Hato Cedral - DAY 3


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South America » Venezuela » Llanos
August 27th 2007
Published: September 2nd 2007
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The bloody mosquitos! I have been eaten alive - and in fact its not just mosquitos its ants as well, depite the deet..... For some reason they seem to have much larger appetites for me than for either Ida or Emma - especially the soles of my feet - nightmare! Its not bad during the day but I can't sleep at night...

We have our breakfast and head off for a leisurely stroll, the heat is intense, a bit too intense and our planned 3 hour walk is cut short because Emma is not feeling great.... We all got a bit too much sun though - despite our precautions the tops of our shoulders are slightly burnt... I'm driving everybody a bit nuts by taking photos of everything, insects, butterflys, birds - but I just find it soo incredible - a sort of cruel beauty though - colourful green iguans scuttle off branches and drop heavily to the ground, looking for bird's nests in order to eat their eggs - baby capyvaras graze innocently in the ponds beside crocodiles and canaimas - deer drink deeply from the banks of the river - watched closely probably by cougars - although we never get to see one - being very shy of humans.... I'm enraptured by this place....

In the afternoon myself and Ida head off with Jesus on horses - fantastic - galloping across the plains.... We have a few funny moments - Jesus compares Ida to a beautiful cow and me to some sort of sleeping animal - we hope he meant it as a compliment - anyway we don't know so we'll just accept it as one! I imagine life can be quite hard here for these cowboys when everything dries up I wonder how they manage the animals and crops.... The horses are tough and obedient - put it this way when breaking them in I don't think they use the gentle method - but that's part of the life here. Its so far removed from anything we've ever experienced that we feel a great respect for these friendly smiling people who manage to live and exploit this beautiful but often harsh and cruel world.....

The rest of the evening is spent chilling by the pool talking to some really interesting Venezuelan people - Its interesting to hear the different perspectives of the political climate at the moment in Venezuela - again feeling a bit clueless as Europeans, having only been exposed to a certain amount of information forming our own perception without of course experiencing the effects of certain political actions...

Had to take an anti allergy pill for the insect bites as the itching is driving me crazy!!

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3rd September 2007

Poor Cathy
Hi Cathy, you poor thing! I'm convinced it's the Irish blood that the mosquitos love so much...I've never been bitten on the soles of my feet though. Keep up the blog - it's brilliant relief from the monotony of life in the office here in rainy Lux! Cxxx

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