HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: Traversing the beautiful Andes for the last time
BUMMER OF THE DAY: Bugs, bugs, bugs
WORD OF THE DAY: BUGS
DISTANCE TRAVELLED:
An early start this morning, we had a fair distance to get to Los Llanos and Allan wanted to get there at a decent time to try and get in a sunset and some animal viewing, so one can’t complain when it is in our best interest that these plans are made. So at 4.45am we were up, bags at the truck for 5.30am and a supposed departure for 6am. We had 2 vans that were going to take us to Los llanos and then Rosita was going to follow in her old good time, as Allan thought the vans would be quicker than Rosita going over the Andes. Well that is like waving a red flag to a bull and Gray was up for the challenge to keep up with us. I think people underestimate the power of the truck at 25 tones; she has some kick arse horse power for such a large vehicle. So with our day bags packed, leaving 10 minutes late, Rosita would be at camp tonight we set of for a 30 minute drive to stop for some breakfast and coffees to kick start the day. Rosita was close on our heels the whole way and Allan decided that we would be more comfortable in the truck so after breakfast we all piled back into Rosita with the 2 vans following us for the rest of the way. Allan was also not happy that one of the vans had quite dark tinting on the windows making it hard for us to take photos and see things properly and this was the decider for him to swap us back in.
So we threaded our way over the Venezuelan Andes for the next few hours. We did a stop at a beautiful stone church built in the 1940’s, the San Rafael La Virgin Carmen. It was a cute little town and a great pit stop for people to buy some coffee and some people even got fresh strawberries and fresh cream at 9.30am and they were complaining about the greasy cheese empanadas we had for breakfast….. We were at 3140m and a few people were starting to feel the effects of altitude sickness. I remember feeling a little dodgy, but not so bad that I wanted to be sick. The poor guys. Spanning nearly the entire continent of South America from north to south, Venezuela claims the northernmost reaches of the mighty Andes mountain range. Venezuela’s Andes are located in the central-west portion of the country and encompass the states of Merida, Tachira and Trujillo. The foothills’ cool, misty forests support an amazing array of diverse bird and plant life where orchids, bromeliads and heliconias provide habitat for hummingbirds. At higher altitudes, unusual fauna, cirques and moraines predominant in glacial landscapes dominate semi-desert like paramo. In between, the Andes are laced with icy rivers, streams and trout laden lakes, carpeted in lush valleys of evergreen and deciduous forest and graceful alpine meadows. The Sierra Nevada National Park was the second park ever created in the country. Nestled in the heart of the Andes Range, it is the only place in the country that has snow-covered peaks throughout the year. The highest Venezuelan summits are found here: Bolivar Peak (5,007 m), Humboldt (4,920 m), Bonpland (4,942 m), La Concha (4,920 m), El Toro (4,755 m) and El Leon (4,740 m).
We had another stop at 3600m to view the spring and the start of the Orinoco Basin. The Orinoco is one of the longest rivers in South America at 2,140 km (1,330 mi). Its drainage basin, sometimes called the Orinoquia, covers 880,000 square kilometers (340,000 sq mi), with 76.3% of it in Venezuela and the remainder in Colombia. The Orinoco and its tributaries are the major transportation system for eastern and interior Venezuela and the llanos of Colombia. By the time we had gone up and over the Andes we had done 918 turns in total. I didn’t count them, but Allan had friends that did it once, how bored must they have been, but it was a beautiful drive.
As usual we had passport checks along the drive at 11.15am, 11.50am and 4.15pm. A quite day for checkpoint Venezuela today. Lunch was en-route at a local restaurant and I have discovered Ajo, which is like a cream garlic sauce and it is delicious. I covered my chicken, my rice and my salad in the stuff and was proud of the breath I had after consuming so much of it. I love garlic. Nothing a few mint tic tacs won’t fix anyways.
As we arrived into Los Llanos, the scenery really changed to flat plains with just a dusting of trees. A lot of water holes/pools from the rain that they have had and this is where we saw some otters swimming around in one of them as we drove and when we saw our first caiman we were pretty excited, apparently we will be seeing plenty more tomorrow. Allan was pointing out all the birds as we drove along and it looked nearly like a bird sanctuary, there were hundreds of them sitting on fences, in the water holes and the trees. This would be a twitches paradise. There is a world record that is held here of the amount of different species of birds recorded in one day and it stands at 171. That’s pretty impressive.
We did make a notable stop and at dusk Gray got the 2 knock on the door for a stop, Allan had seen a giant anteater. It was funny to watch as he got out of the truck to try and round him up to get us a little closer for some pictures. He was running through long grass in hot pursuit of a 3m long anteater! It is the 3rd highest endangered species in Venezuela and it has the longest tongue in the world.
The giant anteater is the largest species of anteater. It is found in Central and South America from Honduras to northern Argentina. It is a solitary animal, found in many habitats, including grasslands, deciduous forests and rainforests. It feeds mainly on ants and termites, sometimes up to 30,000 insects in a single day. The giant anteater is one of a few taxa of mammals without any teeth even in a mature state. An anteater instead crushes insects it consumes using hard growths found on the inside of its mouth, and its flabby stomach. It grows to a size of up to 2.1 m in length, with a 1.2m head and torso, and a 0.91 m tail. Generally it weighs from 29 to 64 kg. When threatened, it does not flee, but stands up on its hind legs, using its tail to aid balance, and sometimes strikes extremely rapidly with its claws or "hugs" attackers much like a bear. An adult anteater is capable of fending off or even killing its main predators, such as the cougar. I got some great photos of this animal and it was good that we stopped.
After heading off the main highway and travelling 5km on dirt roads we made it to our camp for the next 2 nights. We had lost some time during the day with the change of transport, the passport checks, at one stage we lost one of the vans for 40 minutes, Allan was hoping to get us in earlier than 7.30pm, but sometimes these things cannot be avoided. There was a little confusion on the last 1km about taking Rosita in all the way to camp, being on dirt roads if she came in and it started to rain; there was a very high chance that she might not make it out. So after we got out of the truck, Gray made a call that he was going to take her all the way in, so we all piled back on again for the last push to camp. We are lucky we don’t have to sleep in tents here; the camp has 3 round hut/rooms to accommodate us all in hammocks. I am enjoying my hammock sleeps, there was even a spare bed in our room and no one wanted to take it, we all opted for the hammocks. One of the huts had a self-contained bathroom and needless to say that all the girls were falling over themselves to get into this room that would hold 10. I wasn’t getting caught up in all that and just headed straight to the second room and in the end we ended up with girls the first night and then 6 the next night. We didn’t have a bathroom in the hut, but our facilities were 5m away from the front door, so we were happy with that arrangement.
It was dark at this stage, so after we had all unpacked, we had some free time before dinner was served. They had a communal shed/cover area with long tables and bench seating and the generator was turned on. Well one would think this was a good thing to have some light but as soon as it went on you have never seen bugs appear like these guys did!! They did settle down a little bit during dinner, but they were mainly mothy looking, flying ant things and little black flying bugs. I attempted to read my book but there were just too many, flying into your face, in your hair and around your collars that I had to go to the sanctuary of the fly screened hut and read by my headlight. There were still some bugs attracted to my light, but nothing like outside. Dinner was a simple but very delicious fare of beef, rice and salad and we were all wrapped up in our hammocks by 10pm. We were stuffed.
We have a big day tomorrow visiting the plains and savannahs of Los Llanos and also the hopeful sighting and picture opportunity of an anaconda. I am petrified of seeing one, but totally excited if I can get a picture with one all at the same time.
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