Gone is mom’s hug, a hug that you don’t know when it will be repeated. The weekend outings to the disco with friends, the desk and the living room that witnessed presentations, jokes and even TikTok dances. Gone are dear people and the desire to meet again one day.
Pableysa Ostos // Correspondent lapatilla.com
Social networks do not prepare you for everything you really experience when emigrating from Venezuela to the United States. Nobody prepares you mentally or physically for everything you have to face.
A Guyanese (Venezuelan Guayana) woman tells us about her journey to reach American soil in search of her not only a dream, but quality of life and a better future.
María (fictitious name) before making the decision to emigrate, worked for several years in a store. Before leaving, she was working in her brother’s business and studying the second semester of Business Administration, but the economic situation and the crisis in the country were destroying her living conditions.
“I was evaluating the possibility, because my salary wasn’t enough. In Puerto Ordaz one survives, one does not live. Education is far below par, I had to pay $400 to start the second semester, money that we did not have, which we literally ‘parimos’ (gave birth to),” she said.
There were three options: a few months ago she was going to Brazil with a cousin, but at that time she did not have the resources for that trip. “I was going to evaluate all the possibilities. By that time, my grandmother had left for Spain, my father was already in Brazil and there was the option of my uncle in the United States”.
“I had told my mom that, depending on the possibilities that came up, I was going to make the decision to leave. My grandmother left on a Monday, as I remember, and that same day my uncle called me to offer me an opportunity. And I thought: I’m not going to waste it, I didn’t evaluate pros and cons. My uncle told me ‘it’s going to be tough, I didn’t go through that, but I know it’s tough’. He told me part of what would happen and in the end he left everything to my choice.”
María did not have much time to plan the trip to the United States. In less than two weeks, she organized everything to emigrate. A journey that would last more than a month. María left Ciudad Guayana on March 9th bound for San Antonio del Táchira, on the border with Colombia, taking with her a bag and a koala (belt pouch).
“I left Puerto Ordaz with only what I was wearing: a biker short and two lycra pants, plus two t-shirts. I ended up throwing everything away, because they hurt my legs. Do you remember the outfit you gave me last year for my birthday? Well, that was the one I used on the trip. When I arrived in Panama, I bought clothes, I had two bags and I kept a mini koala,” she explained.
The journey
Until then, Maria had never left the country. She left Venezuela with only her ID, because it never occurred to her that the first time she would leave her homeland it would be this way. The ticket from Ciudad Guayana to San Antonio de Táchira cost about 65 U.S. dollars, and the trip lasted about 3 days. Then they were transported to Cúcuta (Colombia).
“In Cúcuta we had to catch a bus that would take us to the terminal. At the terminal we caught another bus that would take us to Medellín. That ticket cost about 22 dollars, and the trip took one day. From Medellín we went to Necoclí, that trip also lasted one day and cost 21 U.S. dollars.”
“We slept in Necocli. There they received us in a house, where we slept one night. There we paid 310 dollars (this included the transportation to the boat, the guide and a lunch). They took us to catch the boat and we spent approximately two hours there to get to Acandí (everything is managed by Colombians). Acandí is the jungle that goes up towards the border of Colombia with Panama. People treat you well, many times what they post on social media can be something wrong, but they really treated us very well,” explains the 19-year-old girl, who was accompanied by her cousin and 10 other people, including a woman who was traveling with her three children, ages 1, 5, and 11, all of them came from Puerto Ordaz.
María explained that in Acandí there are different camps: the first one they arrived, they detailed the rules to follow and suggested buying bread and tuna, which is the lightest for the trip, but they also recommend (instant) “Maruchan” soups that are lighter and easy to carry on the road, apart from providing more strength to the body.
“My cousin and I bought 14 tuna and 3 bags of bread. The recommended are 7 tuna cans per person for that trip. From there they took us to a second camp. In Acandí you must buy your mat and your tent, that costs about 20 dollars.” She explained that they arrived at that second camp on a motorcycle, which costs $25. There they spent the night to enter the Darien jungle the next day.
“There you no longer have a (cellphone) signal, but there are businesses that give you an hour of Wi-Fi for one dollar. They also charge you a dollar to charge your phone. There is a river in which you can bathe, because there are no showers, or anything like that,” she explained.
The jungle
María and the group of people with whom she left Puerto Ordaz, whom she got to know well during the journey, got up at about 3:00 in the morning, because at 5:00 the guide would look for them to enter the Jungle.
