COLCHANE, Chile — Anyier sits at the side of the road gasping for breath as the beating sun and 3,700-meter (12,000-foot) altitude take their toll.
It has been seven hours since she entered Chile from Bolivia on foot — her fifth border crossing since leaving Venezuela nearly a month and 5,000 kilometers (more than 3,000 miles) ago.
“This has been the toughest,” she pants, sunburned and with chapped lips. “Awful.”
The 40-year-old, a former employee of Venezuela’s national iron and steel company, set off for Chile on January 25 with her 14-year-old daughter Dany and her partner, 26-year-old barber Reinaldo.
They left a Caracas suburb with just $350 and a backpack of bare…
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