Thousands cross Venezuela border shopping for scarce food

SAN ANTONIO DEL TACHIRA — Caravans of Venezuelan families drove for hours Sunday on bandit-plagued highways to a checkpoint on the Colombian border where they'll be able to cross and hunt for food and medicine that are in short supply at home.

It's the second weekend in a row that Venezuela's socialist government has opened the long-closed border connecting Venezuela to Colombia, and by 6 a.m., a line of would-be shoppers snaked through the entire town of San Antonio del Tachira. Some had traveled in chartered buses from cities 8 hours away.

On Saturday, an estimated 35,000 Venezuelans crossed the border on the first day of what Colombian government is calling a humanitarian corridor.

Venezuela's socialist government closed all crossings a year ago to crack down on smuggling along the 1,378-mile (2,219 kilometer) border. It complained that speculators were causing shortages by buying up subsidized food and gasoline in Venezuela and taking them to Colombia, where they could be sold for far higher prices.

But shortages have continued to mount in Venezuela amid triple-digit inflation, currency controls that have restricted imports and investment and a collapse in the oil prices that fund government spending.

Venezuela's socialist government is trying to deflate any talk of a humanitarian crisis and instead blames its political enemies and self-serving smugglers for the shortages. President Nicolas Maduro dismissed as a "media show" the jarring images a few weeks ago of 500 women pushing through the checkpoint, saying they were desperate to buy food.

On Sunday, state TV ran footage of Venezuelans returning from Colombia empty-handed, dissuaded by what they said was price-gouging and mistreatment by their neighbors.

Although the border was heavily patrolled by the military, the crowds were orderly amid an atmosphere of tense excitement. A few activists were handing out anti-government pamphlets, looking to galvanize the frustration that has characterized food riots and long lines outside supermarkets in recent weeks. But most waiting to cross had little appetite for politics and were more excited about the prospect of fully stocked supermarket shelves and the opportunity to buy non-essential indulgences like nail polish.

"It's kind of crazy day," said Alejandro Chacon, who owns a hardware store in the nearby town of San Cristobal and is crossing the border for the first time since the closure. "It's strange to see this, but we know we're going to find what we want in Colombia, so it's a nice difference."