Near Venezuela, faraway Brazil
Some in town looked the Brazilians with mistrust and they didn't give sample white of wanting to make something different to drink and impel prostitution. Their dishonesty and their relaxed customs didn't help a lot. Lacks of economic integration with Brazil make many of its beneficent possibilities become wasted. Trade with the neighbor is not profitable, because its inflation has lowered a lot and its currency now is stronger. The nearest city is Manaos and it is as far as Bogotá; with the small difference that there are not flights neither roads that take until there. You can arrive by river, but the trip is too long.
With Venezuela happens the opposite. In spite of the Guardiae17, the trade with this country is a fact: They are brought gasoline, roof badges tiles, cement, beer and until flour for the arepase18. All the cars that you see giving turns around the town are brought of smuggling from there. Many of the aid the Venezuelan state gave in previous decades went to stop in communities of this side of the frontier, sold as merchandise. A typical trick of our contractors: to charge the cement at Colombian price and to carry out the work with Venezuelan cement that worth near the half. The Venezuelan consulate in Inírida is as well-known as the ICBF.
On the other hand, the Brazilian office is in San Felipe, a colonization center distant 10 days by river. There are flights until there, but 15 days each. In fact, the departamento south frontier is an almost unknown place, where the colonization is still incipient. To arrive at the Isana-Cuyarí River they are needed three travels by air through Vaupés, two for take gas and another for the passenger, because there the gas distribution can suffer trips. By river, a long distance should be traveled by the Inírida, pass to the Guainía and from there to the Isana. In summer, you walk another distance carrying the load in the shoulders or pay an expensive transport that only
knows if it is there.
The indigenous officials that came from the frontier with the Brazil were very quiet. Each resguardo has a legal representative before the government, but to those of the south the communications, the transport and its costs, isolate them from its territories. Data about their populations are scarce and old. According to the same governor's words, this area is in hands of the garimpeiros and nobody knows the luck of the inhabitant natives.
As "solution", the congress members promote roads toward the Guainía River, such a thing would make easier taking out gold, deforesting and colonizing. As if it wasn't enough, in the whole departamento you can't get a single environmental license. The leaders know what they are, but because they have said it in TV. The ministry of the environment only demands them when a project affects 15 thousand people or more. Inírida, the "megalopolis" of the region, hardly arrives at the 14 thousand. The departamento is an entire bank of species, rich in oxygen and animals in road of extinction, but its wealth is as big as fragile. Observing the state slowness I found this a very serious thing...
NOTESClick
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The Guardia Nacional, Venezuela's army.
e18 Round maize loaves, the Colombian typical plate.