would go down these days in most "First World" countries. The courts would be on the go 24-7.

With all that in mind, we're now just over two years away from the next US presidential election. The big question is, if he survives all the scandals and potential impeachment, can Trump get re-elected?

A lot, of course, will depend on who he's up against. 

The danger for the Democrats is that in their desperate bid to win back the White House they'll opt for an everything-for-everybody candidate. A product of our one-size-fits-all globalised world. 'Tell us what we want to hear, regardless of the reality.' Ah yeah, that makes it all better.

The Democrats would be doing us all a favour, everywhere, if they look more towards the centre-ground.

Alas, the radical left will do their bit to make sure that doesn't happen. Trump will happily toot to that.

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Colombia's foreign press clampdown?

In previous posts I wrote about, or at least mentioned in passing, the visa issues I had in Colombia this year.

Indeed, the chief reason for my recent visit to Venezuela was down to being unable to renew my 'independent journalist' visa. (I am somewhat thankful to Colombia that it forced my hand and I was able to return to the 'brother country', despite all the pre-journey fears.)

Is there an official Colombian clampdown on independent journalists? (Image from web.)

While I wasn't actually denied the visa — the door is still open to get it — new requirements in relation to my journalist diploma made things much more awkward and time consuming than they had theretofore been.

Had it been my first visa request it wouldn't have been as disheartening a saga. "OK, these are the requirements and I have to follow them." However, I was going for my fifth, after which I would have been entitled to apply for residency, and that lasts for five years.

So considering the time and money I've invested here, that I'm now back at zero in terms of visa continuity is a little bit disappointing.

Now, it must be said I'm not terribly down about it. I'd been considering my future here anyway, before the visa complications started. In some ways it's been positive. Since my return from Venezuela I've been focusing on work areas more 'down my street', or what I think I should be doing in any case.

It remains to be seen whether this new, um, 'Wrong Way' results in my immediate future still being here in Colombia or it means moving on to pastures new. The next few weeks will tell a tale. Whatever the case, I'm relaxed. Things are happening.

Specifically in terms of the visa stumbling block, though, it never crossed my mind, not with any real belief anyway, that there were more, let's call them 'sinister forces' at work.
In fact, I still don't think there are.

However, it appears that a good number of foreigners in a similar position have had the same issue. So much so that the head of Colombia Reports is getting European diplomats and other international agencies to look into the matter.

Of course it is rather difficult to prove that there is a concerted effort from Colombia's La Cancillería — the department responsible for visas — to remove independent journalists from the country.

What's more, officialdom here is fully within its rights to change the visa requirements as it sees fit. From an Irish perspective for one, it's not like we have an open-door policy for the few Colombians who wish to make Ireland their home.

Personally, the idea that I was a 'target to take out' for La Cancillería is a little amusing, flattering even. As much as I'd like to think differently, this blog and the occasional other media groups I've collaborated with to write and talk about this country are unlikely to have caused much, if any, fuss amongst Colombia's powers that be.

For sure, there have been a few negative articles, but it's safe to assume they didn't set the alarm bells ringing. Hey it'd be great in a way if there was a 'Wrong Way Out' campaign. Alas, I haven't quite made it that 'big' yet.

This isn't to say that other journalists/reporters from here haven't been singled out. They may indeed have been. The most likely scenario, if there is something untoward at play, is that it's more of a general sweep, the idea being to cut down on these 'volatile' independent journalists/writers.

It will be interesting to see where Colombia Reports gets with its investigations in this regard. I'm guessing it will be a case of, 'Nothing to see here guys, move along.'

That being said, there are, unsurprisingly, some grey areas in the whole process.

Previously, so it went, with journalism being an unregulated profession no official qualifications had to be submitted with the application. It was all about proof of actual work.

Now however, as mentioned above, La Cancillería is demanding the translation and certification of the relevant qualifications — a long and relatively costly process.

This does beg the question for those going for an independent visa where they actually don't have a qualification to 'prove' their skills in what they're doing, what do they do?

For example, I have dabbled in a bit of acting, basic and ad hoc as it has been. So what if I were to apply for a visa as an actor? I don't have papers to say I am one, I just discovered I'm good at it and there is a demand for my services in the country (relax, it's a hypothetical scenario!).

Plus, of course, not all journalists, broadcasters or presenters have the qualifications in those specific fields. Some just fell into them by chance.

So you'd have to think there are allowances for such things.

Then again, in a country that tends to value the piece of paper over actual real-life ability, maybe not.

Perhaps they just want to let in those of a more academic disposition. Good at the theory — or as often happens in Colombia, with deep pockets — but not great in practice.

Talk the talk, but can't walk the walk. Good luck to them with that.
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Backpacking in 'no-go' Venezuela

During my recent 16-day visit to Venezuela, I had a host of people asking me, "What's it like 'for real'?" I'm still getting asked that since my return.

