Tucan Circuito 3-VENEZUELA

The 9th country on my 154 day overland trip of this massive continent of South America. From bad roads, hours of traffic jams, Angel Falls, Lightening Lake and the plains of Los Llanos and the elusive anaconda. Welcome to Venezuela.

WELCOME TO COLOMBIA-MY LAST NEW SOUTH AMERICAN COUNTRY

WEATHER: Hot and 32C

HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: Arriving into Colombia

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Feeling blue

WORD OF THE DAY:  I wish I was back in Africa

DISTANCE TRAVELLED:

We leave Venezuela after a great 13 days in this amazing country.  Full of natural wonders, it was all I expected and more, except for Angel Falls, but I think I may have been a little too judgmental on that for some reason.  But I have enjoyed my time here and if you are into birds, a “twitcher’, then you would love this country.  We head into Colombia today, and this was going to be a highlight for me.  How many people do you know have come here?  It is a little mixed bag of the unknown except for coffee and cocaine which I don’t use either, but it just sounds ‘exciting’ doesn’t it!  It is the last new country for me, as the tour finishes in Quito, Ecuador-where I have been already, so after 9 South America countries, this makes number 10. 

With a border crossing today and a large distance to travel we leave the Adventure camp at 7am.  It is a shame we didn’t get the free time we were supposed to here yesterday afternoon, but that is just the way it goes sometimes.  They had a cute little puppy running around that was loving all the attention.  It reminded me that Zeme and I are going to get a small dog when I move there and also of my baby puppy I left at home- Mr. Scooby Doo.  I do miss that little guy. 

On the drive this morning I started to look at options for my 4 weeks in the UK in August.  I have Paps and Ems to catch up with and I am very thankful that I will be staying with them over some of the Olympic Games period, so I am saving a fortune not having to pay for accommodation which would be massive prices.  To give me some ideas I pull out my Harrods 2012 hand diary, they have amazing maps in the back of the world and I just look at where I haven’t been and where I would like to go and somewhere that is feasible.  So with that in mind I am looking at doing Greenland for 3 nights, back to London to visit Paul and Liz in Brighton for the weekend, another 5 days in London for visa’s and then on my way to Ethiopia I will go via Belarus, Moldova and Rome if I can see Massimo and Josephine and then finally into Ethiopia 4 days later than first anticipated on the 3^rd September.  I just need some internet to check how the flights would work, but I can’t see that being too tricky.  So I will also need to check with everyone that they are still okay to have me stay and then I finally have the last of my world odyssey all wrapped up and hopefully booked in the next few weeks.  It is hard to believe I will be home in 10 weeks.  It is exciting.  I get to see my god-daughters, my best friend and friends that I have missed every day I have been away.  It gets me closer to Zeme’s arrival in Brisbane and then my departure again for my new life in Ethiopia.  It is also sad.  I have loved every second of my trip (well most of them), the freedom, the experiences, the meeting of new people and discovering new places, but reading that back I will be doing all that in Ethiopia anyways and with Africa on my doorstep, I can visit all those funky little countries from my new home, this travel bug will never die, mark my words on that.  But Bernie’s World Odyssey will always be remembered and the reason it was undertaken in the first place and how it also could have been done.  My mum is never far my thoughts and I still miss her every day.

We had one more stop before hitting the border controls today and Mark told us that once we leave Venezuela that their currency will be useless and not exchangeable, so at this stop we all had a mission to spend every last bolivar we had.  I still had 320BOLS which is like 32AUD.  I don’t mind leaving countries with a bit of the local currency, but even 32 was a bit too much for me to take, so with that in mind we walked the few shops that were there on the hunt to buy things without seeming like we were just wasting our money.  In the end I bought 4 Eveready batteries for my head torch (that was genius), 2 bottles of 1L waters, 3 bags of Doritos (chips of choice on my Odyssey), 5 packets of look-a-like smarties, 2 cans of Pepsi, 2 packets of glitter, a 24 box of Ferrero Roche and a piece of pizza for 15AUD.  Man I gave it a good crack and I was still left with 15AUD.  Well that is better than 30AUD so I was happy to just take the notes as souvenirs and wear the loss. 

The cracks are starting to show with the new group.  We have had a tough last week.  Long travel days, traffic jams, flat tyres, it’s really hot and things do start to take their toll.  But this is where it sorts out the travelers from the tourists.  There is a lot of complaining and whinging going on, to no fault of anyone’s and it is driving me N.U.T.S.  There’s no use complaining about things that you have no control over (road conditions, traffic jams, weather) it is just plain craziness and not only are they ruining their own holiday but dragging people in with their negative thoughts.  It feeds and grows and there is a magnet on the truck fridge and it says ‘never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups’.  Need I say anymore?  So much so to the extent that I have started to withdraw from the group and I am just biding my time till the end of the tour.  If I didn’t do this I would be having a few things to say to people and this would just make things worse.  I have tried to ‘offer it all up’ as some wise Irishman taught me in times like this and this time it just isn’t making the cut.  I am fed up and I am ready to move onto my next section of the trip.  It saddens me that after 130 odd days on tour, I haven’t made any lifelong friends or people that I would book a trip to see again (excluding Paul and Liz and a few exceptions, you all know who you are).  I hate comparing this trip to Africa, as I think in some way it has made my expectations so high, that maybe no one could even get a look in anyway?  But I miss my Africa crew.  We had great people, considerate people, and I have made friends that I will never forget.  I read in my Globetrotters book the messages that they wrote at the end of the trip and it gives me a heavy heart.  Things could be worse, I could be at work, living a boring life, so I know I need to suck it up, but it is hard-really hard.            

