Berlin

Day 112, Oct 22, 2013, 121km

Venezuela has been a real disappointment, the pothole roads, the garbage scenery, the cost of food and the heat. San Cristobal has outrageous hotel prices for some reason, and it did take almost an hour and a half to find something for 420Bs with no extra charge for using a credit card. That's still $70 for something less then half decent. The only thing Venezuela has going for it is the cost of gas, and that does not make up for the rest.

The Border crossing at Cucuta did take 3.5hrs but mostly due to the Aduana guy being on a 2hr lunch break. Getting out of Venezuela was easy, on the left side under the big archway is Migracion it is at the first counter. There you will need to fill in a piece of paper and buy a exit stamp for 110Bs from an officer that sells them and he is usually hanging around in that area.

Then ride your bike through the archway, and go all the way till you get to the roundabout, go left on it so that you can get to the back entrance of this same building, there you will find Aduana hand in your temp permit and get your passport stamp cancelled.

Then cross the bridge and your in Colombia, go to first building on the right where you will find Migration and then go to Aduana that is next to it, it is the building behind the truck scales.

Did find out later that the only way that things would be cheaper in Venezuela would be to change US dollars on the black market where you can get something like 50Bs to $1, and in that case it would make it super cheap to stay there, but hey that's maybe good for next time.

San Cristobal.

Made my way into the mountains on Hwy 55/66. On my way up it started raining and the temps went to below 10c, my altimeter was showing just under 11500ft and man was I happy that there was a Hotel, it was somewhere between Pamplona and Bucaramanga, (Berlin).
The high barren landscape.