Via an article in The Irish Times I did touch on a number of the everyday issues that Venezuelans are currently facing.

Party border.

Here, I want to describe things from the point of view of entering the country overland as a tourist, which is effectively what I did.

Visa issues in Colombia meant I had to do a border-run and while I could have opted for Ecuador, Venezuela appealed far more to the adventurer/journalist/reporter in me. From that perspective it was like having the World Cup on my doorstep. I couldn't not go, especially now that I had the visa excuse.

Don't go

For sure, it wasn't a decision I took lightly. Not only was I strongly advised against it by a high-up diplomat friend at our Irish embassy in Mexico, but even some Venezuelan acquaintances here in Bogotá thought it wasn’t the best idea.

On top of that, there were the daily news reports on Colombian media that made the place seem akin to hell on earth. Only a lunatic would consider a holiday there, especially doing it overland.

What made me feel a little bit more relaxed about going were the messages from my friend Yessi in Caracas. I'd stayed with her and her family for my previous visit back in December 2015.

This time Yessi told me that while the situation for Venezuelans on the ground was more desperate due to, amongst other things, the hyperinflation and food shortages, in terms of security it wasn't much different. And it was this, safety, that concerned me most.

So with Yessi's somewhat reassuring messages and, more importantly in terms of giving me the final push to go, an arrangement that her cousin living in the Venezuelan border town of Colón would accompany me from Cúcuta across the wild frontier, it was, 'Venezuela here I come'.

A cash-laden sitting duck

I was, I have to say, quite nervous thinking about what lay ahead during the 15-hour bus journey from Bogotá to Cúcuta. Arriving in Cúcuta, that apprehension worsened on receiving WhatsApp messages from Yessi's cousin informing me that she couldn't meet me in Cúcuta.

What's more, she asked me to go to a different border crossing to the one I was familiar with in San Antonio. It all sounded a little too complicated.

In any case, Erika from the money exchange office I used at the bus terminal in Cúcuta wasn't sure if I could get my passport stamped at this other border crossing.*

I decided I'd go it alone to San Antonio.

Getting the Venezuelan entry stamp.

The 'What am I doing?' thoughts ramped up further still at the money exchange. On discovering I had emergency US dollars and euros on me, alongside a decent amount of Colombian pesos, Erika told me I'd have to hide everything exceptionally well.

She relayed stories of Venezuela's infamous Guardia Nacional (National Guard) recently strip-searching people, looking for their hidden foreign currency, pretty much essential for any visitor to survive economically in Venezuela. I'd faced the intensity of the Guardia Nacional before, but the way Erika was speaking, it seemed like things were far worse.

My suggestion to hide the cash in my shoes, as I'd done before, was "too obvious" she said.

Thus, for the good part of an hour we carried out surgery on the Lonsdale tracksuit bottoms I was wearing in order to make places to hide the cash.

Incidentally, based on Yessi's advice, I only changed a small amount of cash, 50,000 Colombian pesos (COP), into bolívares. I received slightly less than 10 million, about 60 per cent of the value you'd get for doing a black market bank transaction, which is what most Venezuelans exchanging foreign cash do. 

They send the money to a Venezuelan bank account. Due to the shortage of bolívares, you don't get the full value making cash-for-cash exchanges. 

That aside, with the foreign currency hidden on my body as best we could, I took a shared taxi to the border.

Fiesta frontier

The first thing that struck me on arrival was how lively it was. Street vendors and tiendas blaring out music catering to thousands of people. It was like a little city of its own. 

This was completely different to the last time I crossed. It was more like a funeral procession back in 2015. The liveliness of it put me at ease, even if I did seem to be the only foreign face about.

After queuing for about 90 minutes to get my Colombian exit stamp — unfortunately on the Colombian side it's the same queue for those entering and exiting, so I was lumped with all the Venezuelans going the opposite way — I walked across Puente Internacional Simón Bolívar, the bridge over the River Táchira, the divide between Colombia and Venezuela.

On my previous visits, the office to get the Venezuelan entry stamp was in the middle of the town of San Antonio. Keeping myself to myself, I headed that way, but not before a Guardia Nacional checkpoint. I mentally readied myself for a very thorough inspection.

To my pleasant surprise, the rather pretty lady officer barely opened my backpack. A more chilled-out Guardia Nacional, I couldn't believe it. She was even quite friendly! 

When I asked her about my entry stamp, she told me that I'd already passed the place, and I better hurry as it would soon close (it was getting late). The office is now right on the border, just as you come off the bridge; much more conveniently located.

On the Venezuelan side there is a separate queue for those entering as opposed to those leaving. There was, unsurprisingly, nobody in the queue for entering, so I got my stamp in seconds. (It's important to note here that there wasn't much of a queue for leaving either. Two weeks later, when I was leaving, this had dramatically changed.)

