Not a secret anymore
In my past article, I mentioned that I come from Venezuela. My country used to be an interesting destination for many tourists from Europe. The slogan in all the tourists adds used to read “Venezuela, the best kept secret of the Caribbean”. Venezuela has all the landscapes, from Andean mountains with snow on top, to sandy beaches of transparent water, to a vast rainforest with living creatures still unclassified. Strangely, due to our geographic location, and the influence of United States culture over us, many venezuelans used to go to Miami, Orlando or New York rather than visit the rainforest or the snowy Andean mountain. Back in the 80’s and 90’s was the trendy thing to do and It seemed that all those campaigns were aimed at the foreign visitor rather than the locals.
I moved to Spain in 2011 and since 2013 I have been living in a small town called Irún, right at the border with France. Although this is the European Union and borders were abolished some time ago, one Sunday morning around 9:30 hours in june 2014 I had the most bizarre incident. Me and two friends were in Hendaya (the first town after the border with Spain) Train Station waiting for a friend who lives nearby to pick us up to go to Pamplona.
We stood there for about 10 minutes until two french police officers took notice of our presence and came to us asking for our ID’s. One of the girls has double nationality and showed her Spanish ID, the other girl pulled her resident permit, and I had my EU Family Member resident permit, all three completely legal and up to date. The police man points at me and resident permit girl and asks, “where are your passports?” She says, “at home” and I answer the same adding that I live 2 miles (3.3km) from where we were, but on the Spanish side. Without mediating, they said that we had to come to the police station with them because we were breaking the law and we had to be deported -wait, what? – My friend went off colour; she was only 20 at that time and was very nervous. We arrived at the *Gendarmerie and were led into a rustic room with two benches with rings attached to them. We guessed that detainees were handcuffed to those rings and we felt uncomfortable. After 10 long minutes, we were called in separately, got mugshots done, finger prints taken and led back to the waiting room.
After another 10 minutes that felt like an hour, my friend got called in and after I was called in to see the Border Police Chief to fill in the deportation papers. I walked into his office and I saw a man behind the desk with hands on the keyboard, ready to type in. My French was worse than his Spanish so I thought to myself “I’ll be fine”.
He asked my name, address and date of birth, then, looking at my EU resident permit he opened his eyes wide and said “Venezuela, What a beautiful place!” I didn’t believe what came after. He started telling me how beautiful my home country was. He told me he travelled to Venezuela in 1993, went to the beach and could not believe how crystal clear and warm the water was, all the nice people he met, that he went to a salsa concert (many Europeans love salsa music and dancing) in Caracas, the capital, where I was born, that he ate the most delicious dish called *pabellòn, drank rhum, beer and that the overall experience was so great that he believed this has been the best holiday he has taken to date. After the monologue, he reassured me that this deportation was a standard procedure, and that the officers would take us both to the other side of the border to the Spanish border police check point and that our friends were waiting for us there. Before saying good bye, he looked at me and said, “what a shame what is happening in Venezuela, I really hope it gets sorted soon”. During those five or more minutes that the man sitting across me spoke with passion about Venezuela, I kept thinking about that old tourist add and that Venezuela is not what it used to be and that the future is uncertain.
Me and my friend got into the patrol, and we were driven (blue lights and siren on) 1mile to the spanish side. The incident ended there and we managed to continue our day trip to Pamplona, two hours after.
Although is very hard to witness from afar the systematic destruction of our beautiful country, the impact in the life of the many that visited Venezuela in the past and their memories will keep on living and will maintain alive in our hearts “the best kept secret of the Caribbean”
*pabellón: venezuelan national dish, made of shredded beef , rice, black beans and fried plantain.
*Gendarmerie: police station in french.

