The business of plastic surgery and pimpineros

Now, close your eyes and imagine Colombia. I bet you see remote mountains, guerrillas and narcotraffic. A dangerous place. True. In some areas. Many parts of Colombia also look like these - Modern shopping centres, trendy bars, restaurants, prestigious hotels and luxury cars - Essentially, in some parts of Colombia there is money or "plata" as they say over here. Lots of plata, in fact. Where is the money coming from, well, that's another issue. Oil, coal and narcotraffic, illegal profits that needs to be reinvested.

Here's a sample: A litre of petrol costs 30 cents (Euro) over here. In neighbouring Venezuela, you can fill your tank (60/70 litres) with 30 cents !!!!! A bottle of water costs more than filling your tank with petrol. No wonder every day there is a massive traffic jam at the border. The so-called "pimpineros", people filling up on the other side using a well established corrupted system and passwords to allow a safe return journey at the frontier. Petrol business is so huge, cars cross over 20 times a day to refill. They don't just refill their tank, they have a system where petrol is filled in the entire car, even through inner doors. A multi-million business, indeed. I leave the narcotraffic business for my next off-topic post.

Anyhow, when approaching the border with Venezuela, the edge of the street gets very crowded with people flashing banknotes for those wishing to change their money as Venezuela offer cheaper prices at the duty free area with many goods like fashion clothing, liquors and mixed products.

Beauty farms and plastic surgeries are also very common both in Colombia and Venezuela. Someone visiting these areas gets the feeling women are kind of "well-manicured". That's because virtually anyone can afford to change their nose, boobs or doing a liposuction treatment for the ridiculous price of 350 Euro.

Recommended reading: Cien años de soledad (1oo years of loneliness), Gabriel García Márquez