Busted!

We had a lot of traffic getting out of Merida but made good time after that and by the middle of the night we had only made one stop. Around 2:00 AM on Wednesday the bus stopped and the lights came on. We were at a Guardia Nacional station just outside the town of Barinas. The soldiers looked in the baggage compartment and then boarded the bus and asked for everyone's ID. I showed the soldier the copy of my passport, visa, and cedula (Venezuelan ID card), but he was not satisfied. I was asked to get off the bus and state my case to the Sergeant. I did as I was told and explained to Señor Gonzalez that I was only carrying a copy of my passport and cedula with me because the company has my original documents in order to get me a new visa. As the papers state, my visa expires in two months. He asked me to bring my bags from the bus (for what I presume to be a search) and I once again I obeyed. Once I returned to the desk the bus roared away into the dark night.

This was the first (but not the last) time I felt a sinking feeling in my heart and became very worried. I asked Señor Gonzalez what I was supposed to do and he said just to relax and that I could catch another bus in the morning after he called the DIEX (Dirección de Identificación y Extranjería) to straighten out my identity.

(Note: There are a couple of things that I should point out. For one, I've traveled in this country for a year now and never had any serious problems with the authorities. Also, the claim about the company having my passport is a lie. I don't condone lying, but I thought that sounded more legitimate than saying that I was afraid it would be stolen so I stuck with the visa story throughout my ordeal.)

I was taken into an office in the Guardia Nacional station and told that I could sleep there. A small, foul smelling Colombian man was already asleep on the floor. I moved as far away from him as possible and just sat in a chair. At 4:00 AM another Colombia man was brought into the office. He was startled by my presence and I by his. The Colombian sat at the opposite end of the room from me. Neither of us slept much that night, but at 5:00 AM I could here him sobbing in the corner, not very reassuring to say the least. The night seemed to last forever, but I passed the time thinking about how I was going to catch a bus in the morning, how I was going to explain this to my boss, and how I was going to kick the shit out of David for leaving me behind.

Wednesday morning came and no phone calls took place, instead I was driven to the DIEX office in Guanare with the two Colombian guys and a Colombian woman, all detained for lack of documents. Security over us did not seem to be an issue; we just piled into a rusty, old car and drove down the road. We arrived at the DIEX at 8:00 AM to dark offices and closed doors. Around 8:30 the first employees started showing up and let us in. They proceeded to take our fingerprints along with our names and other relevant information. This process took nearly two hours for the four of us. The women in the DIEX would retreat to another office to chat for fifteen or twenty minutes at a time between helping us. I was terribly annoyed and just wanted to get this all straightened out so I could return to Caracas. One of the women asked me why I did not have my original passport and I told her the same thing that I had told the Guardia Nacional the night before. Following this she started rattling off something very quickly to all of us. The only part that I caught was something about "setenta y dos horas" (seventy-two hours). I was under the impression that we had 72 hours to produce our documents and return to Guanare. I wondered how she ever expected to see the Colombians again.

Following her little speech the police came in and started taking us away. This was the second time that I became frantic. I started asking what was going on and for someone to explain to me. The police then told me that the seventy-two hours referred to the amount of time that the DIEX had to establish my identity. In the meantime I would be detained in Guanare. They were taking me to jail! I started pleading with the officers to let me call my employer so that someone could bring my passport. This could all be worked out today I assured them. I managed to buy a phone card and struggled to remember the office number but it was all in vain as the phone in front of the DIEX was out of service. We were loaded into the back of a Land Cruiser and taken to the local jail. The police took the Colombians and I in and asked all of us to empty our pockets. Then they proceeded to count our money, staple the amount and name of the owner to a piece of paper, and took all of our belongings including our socks and shoelaces. All I was left with were the clothes on my back. I finally convinced one of the officers to call my employer for me, since I was not allowed to make a phone call. Unfortunately after I gave him the phone card I never saw him again. I was taken through two padlocked, barred doors to my cell. As we passed the other cells the prisoners hooted and hollered at me. It was impossibly for me to blend in or maintain a low profile here.

I was put into a bare cell (no beds, no chairs, nothing) with the two Colombian border jumpers, another Colombian who was already there, and a mentally unstable Venezuelan called "El Jefe". El Jefe was an old Venezuelan guy that had a scruffy beard and was missing all of his front teeth. His clothes were tattered rags and he stuttered when he talked. Amazingly he smelled even worse than the Colombian from the night before did. No one could tell me how long he had been there or what he had done to end up in jail (One inmate later told me that El Jefe had killed two boys in his village). The cell was about three meters by four meters with a cement floor, walls, and roof. It had a partition at the back with a barred roof, a hole in the ground for the toilet, and a cement sink that water sometimes came out of. The inmates would fill up an old two-liter bottle up with water to take a shower in the back part of the cell. On the roof of the jail were guards walking overhead armed with machine guns. None of the guards within the jail itself were armed.

