Thread by @CaracasChron

#CucutaChronicles update:

After several hours of desolated paramos with shacks made of plastic and sticks where they sell candy and contraband gasoil, our driver advised us to stop taking pictures since we were in “paraco territory”.

“They have control over this area, anyone can be a paraco, it’s best to not draw attention to ourselves.” We were approaching one of the most illegal yet most surveilled places in the world. #CucutaChronicles

The flow of people is completely intimidating. It’s like Mad Max took place in Mumbai, but with a vallenato soundtrack. #CucutaChronicles

@beticamunozpogo’s figures talk about 16 thousand Venezuelans every weekend at the Colombian border, to either buy food or medicine, or to flee Venezuela. #CucutaChronicles

Every square meter before the bridge of Santander is rented out, for commerce. To whom? We were advised not to ask that many questions. #CucutaChronicles

Everything you could possibly think of is there, before and after the bridge. Human hair, gold, cocoa, antibiotics. Nobody takes pictures but you feel as if you’re being watched the whole time. #CucutaChronicles

There are soldiers there but it’s like they’re made of plastic. The first time we tried, they stopped us because we were “carrying clothes in our luggage” because if we wanted to make it to Cucuta with clean pants we had to stand in line for hours in an office. #CucutaChronicles

Everything that people do in those offices is absurdly illegal. It was our first alarm: official fraud or an ugly way to ask for bribes. #CucutaChronicles

That’s where Rocío comes in. Rocío AKA La Gorda, a local chief that works directly with the guards. She can make you invisible for a couple a dollars.
The extorsion pattern was to detain @prosapistola first, in Migration Venezuelan and then @unamujerdecente in Migration Colombia

The services to cross the rivers and trochas illegally are bluntly offered. They offered those as a last resort, but we managed to cross the border. #CucutaChronicles

We were able to buy pesos, but in every currency exchange service they offered currency from all around Latin America. Plane tickets to Buenos Aires, Santiago de Chile and Quito. #CucutaChronicles

The amount of dirty money in the border is enormous, it plays by its own rules and it flows around an unstoppable migration tide. #CucutaChronicles

The concert for humanitarian aid in Venezuela is a way to show on international media how Maduro’s terrible government turned the border into Narcoland. #CucutaChronicles

We’ll keep you posted.