On foot, Venezuela's poor seek better lives across South America

During his two-week trek through the bitterly cold Andean mountains, penniless Venezuelan migrant Jesus Mendoza has eaten better than he has for months in his impoverished homeland. “In Venezuela, I’d eat two meals a day if I was lucky,” said Mendoza, walking along the Pan-American highway with a tattered backpack. He illegally crossed an unguarded border into Ecuador from Colombia. “Along the way, Colombians have been generous. They have given us food and water,” the 25-year-old carpenter told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “I’ve even been eating chicken, which is a luxury back home.” More…