We had one more security checkpoint 20km before the Venezuelan border and they saw that one of Rosita’s tyres had a hole in it and we were losing air.  So they would let us drive on till the tyre was changed, so we used this as a lunch stop and for those that still have BOLS could try one last time to rid of them.  We arrived at the Venezuelan border town of San Antonio at 3pm.  We parked in the city center and we were all wondering what was happening when Mark and Gray came back and said that you have to get stamped here in the city and then cross 15KM down the road for the crossing.  Weird.  But things had also changed and we all now had to also pay a departure tax of 90BOLS.  I still had 130BOLS sitting in my purse.  Well imagine the uproar when everyone had spent every last BOL!  It was a little funny but you could also pay in USD, so it wasn’t a big deal, but it was funny all the same as it gave people something else to mouth off about.  So we all had to walk to the departure tax office (small cubicle room facing the street) and once we had paid we got 3 stamps that totaled 90BOLS and then we had to walk across the road to the immigration office, stand in line, hand over the stamps and then they ink stamped our passports and back to the truck.  I asked them if they would ink stamp my Globetrotters book and after some jib jabbing in Spanish the lady went away and came back with one of the departure tax stamps.  It was too big to fit in the allocated spot, so she folded up into a small square, ripped out a glue stick and stuck it in.  Well not exactly what I had in mind, but as Heather said it adds to the story, so I didn’t end up getting an ink stamp but I have something to show for my Venezuela box.    

I’m not sure how Venezuela monitors the people departing as we didn’t get checked if we had stamps for the exit of their country.  We pretty much just drove straight through to the Colombian border control where we had to line up for an hour to get us stamped into their country and we were on our way.  As it was now past 5pm, Gray couldn’t clear the truck, so he will have to come back in the morning to complete that, which in turn means we will get a bit of a sleep-in tomorrow, so there’s the upside to the downside for today.  The Colombian officials also wouldn’t stamp my Globetrotters Book.  They were nice enough about it, but it was still a no.  That’s okay, I’m hoping I will have time for a post office here and I can at least get a lick lick stamp in any case. 

WELCOME TO COLOMBIA. 

The geography of Colombia is characterized by containing five main natural regions that present their own unique characteristics, from the Andes mountain range region shared with Ecuador and Venezuela; the Pacific Ocean coastal region shared with Panama and Ecuador; the Caribbean Sea coastal region shared with Venezuela and Panama; the Llanos (plains) shared with Venezuela; to the Amazon Rainforest region shared with Venezuela, Brazil, Peru and Ecuador. Colombia is the only South American country which borders both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.  Colombia is located in the northwestern region of South America bordering to the east with Venezuela and Brazil; to the south with Ecuador and Peru; to the North with the Atlantic Ocean, through the Caribbean Sea; and to the west with Panama and the Pacific Ocean.  Colombia is the 26th largest nation in the world and the fourth-largest country in South America after Brazil, Argentina, and Peru.  Despite its large territory, Colombia's population is not evenly distributed with most Colombians living in the mountainous western portion of the country as well as the northern coastline, most living in or near the capital city of Bogotá. The southern and eastern portions of the country are mostly sparsely inhabited tropical rainforest and inland tropical plains containing small farming communities and indigenous tribes.

We arrived to Cucuta and the hotel just after 6pm and from the outside it looked like it was still under refurbishment, but once we walked in it was a small oasis.  It had a lap pool, a large courtyard plus a great looking restaurant overlooking the pool and free WI-FI in the rooms.  This is my kind of place.  We have decided to shake up the rooming lists a little and tonight I was sharing with new Heather (there are 2 and the other one is now called Blue Heather) and we headed to our rooms to ‘jackin’ as H calls it for the spare 45 minutes we had before we were to meet the group in the lobby to cash up on Colombian Pesos and to get something to eat from the shopping center that was 6 blocks from the hotel.  So anew currency and I am not that good at my 1750 times tables which is what we get for 1USD, so I will be rounding up to 2000 and that will make my life so much easier. 

Cúcuta is a Colombian city, capital of Norte de Santander, in the northeast of the country. Due to its proximity to the Colombian-Venezuelan border, Cúcuta is an important commercial center. It is located at the most active international border in South America and is connected by roads with Bogota, Caracas and Cartagena. Its air terminal, the Camilo Daza International Airport is one of the most traveled in the country.  It is situated in the Cordillera Oriental in the Andes and is connected with Venezuela through the Pan-American Highway. Its altitude is 320m above sea level.  The city of Cúcuta was called San José de Guasimales from 1733 to 1793,^[9] the year in which the name changed to San José de Cúcuta—"San José" (Saint Joseph) denotes the Virgin Mary's husband, and "Cúcuta" means "The House of Goblins", from the language of the Barí indigenous group.   

