MACHADO'S LONG JOURNEY FROM HIDING TO THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

Thousands of Venezuelan migrants have braved the seas off Falcón state in recent years, fleeing their shattered homeland towards the Caribbean islands of Aruba and Curaçao in rickety wooden boats.

- Tom Phillips

Thousands of Venezuelan migrants have braved the seas off Falcón state in recent years, fleeing their shattered homeland towards the Caribbean islands of Aruba and Curaçao in rickety wooden boats. Many lost their lives chasing a brighter future after their overcrowded vessels capsized or were smashed by rocks.

Last week, the opposition leader María Corina Machado got a taste of that perilous journey herself, as the Nobel laureate began her surreptitious 8,800km-plus odyssey from her authoritarian homeland to Norway to collect her peace prize.

US officials say the 58-year-old politician slipped out of Venezuela last Tuesday, secretly travelling to Curaçao by boat before continuing her voyage by plane. "Herjourney was delayed for several hours due to bad weather and rough seas," reported Bloomberg, which said Machado had been aided by the Trump administration as well as rogue members of the Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro's regime.

"So many people... risked their lives in order for me to arrive in Oslo and I'm very grateful to them," Machado told the chair of the Norwegian Nobel committee, Jørgen Watne Frydnes, by phone last Wednesday before boarding a Norway-bound flight.

The details of Machado's cinematic maritime escape remain sparse, having been closely guarded to protect her as she emerged from nearly a year in hiding to make her break for Europe.