Venezuelans Look To Colombian Border Town For Dollar Needs

Customers trade Colombian pesos and Venezuelan bolivars at Mekacambio, a currency exchange house, in Cucuta, Colombia, on Monday, March 14, 2011. Long trips to the border to swap an increasingly devalued bolivar for U.S. dollars or pesos shows the desperate measures that Venezuelans are taking to obtain foreign currency after President Hugo Chavez imposed controls in 2003. The government shut an unregulated market that operated as an escape valve last year and companies wait for dollar bond sales to be able to repatriate earnings. Photographer: Meridith Kohut/Bloomberg via Getty Images