The shopping center was just like home and we had 1.5 hours to get what we needed.  I had Mark on the case with hunting down the Colombian sim cards for our phones.  My German sim card doesn’t work here, so I will try one last time to get a South American sim card to work.  Besides that I really didn’t need to get anything else so headed straight for the food court where I caught up with Sharon and Marina and got a mix grill of chicken and pork and it was the best damn meat I have had in weeks for the grand total of 22,000 pesos!!!  Sounds a lot right and probably for South America it is but back home we would pay more than 11 bucks for what I had.  I headed back to the hotel with Danielle earlier than the group meeting time of 9.30pm and got onto the internet and did some emails, uploading photos to Facebook and I have finally booked my accommodation in Barbados.  Considering I am there in 3.5 weeks, I really needed to get that sorted so one less thing off my travel list booked with only flights and accommodation in Darwin and Melbourne to secure and my European component to sort I am more than halfway there.

A new country, a new roomy and I need to find my new lease of life for the next 18 days for the sake of myself and the group.  Tomorrow is a new day; maybe things will look better then?

 

BATTLE OF THE ELEMENETS

WEATHER: Hot hot hot 32C

HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: Getting Rosita out of the mud

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Rosita getting stuck in the mud

WORD OF THE DAY:  Hector

DISTANCE TRAVELLED:

Mother Nature worked her charm last night and we got a massive storm that had an amazing light show (who needs Lightning Lake) and thunder to match the lights.  I was in and out of sleep all night, and every time I woke up, the sound of rain was pounding on our mud roof.  I just kept thinking how much trouble we were going to be in with Rosita sitting out there and the dirt road that we had to travel to get out, with all that rain I am sure was going to be trying to negotiate a mud quagmire.  I do like the sound of rain, but I must say I have to draw the line when parts of the mud roof start to fall down in our room, that’s how much it rained constantly all night.  Andrea had to move her hammock at one stage during the night as a large chunk fell on the end of her hammock and then later in the night Tash had to exit her hammock as the ropes started to give way, add to that Kate trying to find bug spray in the middle of the night, with the storm it was a pretty interrupted night.  This is par for the course though sharing with other people and that was only with the 6 of us, the other room had 11 people in there and with the snoring saga continuing I really don’t know what people expect when they share with others. 

So morning arrives and it is still raining.  We are in a lot of trouble I just know it, after seeing the roads last night after a downpour the roads after raining all night would be even worse.  But Gray was upbeat; he loves a challenge so we were all on track for our original plan.  The camp guys were keen to get us an Anaconda, and after partly catching one yesterday, they now knew where one lived, so on our way out we were going to head back there and see if we could catch her to get our photo, this was very promising.  Breakfast was supposed to be at 6.15am with a departure at 7am.  Breakfast was late, getting on the tables at 6.35am and little did we know this was going to be an omen for the rest of the day.  We all did really well and were all still on the truck at 7am ready to go.

Rosita moved back about 10m, and then Gray moved her forward about 12m and that was the last time she moved again for 5 hours.  We were bogged before we had even got out of the camp gates.  Yep bogged good and proper with the left back tyre lost in about ½ a meter of mud.  We were going to be here awhile as we all piled out hopeful it wouldn’t be too long and bringing anything off with us.   So much for the power of positive thinking. After an hour we realized we were going to really be here for longer than expected, so people started to go onto the truck to get books, diary’s and computers off.  Mark lost it at one stage telling us to keep off the truck as she was jacked up and I really am not sure what other ‘bushman’ tactics s were being used but if it worked and Gray got out from under Rosita alive then that was the most important thing.  There were 6 people working on getting her out, so it was just a matter of setting up the devices that were going to shift a 25 ton truck from the mud.  It continued to rain during the morning but them stopped just after 10am, so the upside once we got out of the camp that the rest of the mud road would have dried up, ell more than what it would have been this morning.  To keep the troops rallied we were served noodles at 10.30am and then lunch was provided at 12 noon.  Considering they weren’t even supposed to be feeding us at all the lunch was super with a beef stew and salad and as we sat there, Rosita was started up and put into reverse for her push out of her hole.  We were all riveted and after 5 attempts of rocking her back and forward she made the final push and was clear of the hole!!!  You have not heard people cheer like we cheered!!!  What a relief!  We still had to get to the bitchemin road 5km away, but this was the first step!

Lunch was eaten in frenzy and we all loaded on 5.5 hours after our first boarding at 7am this morning.  After only a few minutes it was decided that we would travel in the smaller vans till we got to the main road to keep as much weight out of Rosita as we could to give her a good chance of getting out.  So we got off the truck again, boarded the vans and let Rosita pass us and she went first, the next van went and then we were in the last van which I think was the best one to be in as we just followed the tracks of the van in front.  There was a lot of fish tailing by all three vehicles and to see Rosita skating and fish tailing was a little scary to say the least and I am glad that I wasn’t on her as I would have been scared shitless, but after a hairy 15 minutes we were back on solid ground and we had made it out okay.  Credit to Allan, as not once did he say ‘I told you so’ the whole time and he pretty much stayed out of everyone’s hair, as I am sure he was more than a little frustrated about the whole incident and also the luck we had over the last 5 days was not on our side. 