So... here I am on a beautiful Wednesday morning, in jail in the middle of Venezuela and the only person who knows where I am at is the shithead who left me behind. By this time my thoughts had turned from what I was going to say to my boss, to how I was going to get back to Caracas alive. The guards did not come by very often, but whenever they did I would plead with them to let me call my office. I was trying to explain that no one knew where I was, but later realized that perhaps this did not help my cause as it made me even more vulnerable. The rest of the time I spent in the corner just thinking. Time seemed to be standing still. My thoughts often had me wondering if anyone even knew I was missing and if they would ever find me, but I tried to stay as positive as possible given the situation that I was in.

In the afternoon the two occupied cells in our block were opened up and all the inmates were allowed to move out into the courtyard. The courtyard still had a barred roof but at least there was some sun shining through and a cement bench to sit on. All of the prisoners came by one or two at a time to check me out as I still sat in the corner of my cell. They were typically in their early twenties; skinny kids with jailhouse tattoos and dirty, worn shorts. They didn't speak very proper Spanish and I had a hard time understanding them, but none of them ever gave me a hard time. At one point they told me to come out into the courtyard with them. I was very timid about this but I did come out and sit against the wall. The other inmates were exercising and playing simple games with pebbles on the ground. When we talked they would ask questions like where I was from, what I did, and how I ended up in jail with them. One of the prisoners asked me if I wanted to trade shorts with him; he had on some ratty old cut-off khakis and I was wearing my new Columbia hiking shorts. I told him that maybe we could trade when I was leaving. Although I was still anxious to go home I started to feel better about my personal security, at least with respect to the other prisoners. Back in the cell the Colombians were trying to assure me that I would be back to Caracas soon, probably that evening or the next morning. They argued that the DIEX would never let a gringo sit in jail for very long. Besides, the Colombians reasoned, it was only seventy-two hours, what was the big deal? In addition to the obvious reason why it was a very big deal, our seventy-two hours was up on Saturday morning, when the women from the DIEX would be far from the office and our best interests. We would have to wait until at least Monday morning before being released. This conversation humored the Colombian who had been there when we arrived. "They told me 72 hours too," he chuckled "and that was eleven days ago."

Meanwhile in Caracas David waited for me at the bus terminal until midday. When I didn't arrive he went sight seeing in Chacao and then to stay with other friends of his in Caracas. No one else knew where I was or what had happened to me. Tom was trying to contact me to find out how the trip went. He thought it was odd that he couldn't reach me at home, the office, or my cellular but did not imagine that it was serious at the time. As far as everyone in Caracas was concerned I had just missed work; not that uncommon considering it was the day following Carnaval.

Dinner in the jail in Guanare came at dusk. A big bucket of pasta was hauled around from cell to cell where the inmates would grab old plastic bowls or whatever else they happened to have to scoop out the food and pass it between the bars. I declined the food; although I had not eaten in twenty-four hours I had no appetite. I had not drunk anything all day though and was becoming increasingly thirsty. I was trying to avoid the unsanitary jail water at all costs, but eventually I had to concede and accepted a drink of dingy water from El Jefe's old Coke bottle. When night fell the cell was very warm. I tried to get some sleep using my shoes for a pillow, but I was not very successful. I couldn't seem to find any way to lie on the cement floor and be comfortable. The night lasted as long as the day had.

Thursday I tried a different approach with the guards. I told them that my employer would be searching for me, along with the US embassy and my friends. If I could just call someone then everything would go much easier. This strategy didn't work any better than my pleading had worked the day before though. In the morning the police captain came by and told me that the DIEX had contacted the U.S. Embassy and they would have me out soon. If not, he would see to it that I could make a phone call on Friday. Besides, he assured me, the maximum amount of time that I could be held was only three months. Three months! My biggest problem was that each day seemed to last an eternity. When Thursday afternoon finally came and the lunch bucket rolled around I still refused the food. El Jefe notified the guard that I wasn't eating. The guard then asked if I had any money, and I explained to him that while I did not have any in the cell I had forty thousand Bolivars (about US $65) at the front desk. That was enough to make him happy. He asked El Jefe what I wanted and I ended up with a loaf of bread, some sliced ham and cheese, and half a liter of milk for 10,000 Bolivars. I ate half the loaf of bread and drank the milk and gave the rest to my cellmates. They never grabbed anything from me or threatened me, they just stared at the food until I allowed them to eat it.