With my passport stamped, I passed by the Guardia Nacional checkpoint again where my friend waved me on. OK, I'd only just entered the country, but I was already beginning to think, 'What was all the fuss about?'

On failing to reach Yessi's cousin from a minutos stand (a person on the street with a mobile phone you can use, charged per minute) I decided I'd go to San Cristóbal that night, a place I knew relatively well.

All this time, the fears I'd had about visiting Venezuela were decreasing. As in previous visits, a big factor in this was down to the friendliness and helpfulness of the locals.

For example, the minutos guy helped me board the right bus to San Cristóbal and told me exactly how much I had to pay. Laden down with over ninety 100,000 bolívar notes, I was still trying to figure out its value. (As it turned out, the bus from San Antonio to San Cristóbal cost 250,000 bolívares. Using the exchange I got, that worked out at about 1,200 COP, or 35 cents in euros. Pretty cheap for a 90-minute bus journey.)

Crazy currency

It was well into darkness, about 9 pm, when I reached San Cristóbal. Bus terminals pretty much anywhere aren't the safest places, especially at night, but I'd always stayed close to the one in San Cristóbal on previous visits and I'd had no problems.

Considering the time, I took the first place I found. "How much?" "5,000,000 bolívares." 

With the exchange I got in Cúcuta, that was over 25,000 COP, expensive for what was a very basic place. I'd basically spend more than half my bolívares on one night and I still needed cash for my bus ticket to Caracas. "How much is it in Colombian pesos?" "5,000." "What?!"

I obviously paid with my pesos! I'd soon discover that when paying in cash with your Colombian pesos, one million bolívares equals 1,000 pesos. So it was much better for me to use my pesos for everything save transport, which was either cheaper in bolívares or more or less the same.

Take a 222 ml Polar, the tipple of choice for Venezuela's beer drinkers. It costs between 800,000 and 1,000,000 bolívares. With the exchange I got, that would make a bottle cost about 5,000 COP, pretty expensive for a small beer. Yet paying in pesos, it's just 800 to 1,000 COP. Madness.

Once I'd got my head around the money, knowing my pesos made me rich in San Cristóbal and meeting yet more friendly locals, I ended up staying three nights there. Even though many employees in the food stands and bars around the terminal told me to be careful, I never felt anything untoward.

On the contrary, I was having a great time being the 'only foreigner in the city'. At least it felt that way anyway.

Facing down the Guardia Nacional, Irish style

In fact, the most, nay the only, intimidating, uncomfortable experience I had was on the overnight bus from San Cristóbal to Caracas. 

I was preparing myself for it in fairness. Experience had taught me that Guardia Nacional checkpoints on busses heading deeper into Venezuela are where you tend to meet the meanest officers.

Thus, just after the city of Barinas, half-way on the journey to Caracas at about 2 am, came the Guardia Nacional treatment I'd been expecting. You might avoid them on the street, but there's no hiding on a bus.

Being a foreign-passport holding man (I'm not sure how women fare) means automatic selection for a bag and body search. Unlike other times, I actually had Venezuelan company on this occasion. With the other four lads, it kind of felt like safety in numbers.

Wearing the remodelled, money-laden Lonsdale tracksuit bottoms again, before alighting from the bus, I hid a 'dummy' 40,000 COP in my boxers. The reason: I figured the young officer would expect to find foreign cash on me, so I thought I'd let him do so with some relatively easily.

After meticulously revising all our bags followed by an equally thorough frisking, especially around the groin and hip areas (but not my shoes, damn Erika!), the officer let the other guys back on the bus. I was held back.

"What's the money you've got hidden around your boxers?", he asked. "Has he felt my neatly concealed dollars and euros?", I wondered, the heart beating a little more intensely. "Surely not, but they are in that area."

I pulled the 40,000 COP from my boxers, explaining that I live in Colombia and this was left over cash.

He walked me to a different area, where another two guards, one clearly being the head honcho, were waiting. I felt like it was a scene from a Tarantino movie. All the seated sergeant was missing was a fat Cuban cigar. I was asked yet again to empty my pockets.

"What do you think of President Trump?" the boss man asked with a grimace. "I'm Irish. Trump means nothing to me." "Ah, you're Irish. Ireland is a friend of Venezuela, isn't it?" "Of course!"

With that, he let me on my way, but not before taking a small packet of chewing gums I had. I didn't protest about that. 

My next Guardia Nacional experience would come at the border back in San Antonio, where I stayed for two nights waiting, in vain, for the ridiculously long (a 10-hour wait at least) exit-stamp queues to die down. And I can happily say that those who I dealt with there were cordial. One even let me film the queues on my phone on my first evening there (officially, recording was prohibited). 