So with nearly 6 hours lost, we didn’t have time to look for our elusive anaconda, so we leave Venezuela and Los Llanos without seeing the largest snake in the world.  Nature and wild animals are unpredictable and both were not on our side for this section of the trip.  Out of the whole 130 odd days, this has been the biggest run of bad luck we have had for the whole trip.  The poor newbies, it just hasn’t come together since Caracas.  Things can only get better from here right!?

My fancy new simcard that I bought in Frankfurt hasn’t worked here in Venezuela.  It is frustrating as I can see the network towers everywhere and I can’t jump onto any of them.  I hope that it will work in Colombia, if not I am thinking I will buy a Colombian sim card as we are here for nearly 3 weeks and worth the effort. 

It was just a drive day today, but they were hoping to get us to the Adventure camp at a reasonable hour to enjoy the camp and the area, as apparently there is a river and a waterfall, as it is a rafting camp.  Sounds like heaven, but with the lost time, we were just hauling arse to get us in before dark.  With 2 passport checks, 2 toilet stops and a goodbye to Allan, Hector and Jose at 5pm as they head back to Merida we arrived at the camp at 7.10pm and it was dark.  We were sleeping in dorm style huts and what we could make out, the grounds were well manicured, they had a great eating area hut and you could hear the river from our rooms.  It would have been nice to see this place during the day, but we were just thankful that we had made it!  

So that was our adventure for our last day in Venezuela.  We head into our next South American country tomorrow-Colombia and we are all pretty excited about this section of the trip.  This will make it our 9^th country of the continent before heading back into Ecuador and the end of the tour.  I hate to say I am ready to leave after nearly 6 months in South America, I am really looking forward to seeing friends again in the States and then home looms closely behind that.  But for now my Odyssey continues and I will continue to make the most of every second.

ANACONDA TERRITORY-THE SAVANNAHS OF LOS LLANOS

WEATHER: Really HOT 34C

HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: Seeing Capybara’s

BUMMER OF THE DAY: It was flippin hot-burning hot, hot, hot, hot, hot

WORD OF THE DAY:  Ramano (rolling the R with your tongue)

HAPPY EASTER.  It’s Easter Sunday and I am thinking about my god-daughters this morning as they open their eggs and missing out on seeing their smiling happy faces.  I miss you guys.  Happy Easter everybody. 

Sleeping in the hammock last night was okay.  Besides the generator on just at the back of our hut till 11pm, a motor bike starting up in the wee hours, a rooster that doesn’t know how to tell the time cockling at 3.30am and then the generator on again for them to prepare breakfast at 5am, it was a restless night in regards to the noise factor, but I’m still enjoying my hammock sleeping experience and I think I just maybe getting the hang of getting out of the bloody things as well.

It was a beautiful morning and we were up at 5.45am to see the sunrise and we were lucky as there was a lot of cloud cover, but we got to see the wonderful colours of a new day begin with pink, blue and orange hues lighting up the sky.  Good morning Los Llanos and Good morning Venezuela.  Breakfast was served at 6.15am with a spread of scrambled eggs, muesli, fruit, arapas and iced tea-not a bad way to kick start what was going to be a busy day. 

On the road at 7am and we were going to be traversing the savannahs of Los Llanos.  Los Llanos (pronounced Los Yanos) is a vast tropical grassland plain situated to the east of the Andes in Colombia and Venezuela, in northwestern South America. It is an eco-region of the flooded grasslands and savannas Biome.  The Llanos' main river is the Orinoco, which forms part of the border between Colombia and Venezuela and is the major river system of Venezuela.  The climate change of the Llanos is extreme. During the rainy season from May to October, parts of the Llanos can flood up to a meter. This turns the woodlands and grassland into a temporary wetland, comparable to the Pantanal of central South America. This flooding also makes the area unique for its wildlife. The area supports around 70 species of water birds, including the Scarlet Ibis and I have to say was one of my most favorite birds as the name suggests with its bright red plumage.   The flooding also makes the area unfit for most agriculture before the advent of modern, industrial farming technology. Therefore, during the Spanish colonial era, the prime economic activity of the area came from the herding of millions of heads of cattle. The term llanero("plainsman") became synonymous with the cowhands that took care of the herds, and had some cultural similarities to the compare to the gauchos of the Pampas or the vaqueros of Spanish and Mexican Texas. 

In Los llanos the governments of Venezuela and Colombia had developed a strong oil and gas industry in zones of Arauca, Casanare, Guárico, Anzoátegui, Apure and Monagas. The famous Orinoco Belt, entirely in Venezuelan territory, consists of large deposits of extra heavy crude (oil sands). The Orinoco belt oil sands are known to be one of the largest, behind that of the Athabasca Oil Sands in Alberta, Canada. Venezuela's non-conventional oil deposits of about 1,200 billion barrels, found primarily in the Orinoco oil sands, are estimated to approximately equal the world's reserves of conventional oil.

