Los Llanos - Hato Cedral DAY 1

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Arrived at Barinas picked up by Freddy our transport person - just to take us from the airport to Hato Cedral.... Not the most talkative of people, although we tried... well mostly Emma in fact prompted by us now and then... we gave up and basically took in the scenery for the next three hours...

Some of the houses lining the sides of the road appeared to be pretty makeshift as though they were put together by anything that came to hand. There is a lot of colour not from the landscape necessarily which is surprisingly green (wet season), but the material used to build the houses and the clothes the people are wearing..... bit of an unfortunate incident on the way there - we stopped to buy water and not being used to the currency we basically got ripped off - paid aprox. 9 euros for 3 bottles of water instead of the equivalent in bolivars of 2 euros - we are not used to the money yet and instead of paying 5000 we paid 50000 - we copped pretty much straight away and explained to Freddy what had happened, talking about going back for the principle - but when he stopped to give a bar of chocolate to a bare foot little boy living in one of the cabins on the side of the road - it kind of put things in perspective - and it was a good wake up call for us as well to be more careful....

Finally arrived at Hato Cedral - a ranch style dwelling on these incredible plains that make up one third of the country.... Its absolutely amazing, its like a sea of flat land that stretches to the horizon as far as the eye can see. There is something very intense about everything here, the heat, the noise from the animals, the richness of the land.... We were met at the beginning of the ranch at the gate by a truck and trailer and had an extremely bumpy and entertaining ride to the ranch house - the plains are teeming with life - just in this drive alone we saw several different species of birds, types of heron, types of egrets, beautiful colourful finches (I think), hawks and vultures.... The infamous capyvara lined the roads in little groups, hard to believe that these animals were actually near to extinction at one stage when you see them in the numbers they appear in on this natural reserve.... they were not too bothered by the truck anyway and we had to stop repeatedly for them to get out of the way in order to continue - not hard to imagine why they might be extinct though:-)

We eventually arrive at the ranch house a little shaken to say the least - literally from the trailer drive we were hanging on to ourselves and our things for dear life - but all in great form and dying to explore more of this amazing place....

Very friendly greeting from our hosts and our guide Raphael and we set off on our first excursion in the afternoon on the trailer... As soon as we leave the Ranch House there is a sort of pond area at which we stop, the guide and driver begin to clap their hands and beep the horn and out lumbers this big huge crocodile, eyeing us up like meals on wheels.... just behind him are too equally looking evil reptiles known as canaimas - slightly different to the crocodile but just as vicious apparently... The guide informed us that they don't usually attack humans unless walking about at night - which is something that we were definitely not planning. Raphael is extremely chatty and a lot of fun - he takes particular relish in informing us of the feeding capacity and danger these "animales" represent....

Accomodation is rustic and basic - every night birds accumulate on the trees surrounding the apartments and set up such a raucous you wonder sometimes whether you are not in a zoo... We are all in awe of the landscape and the amount of life and type of animals that survive next to each other - we have met no other tourists yet - except Venezuelans - all have been extremely friendly and curious about "los 3 chicas" as we are known as. We are beginning to realise that we're not the normal average kind of tourists - outside of the fact that we don't stop talking, singing (I know I can't sing...) and laughing Venezuela doesn't seem to be a typical destination for travellers like us - but I'm beginning to wonder where in fact a typical destination for people like us would be! Thank goodness for Emma though - although Ida and I have tried the whole charade thing - it tends to be met with some rather curious stares and confusion. Fortunately though Raphael speaks English and some of the Venezuelan tourists we have met here speak English as well.

First night on the ranch there is a massive thunderstorm and the electricity is cut - the shrieks coming out of our bedroom could have competed with any species of the birds that resides in these parts - Emma was stuck in the shower - Ida was still not convinced by Raphael's assurance that the crocodile was not going to pay us a visit in the night! We used our torches for the first time already - the rest of the night was uneventful although Ida had to use an extra coating of moisturizer on her face to combat the stress of it all! Emma unfortunately has some sort of allergy but Ida came to the rescue with a compress and strict instructions not to touch her eyes....

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