On the return journey from Caracas to San Cristóbal there was a Policía Nacional, National Police, checkpoint. 

This arm of Venezuelan law enforcement was far more even-handed than the Guardia Nacional. Everybody on our overly-crowded minibus (transport options departing Caracas were thin on the ground; it was a case of taking whatever you could find), women included, was asked to get off and we all had our bags searched, but not our bodies.

Beer: Payment in kind

As for Caracas, staying with my family in their working-class barrio, I had a great time. The only inconvenience was not really being able to spend my own money.

It wasn't all hard work in Venezuela.

The Colombian peso is less accepted there compared to the border regions. Also, with hardly any bolívares available, alongside needing bag loads of them to pay for just the cheapest of items, the majority pay for things by card. Without a Venezuelan bank account, that option wasn't open to me.

So my hosts pretty much paid for everything. On departure I paid them in dollars, money they can get very good value for on a street market transfer or the like (one dollar is currently at 3.8 million bolívares on the black market).

I did also buy three crates of beer — to share, of course — from the local tienda, the owner there was happy to take my pesos. 60,000 COP in Colombia is just one good night out in the local barrio. The equivalent price of the beers in bolívares, 60 million, is twelve-times the monthly minimum wage.

In terms of security in the capital, I never felt uneasy. 

Now, it is important to note here that at practically every moment I had someone from my Caracas family by my side. It might be a different experience for a foreigner wandering around the place on his/her own, taking public transport, availing of the free metro, that kind of stuff. But maybe not.

Of course with no end in sight to Venezuela's major problems, there are similar, less complicated places to visit. There's Colombia, for one. It's just the Venezuelans are friendlier. Relax, it's a joke!

*Erika's money exchange office, located in Cúcuta's main bus terminal at Local N1-90, is called 'Luna' and she can be contacted on +573163228453.
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Refocusing the energy

Sorry, sorry. I know the, um, legions of Wrong Way readers have been wondering where I've got to the last while.

The recent presidential election and Colombia's World Cup exploits, nay the tournament in general, have been distractions for sure. 'Yet', I hear you ask, 'haven't they also been great things to write about?' Of course.

More pertinently and personally, ongoing visa complications have been occupying my mind. A right saga indeed. Akin to an existential crisis really — well, in terms of my permanence in Colombia anyway. A visa-run to Ecuador is now firmly back on the cards.

Focusing on a new path ...

Again, a good blog topic that, you might say. However, sitting down to upload new posts hasn't seemed the most important of exercises of late. (Having my laptop stolen has also played its part; you can just never switch off in these parts.)

No more Mr Blog guy?

Now, truth be told, this lack of enthusiasm to write isn't just because of the aforementioned. No. The thing is, there's been a slight refocusing of energies.

Basically, the blog posting has always been a labour of love. Well, the Google blog initially had a small chance of becoming profitable, but, as detailed at the time, that lucrative avenue was closed off years back.

This blog, launched back in late 2011, and the El Tiempo space which began at the beginning of 2014, were started with a view to being springboards to something greater. For the record, there has never been any hope of getting financial reward for the El Tiempo blog.

In some ways, they have served this route-to-reward purpose. They've maintained my hand in journalism of sorts as well as, so I like to think anyway, helping to develop my writing skills (I class myself a broadcaster first and foremost, the only full-time, professional job I've had in my life to date). 

It's unlikely I would have been used for reports from here for Ireland's national broadcaster RTÉ if I hadn't the blogs to prove my credentials.

The El Tiempo blog also played an important part in getting an independent visa as a journalist, something I've had for the last four years and hoping to get again if and when I get the new paperwork requirement sorted out. Let's just say La Cancillería hasn't made the visa process any easier.

Pet projects

These blog benefits now, however, appear to be on the wane. Other things have become more worthy of devotion, at least for the time being.

In a previous post this year I alluded to writing a book on my experiences here in Colombia. That's still a work in progress, slow progress. 

Indeed, while I will finish it, it may never see the light of day in terms of getting it published, be that self-published or otherwise. Whatever the case, trying to put it together is proving to be an interesting, worthwhile experience.

On top of this, the prospect of working on a long-yearned-for project with other Colombian media groups is back on the table. Or at least it seems that way. More meat should be put on the bones of that in the next few weeks and months.

If not, it will more than likely signal the time to hit for the exit door — I can't keep ignoring these signs. It would have been nice to try this project with El Tiempo considering I've been writing on its website the last four-and-a-half years, but that hasn't been possible. It's been a closed shop.

Thus, while I don't intend to scrap the blog-writing completely — it can be a bit of an addiction — the frequency of posts will drop considerably.

The barrio panadería lifestyle isn't that excessive, but one still needs to earn a bit to put that bread on the table.
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