Rosita was definitely too big for this job today, and as the windows were too dark on one of the vans, the camp owner Alehandro offered his F350 tray back as the second vehicle that wasn’t covered.  So people were able to take seats in the back of his truck, there were people in the van (me) and then people were also allowed to sit on the roof of the van.  I chose an inside seat next to 2 windows that opened and was set for the day.  It would have been cool to sit on the roof of the van, but sitting up there for hours with no back rest would have been too much for me, let alone when the day heats up, at least we will be in the shade.  We drove for 15 minutes to another property to ask permission to access their land for us to see what wildlife we could find for our ‘safari’ this morning.  High on the agenda was the mighty anaconda, but there was enough wildlife to also see while we were here.  It is hard to fathom that driving through the beautiful grasslands that this is someone’s backyard and not a national park.  The birds are amazing and we got to see a quite rare Burrowing Owl, he was about 5m from the van and was more than happy to stay there and pose for some photos.  A little further down we also saw a family of 3, they were more than obliging which was cute.  As we drove further we noticed that the cattle started to make a move and they were running after the van!  It was hilarious, as far as 1km away there was a mass movement of up to 150 white cows all making for the van.  They must get fed from a similar looking vehicle as they were pounding the grass running like crazy cows to catch us.  It really was a cow stampede!!!!  Needless to say we got some odd looking stares from them as we passed without the drop of a single thing for them to eat, but boy it got a good laugh from us.  Moving cattle is one of the most important duties in this region, where cattle breeding is the most important economic activity.

So with our bird viewing we saw a lot of vultures and they seem better looking than their African counterparts, Oriel Blackbirds (beautiful bright yellow chests), Vermillion Flycatchers (bright red chest), white tailed hawks, American Woodstock’s, the Burrowing Owls, Tiger Herons, Spoonbill Storks (pink in colour and not the baby carriers), Jabiru’s (which we get back home) and the beautiful Scarlet Ibis’s which are a bright nearly fluro red colour and look amazing with the green grasslands as a backdrop.  We stopped the vehicles on the savannah and got out to start looking in the river run off and the ponds that collect water during the rainy season to see if we could find us an anaconda.  They live in the shallows of the ponds and are pretty much submerged 90% of the time.  An anaconda is a large, nonvenomous snake found in tropical South America. Although the name actually applies to a group of snakes, it is often used to refer only to one species in particular, the common or green anaconda, which is one of the largest snakes in the world.  Per National Geographic, the word anaconda comes from the Tamil word anaikolra, which means elephant killer.  So with that being said some camp hands that had joined us and a few of the group joined to help look for this massive snake (crazy cats-crazy no way not this black duck) armed with sticks they got into the shallows of the pools and started poking the water and reeds hoping to hit the anaconda, locating her and then the jump on would start to catch her for us to see.  There were about 7 people trudging through the muddy reeds poke poke poking and after around 1km, nothing was found so we jumped back into the vehicles to continue our safari.  There were more opportunities to try and find an anaconda, so all was not lost just yet. 

We continued our way following one of the larger river swamps and this is where we started to see a lot of caiman, and we actually saw one lurch out of the water and catch a bird as he flew over (unlucky) and the caiman disappeared quickly into the reeds to eat his catch, but talk about timing and a Nat Geo shot, well if we were ready that is (which we weren’t) and this where we also saw our first Capybara’s.

The capybara is the largest extant rodent in the world. Its closest relatives are the agouti, chinchillas, coyphillas and guinea pigs. Native to South America, the capybara inhabits savannas and dense forests and lives near bodies of water. It is a highly social species and can be found in groups as large as 100 individuals, but usually live in groups of 10–20 individuals. The capybara is not a threatened species, though it is hunted for its meat and skin.  Capybaras have heavy, barrel-shaped bodies and short heads with reddish-brown fur on the upper part of their body that turns yellowish-brown underneath. The sweat glands of the capybara can be found in its haired skin surface, an unusual trait among rodents. Adult capybaras grow to 107 to 134cm in length, stand 50 to 64 cm tall and typically weigh 35 to 66kg, with an average in the Venezuelan llanos of 48.9kg.  The top recorded weight was 91kg for a wild female from Brazil and 73.5kg for a wild male from Uruguay.   Capybaras are semiaquatic mammals found throughout almost all countries of South America (except Chile) in densely forested areas near bodies of water, such as lakes, rivers, swamps, ponds and marshes, as well as flooded savannah and along rivers in tropical forest. They can have a life span of 8–10 years in the wild, but live less than four years on average, as they are "a favorite food of jaguar, puma, ocelot, eagle and caiman". The capybara is also the preferred prey of the anaconda.  They are excellent swimmers, and can remain completely submerged for up to five minutes, an ability they use to evade predators. Capybaras can sleep in water if need be, only keeping their noses out of the water. During midday, as temperatures increase, they wallow in water and then graze in late afternoons and early evenings. They rest around midnight and then continue to graze before dawn.  I have to say for a rodent they are a pretty cute looking animal.  Our first sighting was an adult and 3 babies walking the marsh shore before they scurried into the water and swam away in the reeds.  Awesome!!!

