Blogs from San Fernando, Llanos, Venezuela, South America

Well as the tensions rise, we fled caracas without brian, to Merida once again. From there Talyn and i joined some folks in a land-rover to get into the llanos, this time much deeper. We had planned on going to one of the Hatos, the biological reserve like HAto Frio, or Cedral, but decided we wanted a more authentic experience. We ended up at a ranch in the state of Apure. The decision was extremely rewarding. We rafted the Santo Domingo river, rode horses through the llanos among lagoons of caiman and storks, took multiple trips looking for wildlife, pirana fishing,...... the list goes on. Even got the chance to catch an anaconda. Hard to expect any future trip to compare. Talyn and I were both struck by the pirana meat. There is so little meat ... read more

Following a night of sleeping in hammocks, we all woke up at 6:30, stuffed ourselves with amazing food, and headed out on another safari. We rode in the jeeps for about fifteen minutes until we reached the river. We hopped into a huge canoe, and our guide began to paddle away. Once it was deep enough, one of the local boys started the motor- but we still had to maintain our balance so as not to fall into the piranha-filled water. The ride was amazing- we saw howler monkeys, iguanas, caiman, birds, piranhas, turtles, poisonous snakes, pink freshwater dolphins, and capybara (the world’s largest rodent- basically a four-foot rat without the tail). Our guide even jumped off the side of the canoe into the water-yes, the water filled with piranhas-to catch a turtle for us! He ... read more