That afternoon in the courtyard I started asking the other inmates for advice. Is there someone here I can bribe to get out? Is there anyway I can make a phone call? What should I expect next? They were helpful and gave me all the information that they could. I managed to scribble my office number and name on a scrap of paper and pass it to another inmate who thought that he would be allowed to call. All any of them wanted in return was a job in Caracas when they got out. It didn't matter if it was scrubbing toilets or sweeping floors if they could find some work. The problem with the note was that specific instructions were necessary in order to get me out. First someone needed to contact Tom and tell him to go to my apartment and get my passport off the night stand, then Tom needed to give my passport to the security coordinator, who would bring it to Guanare and presents it to the proper authorities.

Thursday David finally contacted my employer and told them that the Guardia Nacional had taken me off the bus on Tuesday night. He claimed to be "sleeping" when this took place, despite the fact that all of the lights were on in the bus and he had to show his passport to the Guardia Nacional too. The security coordinator for the company began searching for my exact whereabouts that afternoon. None of my friends were contacted even though they could have had potential information about my whereabouts and documents. Tom phoned the security coordinator to let him know that I was missing and was told that they were already searching for me. Tom helped by immediately going to my apartment and finding my passport. My only good luck during this whole ordeal was that Tom had keys to my apartment. Back in Guanare the inmate I gave my number to actually managed to make a call to his mother in Caracas, who then called my office and told them what had happened. My boss and other friends from the office immediately called the Guanare police and pleaded with them to release me. I was never allowed to speak with them though or even notified that anyone had called.

I was back in my cell, watching another day come to an end. Things were kind of rowdy on this particular evening, with yelling coming from the other cells. Once things calmed down I convinced the armed guard on the roof to drop me down a mango from the tree above. It was hard, bitter, and green, but it was still the only fruit that I had tasted for three days. I actually managed to get a little sleep until I was woken in the middle of the night and taken from the cell. I thought that I was free! It turned out that the Guardia Nacional had sent someone by to check on me. All the officer asked me was whether I was safe and when I responded that no, I was not safe he asked if I was sick or something. I tried to explain to him that I should be freed but the police guard butted in and said that I was just fine and would be freed the following morning at 10 AM. Someone from the company was coming to get me out.

I stayed awake for the rest of the night in anticipation of the coming morning. Unfortunately this didn't help things go any faster though, it just made the night drag on. Finally daylight came on Friday morning, but problems came with it. El Commandante came to the jail, along with a huge police official brandishing a wooden paddle. It seemed that my neighbors were to be punished for their mischief the night before. They were taken in pairs to the small single cell at the back of the jail. Everyone was quiet and nervous and all normal activities ceased. Lunch was never served and we were not allowed to go out into the courtyard. The captain had come again in the morning and assured me that I would be released that day, but 10 AM came and passed and nothing happened. I watched the sun cross the sky; somehow simultaneously standing still yet still setting on another lost day. Towards the late afternoon I was starting to give up hope and became despondent. Was anyone even coming for me or were the police lying to me? Had the embassy even been notified? I hoped that if someone were here they would not let Friday pass without my freedom. Evening came and I relinquished hope for freedom in general and the weekend in particular . The Colombians kept trying to assure me that I would be let go Monday morning, but it didn't even seem to matter at that point. I just wanted the whole ordeal to end, I didn't care if I starved to death or was shot trying to escape, I just wanted it to end.

It was at this when all hope had left me that the guard came and opened the door. I asked "Libre?" and it was finally true. I was free at last! A man from the security agency used by my employer was waiting for me at the main door. He told me to collect my things and make sure that everything was there. To be honest, I didn't give a shit if they had taken any of my stuff or not at this point and I highly doubted that anything could be done about it if they had. It turned out that all of my items were as I had left them, so the guard stamped a big purple stamp on my arm and I was freed. It may sound corny, but when we walked out of that dark, desolate jail all I could do was stare at the sky and the fading sun, like some cheesy movie. The sky just looked so bright and beautiful without bars across it.

From here the story becomes rather dull. I was disappointed to learn that I would have to spend the night in Barinas and could not return to Caracas until the next morning because there were no more flights that evening. Jony, the man who came to spring me out, informed me of the events that had taken place in Caracas leading up to my release. Apparently Jony spent all day Friday in Guanare but the woman in charge at the DIEX was gone for the day and he was told that no one else could authorize my release. That night in the motel room I took a much-needed shower and answered the endless stream of phones calls from concerned friends and coworkers. The next morning I was back home in Caracas, surrounded by friends and with one hell of a story to tell.

(Note: I am really sorry that I don't have any pictures of the jail or my cellmates, but as you can imagine that was the least of my concerns at the time. If I do go back to Guanare I will be sure to take photos before burning the whole town to the ground.)