In this region there are only two very different seasons, where life changes completely: Rainy and dry season. In the first one, the woods, the rivers, the trees show all their beauty. A large part of the region is under the water. In the second one it becomes yellow and brown, and the dust covers most part of the plains, but that is when all the wildlife converges in the few spots where water is present. It is the season where you can see more birds and animals. Apparently the difference between the two seasons is so big, that you can't say that you know the "Llanos" if you don't go in both periods.  Summer (dry season) is the best moment for bird watchers, because all the animals must go to the few spots where the water is. Transportation in winter (rainy season) is also more difficult because many roads are flooded under water. However in this season is when nature is more spectacular and this is the season we found ourselves in, the rainy season, but touch wood no sign of rain as yet. 

We saw a lot of turtles, adults and babies, but as we passed by, we were only 3m from the water’s edge, they would move their little legs and make for the water before you could even switch on your camera, they were quick buggers.  As promised this was where we also saw a lot of caiman.  From big daddy’s sunning themselves on the banks to at one time 18 small caiman all just drifting in the marsh with just their snouts poking out of the water.  It was cool to see so many of them together. One of the camp hands caught a small caiman and we were able to hold him to get a photo, they are a mean looking specimen that is for sure but it does look like he is smiling in my photo which was cool.  They also did manage to catch a small turtle that we could also hold and with his baby webbed feet tickling your hand it was pretty amazing to have held these animals and wild animals at that!

On our way out we also saw a massive population of Capybara’s.  There would have been over 200 of them, all in different families and I got some great shots of groups swimming together of all ages and we were also lucky enough to see a couple mating in the water, well they certainly aren’t gun shy with their sex life with 26 gringo’s watching the process and not trying to feel intrusive as we snapped pictures!!!  So besides not seeing an anaconda, it was a successful ‘safari’ of the savannah.  We were back to camp at 11.45am for an early lunch and a bit of a siesta before we hit the river in the afternoon.

The morning was hot; we had blue sky with patches of cloud cover so it kept the sun at bay even though the humidity still would have been around the 80% mark.  When we returned from the morning, there were a lot of sunburned people, proving you can still get burnt in cloudy weather and they also did put on sunscreen, but I think a combination of being outside with no shade for nearly 5 hours and getting sweaty, it just didn’t cut the mustard for a few of our European friends pasty winter skin.     

I used my 1 hour and 20 minutes siesta to its full extent and after lunch read my book for 30 minutes and then got in a 40 minute power nap to recharge the batteries for the afternoon.  There were a few people who decided not to go and then we set off for our afternoon adventure.  The first stop was about a 30 minute drive from the camp to some more swamps where our camp guys got back in armed with their sticks for more anaconda hunting.  You gotta give these guys credit they are adamant in finding us one which is really nice.  We waited in the shade of the trees for 30 minutes and we had to cut our loses as the day was getting on and we had to get down to the river, so again not all was lost as we were loading onto the vehicles one of the young kids caught one and he was outsized just on his own, so we now know where one is living, on our way out tomorrow, they will comb that swamp and catch her for us, half the hard work was now done, we know where one is, we just now need to catch it!!  As we were driving out the truck got bogged from rain that fell yesterday morning before we got there, so we all had to hop out and we walked back to the tarmac road as they did their stuff and unbogged the truck and then came and picked us up 15 minutes later.

By this time it was 2.45pm and the sun was at her full force.  The 2 aluminum boats had to be saddled up with their motors and one was half full of water, I am assuming since they are aluminum that the water was also from the rain and not from a leak somewhere….  I just made sure I got in the other boat just to be sure as the water was scooped out!  So while that was being done, some of the guys tried some piranha fishing from the shore using raw chicken and hand held lines.  This helped kill some time as the motors were now on, but weren’t starting!  Poor Allan, things were just coming undone at the seams from no fault of his own.  3 people decided to stay with the vehicles and not come on the boats as they were already quite sunburned and another 3 hours in the sun would have probably killed one of them.  So with our boat finally going we pulled out and waited for the other one to join us, and waited and waited.  It didn’t start, so we ended up holding onto the boat as we travelled side by side on the one motor and it actually worked quite well.  We went upstream for around 20 minutes into the full tensity of the sun, and even the boat guys said it was a hot one today, so they decided to turn around and head downstream so we had the sun on our backs for a little reprieve which made a massive difference.  We had to pass back via the vehicles and 2 more people decided to get off, so we now all got onto the one boat and the others were driven the 30 minutes back to camp early.

