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Published: June 24th 2011
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The first time we were in Venezuela we were not so enthusiastic. But it does not mean that Venezuela has not beautiful nature. Now we are in Santa Elena de Uairén. It is situated in between beautiful savannahs and also the people are nice. The savannah´s started allready in Brazil. Suddenly we are out of the jungle.
Santa Elena de Uairén
The Gran Savanah around Santa Elena Uairén is worldfamous. Here you can see the amazing Tepuis, tablemountains protruding out of a flat landscape. They are made up of sedimental sandstonelayers of the precambrium. It means that these mountains belong to the oldest mountains in the world. They are about 3 billion years old and were already formed when South-America, Africa and Australia were united in supercontinent Gondwana. They remind us of the mountains we have seen in Isalo at Madagascar. Maybe they were connected once.
However fascinating these mountains are, specially Roraima with a height of 2700 meter, we cannot go there. It is too expensive. Botanists Everald Im Thum and Harry Perkins were the first who mounted Roraima mountain in 1884. They found a ecosystem which differed completely with what they had seen ever before. Because of their
isolation there is hardly any interference between the different tepuis and the lower located savannahs and also not with eachother. That is why it could develop independently. Half of the 2000 plantspecies here are endemic. For biologists it is a walhalla, because you can follow speciation like on a group of Islands. Some people compare the tepuis with the Galapagos Islands. Not only biologists are fascinated by these Islands of the mainland, also Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was seized by the idea that animals and plants could develop in complete isolation. Linda read his book ´Lost world´ in which even Dinosaurs survive eons in this prehistoric landscape.
It hurts when we pass the tepuis next morning in the bus to Ciudad Bolivar. We have to return here once to climb the Roraima mountain. We drive already more than an hour, when the road goes down. It appears the savannah itself is a tableland. Further down we go and then we are in the jungle again. Now we begin to understand why there is a savannah. Apparently it is too high and dry for a teeming plantlife. Also the soil consists of sand, so that water drains immediately taking nutrients
with it.
After some hours the jungle disappears and makes place for an agricultural landscape.
Via Ciudad Guyana we arrive after 12 hours at Ciudad Bolivar.
Ciudad Bolivar
Our little family is still complete. Together with Thijs and Ben we get a familyroom in Posada Don Carlos. The people are unbelievable friendly and the posada is one of the best we ever have had. Posada Michelle at Santa Elena de Uairén and Posada Don Carlos here in Ciudad Bolivar are like tepuis in a barren landscape. They go their own way and have their own high standards. Ciudad Bolivar is a nice city at the Orinoco river. We look at the wild streaming river. It is brownish because of the suspended minerals. We suppose it comes from the tablelands we just passed.
Next evening we leave again. We can catch a bus all the way to Maracaibo, near the border with Colombia. It will take 19 hours, if everything would be fine. But unfortunately we get a flat tyre somewhere in the middle of nowhere. After a short inspection two other tyres also appear to be completely rotten. So it does not take 19 hours, but 29 hours.
When we finally arrive in Maracaibo we directly can get a propuesto (a kind of taxi), who will bring us to Macao in Colombia. We are with 5 persons: us four and a Colombian man.
We pass 8 checkpoints, but the only thing we have to do is to show our passports. We do not understand the sense of it. Later we read that the tension between Venezuela and Colombia is growing. Both countries have sent their armies to the border. We do not know why it is. Is it because it becomes clear that Hugo Chavez supports the FARC? Chavez claimed the Antilles already. Is he up to a great Colombia as well, consisting of Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador, like it was in the past? It looks like Chavez makes a lot of enemies. But he also has a new friend, we read at the website of the Volkskrant. Desi Bouterse from Suriname and Chavez just signed an agreement, that Venezuela will deliver cheap oil. For Suriname it is very welcome, now it is running out of money. However, people we spoke with in Suriname were afraid for this scenario.
Passing the border itself is straightforward. At the Colombian side we meet four checkpoints before we reach Macao. In Macao we change money and take the bus to Santa Marta. There is a good movie in the bus. It could win an award at the International Film Festival in Rotterdam. It is about a village in the jungle. Maybe it is around the Darien gap near the border with Panama, an area where the FARC is active. It shows how local life is influenced by the struggle aigainst the guerilla´s. Which side too choose? Some people refuse to choose. They want just to stay where they are and do their farm. Other people leave the village. They are afraid and do not want that their children are witnesses of all this violence. But the kids are. What to do when your football lands in between a field with mines? Then once again the bus is stopped by soldiers and we are back in reality. All passengers have to come out. Thijs, Ben, me and all other men have to stand against the bus like criminals and are searched for weapons. A dog is checking the luggage.
While we stand outside the bus I see suddenly some cutler ants. They have the habit to cut leaves in little pieces and bring them to their nest. They wear them above their heads as if it were trophees. Inside the nest it will get mouldy. The fungi are food for the ants. Actually the ants are a kind of farmers. But then I see the ants come out of the bag of one of the passengers with their loot high above their heads. Suddenly I realize it could be coca-leaves. My neighbour now also see the ´coca-ants´ coming out of his bag. It is the fifth passenger in the propuesto who brought us to Macao. We look at eachother and then we are staring again at the remarkable ants. Just at the moment I want to say how zealous ants can be, he opens his bag, takes something out and throws it in the bush. I cannot see what it is. It can be a packet with old bread and maybe he thinks the ants like to eat it. Maybe it is something else. Anyway I do as if I did not notice it. The policemen gesture we can enter the bus again. The ants bring the last leaves to their nest.
After four hours we arrive at Santa Marta and we take together with Thijs and Ben a taxi to Casa Familiar. In total we travelled about 40 hours non stop. We are worn out but we are also happy we are back at Casa Familiar. About 50 days ago we started here our loop from Colombia, via Venezuela, Trinidad, Suriname and French Guyana to Brazil and from there via the Amazon and Venezuela back to Colombia. It was quite out of the beaten track and it was not always easy, but we did it. Here our little family will split eventually. Thijs will go to the South, to Argentina, Ben will go to the North, to Panama and Los Angeles. And we...we decided to go to the East, to Europe. End of July we will be at Nice to visit my brother, the first week of August we´ll go to Rotterdam for the birthday of my son Robin and maybe we´ll meet my daugher Majorie, when she comes back from Syria. The second week of August we´ll go to Slovakia, to see Vlado, Linda´s father before he leaves for Alaska. Up to the end of september we will stay in Slovakia. Later we will continue our trip. Then we like to go via Central America to North America as we planned before.
For the time being we´ll stay in Colombia. Maybe we´ll find a nice Caribbean Island and have a little holiday!
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