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Published: November 26th 2006
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Good Morning. Here´s an Anaconda
Fresh out of bed to go and cuddle with an anaconda... So I decided to spend a little more than my budget allowed and I went on a tour of Los Llanos (the plains of Venezuela, only 40m above sea level, extremely flat - some were reminded of Africa, or the Australian Outback - and absolutely teaming with wildilfe!). Here is a brief, or not so brief, recount of the crazy time we had...
Day 1:
Left the posada at 9am, were told we had to drive for ´a little while´to get to the camp. You know, that´s the interesting thing about this country, EVERYONE lies about the time!! It was about 9 1/2 hours driving to get to the campamiento where we were staying. I wont lie though, the drive was fabulous. The diversity in this county is astonishing. Starting in Mérida we were in the lower mountainous region of the country and from there we worked our way up... up and over an entire mountain range. We reached altitudes of over 4000m, which I think is high, but I´ve been wrong before! Dad, you´d be so interested in the forests here! They have no naturally growing trees, but they have transplanted ENTIRE forests of pine... it was so comforting
Licandro; guia, Llanero, y un buen hombre
This is Licandro, our local guide... he owns the campamiento that we stayed in. I swear he has fear of NOTHING to look upon forests of trees that I could actually recognize - don´t worry, I took pictures for you!
After another few near-death experiences - I swear people drive like they´re been chased by the devil here - we finally cleared the mountain ranges. I probably yelled at our guide 20-30 times... partially in jest, but mostly just scared for my life... he had no desire to slow down, and kept reassuring me that by going 160km/h he was one of the slowest drivers in the company. riiiiight.
Our lunch was a massive platter of bar-b-qed beef. There were probably about 13 cows roasting on the spit when we got there, and we must have eaten 2 of them! The plate was bigger than my head, and there were only 4 of us eating. Needless to say, we had a few left-overs to bring back! (Our group consisted of me, 2 French guys who I could have sworn were a couple, but 1/2 way through the trip they started lamenting about their girlfriends back home, so i guess i was wrong!, and then 1 Australian guy. He was odd. And he snored, VERY loudly!!)
So upon arriving at our camp
Pirraña Killa
Oh yes, that gringa you see is for sure me!! Muahah, Im the biggest geek in the world, but look at the size of that sucker! we were a little more than traumatized. We had seen our life flash before our eyes more times than necessary, and were ready for a nice comfy bed, a long sleep and a little comfort. AS IF!!! The ´camp´we were assigned to was basically a family´s homestead (so Little House on the Prairies) with a few extra buildings added to make it able to ´accomodate´tourists. Our ´cabin´was a round tiny building with 7 hammocks hanging from a central pole and raidiating outwards. I was stuck in the room with the 3 guys and 3million mosquitos. Oh, did I mention that it gets up to 40degrees during the day?! Well, it does, and it probably goes down to about 35 during the night! So not only are you frying and wanting to sleep in the nude, you CANT ´cause you´ll get eaten alive!
Day 2:
Laying in my hammock when our guide, Carlos BURST in the door yelling like a banchee on steriods. We all jumped up, didnt even through on clothes, and just followed him. Heaven knows what we were following him for, but we sure were running.
Just across the road they had found an anaconda!!!! All 3
Anteater
funny lookin´little devil, ain´t he?? 1/2 meters of him... fighting with a turtle (the poor tortuga lost, as by the time we got there he was good and crushed, but he got a few good bites in that we could see on the anaconda´s mouth).
To get to the snake we had to wade up to our waists (still in our underwear/sleeping clothes and without shoes on) through a lagoon. 1/2 way through Licandro, the local guide looked at me and smiled, ¨careful for the pirrañas!!¨ VERY funny!