The river was amazing.  There were so many birds, especially Kingfishers, lots of my favorite the Egrets and Jabiru’s.  We also saw a prehistoric bird called the Oatsin, which only comes out after dusk.  We could hear them in the bushes the whole time, but we were lucky when we made our way back they were starting to come out and they had an amazing neck plumage of different colours.  We saw lots of caiman and a few Iguanas’s sitting in trees as we motored by.  The next thing we know is that one of the canoe guys has jumped into the river and I look over and all I see is an animal head sticking out of the water and I immediately thought it was an anaconda and I was paralyzed with fear as the canoe guy bough his catch, that he caught with his HANDS to the boat.  It wasn’t an anaconda but a prehistoric turtle called Matamata.  It was the ugliest thing I have seen since the wildebeest in Africa, oh and the Marabou Storks in Ethiopia, they are all in the running for the world’s ugliest animal and this one can be added to the list.  The Matamata is a freshwater turtle found in South America, primarily in the Amazon and Orinoco basins. The Matamata was described for the first time by French naturalist Pierre Barrère in 1741 as a "large land turtle with spiky and ridged scales" It was first classified as Testudo fimbriata by German naturalist Johann Gottlob Schneider in 1783. It was renamed 14 different times in 2 centuries, finally being renamed Chelus fimbriata in 1992.  The Matamata is a large sedentary turtle that has a large triangular flattened head characterized with many tubercles and flaps of skin and a "horn" on its long and tubular snout. It inhabits slow moving, blackwater streams, stagnant pools, marshes, and swamps ranging into northern Bolivia, eastern Peru, Ecuador, eastern Colombia, Venezuela, the Guianas, and northern and central Brazil. The Matamata is strictly an aquatic species but it prefers standing in shallow water where its snout can reach the surface to breathe.  It was an amazing animal to see and while were still ohhing and ahhing over it, there were 4 otters 200m up river having a good look at us, it was hard to know which ones to take photos of and before we knew it the bobbing otters were gone, which was a shame as they looked super cute, I tried to snap off a photo in all the excitement and all I got was bush and water.

Now was time to get some serious piranha fishing in, where we wanted to pull up, there was a caiman sitting on the bank, once he heard us coming he swam off and we pulled right in where he was only seconds before.  Is it just me, is no-one else not worried about a croc attack?  Maybe that is just the Territorian coming out of me?  I was just going to sit in the boat and watch everyone, but after some coaxing, checking my back for creeping caiman I got out to try my luck.  I am yet to catch a piranha; I was unsuccessful in the Amazon, so I put out a challenge that I would be the first one to catch one and went in all guns blazing.  Well I wasn’t the first one to catch a fish, but by the end of the hour we spent fishing I was the one that caught the largest one!!!!  It was such a rush and I can see now why people like to fish, I was whoop whooping and jumping up and down and to have caught a biggy was awesome.  I’m glad that my mouthing off paid off, otherwise I would have looked like a goose!!!!  Kate caught one of the smallest piranhas so it made for a great photo with my whaler and her shrimpy looking piranha.  Oh yeah and THAT is how you fish for piranha.  In saying that I think everyone caught one, oh except Matt.  Maybe next time buddy!!!

The run back to the cars was great, the sun was setting and the temperature must have dropped at least 10 degrees, so with the wind flapping the hair, the sky was showing some great colours as the day faded and I got some great snaps.  I think I have a compulsion of taking photos of the sky when it has interesting cloud patterns and the colours that she shows at different times of the day, we live in a truly amazing world and nature has shown us her good side and her bad so far on the trip.  Little was I to know just how true that was going to ring in the next 24 hours.  There were storm clouds brewing about 5km away and you could see where the rain was coming down from the clouds, that was okay as it was 5km away, but while we were on the boats it had rained and as we drove back to camp with it now dark, we got bogged.  The work truck was behind us and because the mud was that bad, they couldn’t stop to help, otherwise there would have been 2 cars bogged, so after about 10 minutes of back and fro-ing, we were able to grip our way back to the middle of the road and then we fish tailed the 1km back to camp, seriously there were a few scary moments we were travelling sideways as Hector tried to keep us in the middle, if we were to slide too far to the side of the road we would have no chance of getting out of that super soft stuff.  But we made it back.  Dinner was a beef affair tonight and our catch of piranha was BBQ’ed.  I had to taste my catch and there really is not a lot of ,eat on these guys, so you wouldn’t want to rely on them as a food source as you would need a billion of them to make a decent meal, but they were tasty the meat that I did scrape of it.  I ate piranha, and one that I caught!!!!

Allan was telling us that Gray would have to think about moving Rosita out tonight on the chance that the rain was going to come our way to try and minimize the chances of us getting bogged.  He did say that if he moved the truck tonight there would be a 67% chance we would get bogged, if he left her where she was and tried in the morning it would be an 89% we would get bogged.  You could see them having a discussion before dinner and by the time I went to bed at 9.30pm, Rosita was still sitting where she was, so with fingers crossed that rain would not come and Grays knowledge of what Rosita was capable of tomorrow would be a new day.

The bugs were just as bad last night and after a shower and trying to read swatting black bugs in my hammock I had to give up as my head torch was attracting them and I had no chance of reading without something crawling on me, so with the generator cutting on and off I turned off my light and looking out at 1pm of the mesh window I watched the full moon move up from the horizon.  I wasn’t terribly sleepy, probably because I had that nap at lunch time but I did see the moon finally move above the window and then the lightning show started just after that.  I have a feeling that we just may get rain tonight, so tomorrow will be an interesting day.

