When Alexis Viera, 18, talks on the phone with his mother and asks her when he'll be back, he's always dizzy. "Soon, soon," he says, and takes care not to call a date.
Alexis does not want to return to Venezuela. "I do not know if I would manage to leave the country again," he says. Too laborious, too expensive and too dangerous was his escape to the Peruvian capital Lima, where he now dances on the streets to earn money.
The young man with the baseball cap is just one of hundreds of thousands of young people who have fled Venezuela. The refugee agency UNHCR estimates that 3.4 million Venezuelans have left their homes.
Around 1.2 million live in neighboring Colombia, and at least 700,000 have moved to Peru. Thousands of Venezuelans continue to cross the borders every day, in order to start anew there or in other countries further south.
The boys often handle the hardships of the journey more easily than the elderly. But even they find it very difficult to find a good job or a school place and accommodation.
Alexis was lucky: He is one of the few refugees who do not have a regular but fairly well-regulated income. With breakdancing he earns enough to support his family in Venezuela.
Here, he and five other young Venezuelans tell us what they have been through and what they are about to do. Click on the photos in the map to read their stories.
All stories about young Venezuelans:
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