After some freaking out we made it across and got to take turns holding the snake and taking some pretty great pictures of it! It was pretty much amazingly incredible! And then they let go of it. Completely. All of the boys RAN BEHIND ME AND PUSHED ME INFRONT OF THEM. At that point i was questioning my sanity. Why did I pay for this?!?! What was my rational for coming on a trip with 3 guys who would rather sacrifice me to an anaconda than be gentlemen?
You should have heard the grief the boys got from the guides. They laughed at them for the rest of the weekend, joking about how the girl was in
Made short work of that guy, didn´t I
My catch... aka my dinner. What a great experience!! front of all them, not really appearing to be afraid (ahah, boy did i have them fooled!), and them screaming like little girls... I think I won the hearts of the locals after that, ´cause for the rest of the trip they were absolutely amazing to me, and made the trip nothing more than fabulous!
That afternoon we went fishing for pirrañas... and once again the guides laughed their butts off at the boys. Of the 9 fish we caught, 4 of them were by me, 4 by the other 3 guides, and only Lorenzo caught one! They razed them pretty bad!
The rest of the day we chased caymans (yes, little medium sized crocodiles), saw a 6 foot long anteater, and then went on a 4 hour horseback ride. Dinner was pirraña, and it was delicious!!
ooooh, on our horseback ride I got to talking with Freddy, the 22 year old local guide. Father of a 4 year old, married to an 18 year old (not the mother of his child) who is pregnant, and yet still has a household with the mother (who is only 20!). He was explaining to me about how it´s the norm in
Me and a Baby Cayman
the little bitty cayman they caught Los Llanos to have more than one household with more than one family. He asked me if I wanted to stay, saying that he could find me a man (pretty sure he was talking about himself) and I could live to be a Llanero´s wife. AHAHA, that was a good one. I explained to him EVER so politely that I dont share very well... and that I don´t think Mike would be too impressed if I were to call him from the plains and tell him I was staying, to be the wife of a polygamist. No thanks!
Day 3:
Another group arrived the night before and all of us got into a boat for our lagoon trip. After 20 minutes they got the motor started (wow, a GREAT way to increase our confidence in the tin can that we were taking into pirraña and cayman territory!) and we went on the 3 hour trip... saw everything from iguanas, snakes, freshwater pink dolfins, turtles, a million species of birds, caymans, monkies and more. It was pretty incredible and we were lucky ´cause it´s getting to be the dry season and all of the animals are coming closer and closer
A beautiful little girl who loved the camera
Mirbelli... a sauce for the camera, and loved everything to do with tourists! to the main sources of water as the plains dry out.
A siesta during the hot hours of the day (aka all day, but for them just from 1-3), and then a few hours on top of the jeep in a safari... again saw loads of animals, but the best was the baby cayman that Freddy caught and we were all able to hold it and touch it - poor little thing must have been scared out of its wits!
Day 4:
The drive home was pretty uneventful, except that I had the opportunity to speak with 2 people from VERY different backgrounds who had VERY different political views and opinions in regards to Chavez... I will have to dedicate an entire entry to that, as it´s absolutely facinating to hear what people think and how the Venezolaños think about their president and the upcoming election (December 3rd)...
Anywhooo, I made it back safe and sound, didnt get eaten by any wild animals (although it was close at times) and didnt catch anything too serious, nothing but a wicked case of heatstroke and a little bit of longing for a real bed, not a hammock!
Will talk with
A bigass cayman
a beautiful large man-eating cayman! you all soon, much love to everyone and hope that ya´ll in Vancouver are able to drink your water asap and that you´re not going insane from too much snow!
Callie
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Lauren
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one month and one day!!!
Wowie, reading your stories is like...a serious highlight of my day! And i can't wait to share and experience soo much more SOOON. But hey - don't spend all your money before i get there ;) Did u have to sleep with mosquito nets? Or just with clothes on?? Hope to talk to you soon! HAha, just found out a dude i work with at teh pool is flying into lima on the same day as me...random eh?? CHAU :) ps- i got my shots the other day...jeesus yellow fever is painful!!!