“The guide allows others to carry your bags, which are the carriers, and that has an additional cost. I had two bags: a koala and a shoulder bag. For carrying my bag they charged me 25 dollars, from that camp to the top of the border with Panama and Colombia. Those ‘caleteros’ (carriers, porters) play a lot with your mind so that you hire them. They start by saying: ‘look, I see you’re walking badly, let me carry your bag’. We left at about 6:00 in the morning and at 1:30 in the afternoon we were already at the Colombia-Panama border,” María commented.
Upon entering the jungle, four camps were found where you can rest, eat or simply pass by. “You rest in the fourth camp, which you arrive at 11:00 in the morning, depending on how fast you walk. They recommend that you walk 3 to 4 hours straight and rest for 30 minutes. They recommend arriving before 3:00 in the afternoon to the last point, because they close it.”
In the fourth camp, they prepare us to climb some hills. Each hill is about 200 steps. “When you go, each time you go up, it gets higher, and you must have all the strength to be able to climb those steps, which are made of dirt. You see to the right and there is a precipice, to the left there is another cliff. You must bring the necessary strength and someone who can guide you, because there are many people on the road, but you have to be careful. The advice is to walk looking down, because if you walk looking up you get tired.”
“Climbing those hills is not easy, there are all kinds of people. Pregnant women, children, it’s maddening to see how people with their newborn children go through that jungle, I don’t know how I can explain this to you. A group of approximately 10 people left Puerto Ordaz and we all helped each other, we were only 3 women. They helped a lot. If you are going to take this trip, it is best to do it accompanied because alone it gets rougher,” recalled María.
She details that after climbing the hill they arrived at the Panama-Colombia border where there is a sign that says: “the guides will accompany you up to that point. Only up to this point they can accompany you because when you start to go down into the jungle towards Panama, they do not let the Colombian guides enter this area. So there you start to go down alone.”
“They say that the difficult thing is the ascent, but for us the most difficult part was the descent. We started to go down while it was raining and when it rains it is very rough, because everything is bogged down. It is awful! We crossed the jungle for two and a half days. My recommendation is that when you start to go down, do not stop. Going down there is a river, you bathe, and you must go on. On the way you orient yourself, because the Haitians have already made a path in that jungle and they guide you by leaving blue bags or something blue that indicates that the path is there. We were guiding ourselves by the blue bags until we arrived at a first camp, which belongs to the Panamanian Guard. There you can rest, and nothing will happen to you. But when you leave, you must leave everything clean. They do not ask for a ‘collaboration’ (payment in kind) to take shelter in that camp,” explained María.
The corpses
The group in which María was traveling decided to go down the river. “If you go into the jungle as such, the paramilitaries can catch you. Thank God nothing happened to us, because after you leave the jungle, you start to hear those stories about people who were robbed, raped, had their husband killed, that the husband fell (of a cliff).”
In her life, María had only seen corpses in photos and videos that circulate on social networks, but never in person, until that day when she was in the jungle. “I came to see a dead man, I did not see him completely, I only saw his hand, because the rest of the body was completely covered. There were many tents, and when these were opened, there were dead people inside. I didn’t see any animals, just a squirrel, no lions.”
“After we left the camp we walked until 6:00 in the afternoon, and our breakfast break was around 9:00 in the morning and for only 30 minutes. Lunch was around 1:00 in the afternoon. And dinner when we already decided where we were going to stay. We made camp on the banks of a river,” described the young woman.
Then some Panamanian Indians arrived. They were paid to take them to Bajo Chiquito in “curiaras” (canoes). She describes it as a “mini UN.” There they receive them and take all your data. “You rest that night to continue the next day to the UN in Panama. That curiara was 20 dollars, but we feel that it is the biggest robbery of our lives, because all the men had to get off. Since the river was shallow, they had to climb out to push the canoe.”
“That trip took about two hours. They take your information, a photo and give you a ticket, which you have to use to be able to leave the next day in the morning. You get up at about 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning to queue and make sure the curiara won’t leave you behind. That day we got (the number) 600 and a bit. That small town sells you everything: clothes, food, but the only thing they don’t sell you is beer, because it is forbidden to sell it to emigrants,” she added.
Some 7.1 million Venezuelans (close to 20% of the national population) currently live as migrants or refugees in different parts of the world, according to data from the United Nations Organization, corresponding to September 2022.
Since the beginning of the migration crisis, most of the Venezuelans who decided to look for a life abroad have gone to other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean: some 5.96 million. It is estimated that there are almost 2.5 million Venezuelans in Colombia, 1.5 million in Peru, 500,000 in Ecuador and 450,000 in Chile, according to a BBC report.
In a second installment, we will continue detailing the journey of the 19-year-old girl who left Ciudad Guayana with her cousin bound for the United States.