Border police and immigration officials on both sides of Ecuador's northern border tonight closed the border to vehicle traffic and pedestrians .. and stopped processing passports on on the Colombian side through Sunday (March 11, 2018).
What was going on?
The reason was "la botación" -- the booting -- or was it "la votación" -- the voting? Both are pronounced the same in these parts.
Either way, it was nothing less than culture shock for me, as someone staying at a hospedaje in the border town of Ipiales, Colombia, and not being able to cross the international border to get back into Colombia.
There were thousands of Venezuelans lined up in a queue outside the immigrations building on the Ecuadorian side of the border around 6 p.m. when the border blockade began. So one might have thought that what officials were saying was "la botación," meaning the kicking out of Venezuelan refugees without visa or other paperwork.
But no, as it turned out -- and was later explained to me by my reception desk back in Ipiales, Colombia -- it was "la votación" -- the voting.
They close the border from Thursday night through Sunday night so the immigration department employees of Colombia can have the weekend off for Sunday's national legislative elections and presidential primaries .. and to preserve order during elections inside Colombia's borders.
It took some smooth talking from yours truly to convince a by-the-book official of Inmigración Colombia and his superior to let me walk across the Rumichaca Bridge back into Colombia half an hour after the two-way border blockade was instituted.
cccmedia, back in Ipiales, Colombia, two miles from the Rumichaca border