OUR LAST JOURNEY OVER THE ANDES-VENEZUELA

WEATHER: Cool in the Andes at 15C and hot as an oven at sea level 30C

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 3^rd 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.    

GOOD FRIDAY IN MERIDA

WEATHER: Cool and 23C-perfecto

HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: McDonalds for lunch-yes I said it out loud

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Can’t think of a thing

WORD OF THE DAY:  SLEEP-IN

SLEEP-IN

Man I nearly forgot what that felt like.  We had a free day today, Good Friday in Merida.  Breakfast was not included, so Kate and I decided to not set any alarms and just see what time we wake up.  Well it was a glorious 10.30am before we both stirred and we felt marvelous.  Not much was going to be open today, but we knew that McDonalds was somewhere in the city, so after a shower, we hit the streets in search of lunch, particularly McDonalds if we could.  I know how bad it sounds to your ears, but to have something familiar, no fuss is a god send when you are travelling and I had a picture of a Big Mac in mind, we WERE going to find it.

Mérida, officially known as Santiago de los Caballeros de Mérida and is one of the principal cities of the Venezuelan Andes. It was founded in 1558 by Captain Juan Rodríguez Suárez, forming part of Nueva Granada, but later became part of the Captaincy General of Venezuela and played an active role in the War of Independence.  Merida holds the highest and longest cable car of the world.  The city sits on a tableland nestled in the valley of the Chama River, which runs from end to end. The town of Merida is located at an altitude of 1,600 meters and as a background on the horizon rises the country's highest summit: the Pico Bolívar with an altitude of 4981 meters.  The city was named after the founder Juan Rodríguez Suárez, who called so in honor of his hometown of Mérida in Extremadura, Spain.

However, Juan de Maldonado renamed it as San Juan de las Nieves. In 1559 the name changed again, opting this time for Santiago de los Caballeros. Gradually, it was adopting the name of Santiago de los Caballeros de Mérida, combining the variants that had been appointed to the city until then.

The city is located in the center of the Venezuelan Andes, in a wide plain in the valley of the Chama River, between the Sierra Nevada de Mérida to the southeast and the Sierra La Culata to the northwest.

In the center of the city the terrain, located on a plain, is almost flat. Nonetheless, there is an average incline of 3 to 7 degrees, which causes a difference in altitude between the high and low parts of the city of more than 400 m, the average being 1,630 m above sea level at the Plaza Bolívar. However, the areas surrounding the city are rough and uneven, situated in the valleys formed by the Chama and Albarregas rivers and the Sierra Nevada and Sierra de La Culata ranges.  The valley in which the city is located was formed approximately 40 to 60 million years ago with the creation of the Venezuelan Andes and its continuous erosion by the area's water systems. Its soils consist of alluvial sediment and clay. Below the city runs the major tectonic fault in the western part of the country, the Boconó fault, which forms part of the South American Plate.

The streets were busy with traffic and a few shop 2 Dollar shops were open.  I needed a few things, so I was able to buy some more sticky tape, snacks and water before we continued on our Macca’s hunt.  We were walking downhill to what looked like a busier part of town and this was all we had to go on and luckily Kate saw a Macca’s sign after about 20 minutes, we had hit the jackpot locating it just around the corner.  Not only did I get a Big Mac but I also got 10 nuggets and a coke with ice and it was just what we needed today.  We were wondering how many of ‘us’ we would see there as well, and Mark was the only one when he walked in about 15 minutes after us.  We did find out later that just about the whole group had made a visit at some stage during the day, so we weren’t the only ones!

On our way back to the hotel, we walked past the main square, Plaza Bolivar, which had a lot of small stalls selling handicrafts, locally made jewelry and books.  So we did a lap and walked away with a few pairs of earrings and a ring that cost me a grand total of 15AUD.  They are really pretty pieces and it was nice to see some nice jewelry again.  We then stopped at an internet café, why not, there was nothing else to do and both Kate and I needed to print out vouchers and e-tickets and check the usual Facebook and emails.  I was lucky that Zeme was online at the same time, so we had a great old chat and a nice surprise for the day.  He’s well and off to Kenya next week for 2 weeks on a job, and he is super excited.  Man I miss him so much but in a good happy way and not a sad cry way as I know that we are meant to be and I am just looking forward to the day I move to Ethiopia.  I love you baby……  We ended up spending 1.5 hours at the internet café and the cost, including the printing was a cool 1.25AUD.  Yes peeps, it was cheap!!!!

We were back to the hotel at 4pm with a few hours to kill till our meeting at 6pm.  Allan then went through what was involved for the next few days as we travel to Los Llanos and what to expect, pack and go through the itinerary.  It sounds like a cool part of the world and our chance to see anacondas.  I hate snakes, but for some weird reason I want to see and touch an anaconda.  Yeah I say it all now like a tough guy, but what actually happens when we do see one I am sure will be a different story!

The town of Merida has a great feel and I liked it here.  We are off to Los Llanos tomorrow, the savannahs, more wildlife spotting and hopefully the mighty anaconda.