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Published: August 6th 2007
Sierra Nevada
Farming village in a valley in Sierra NevadaNext place we arrived to was Merida. Though instead of staying there we immediately took a tour to Los Llanos, the Savannah plains east of Merida. Los Llanos is a great flat area rich with wildlife. Much of the plains are used for agriculture mostly cattle farming. There are both huge farms with thousands of animals and smaller family run places with 100 cows or less.
But in Los Llanos there are also a lot of other animals. Many of them seem very exotic to us North Europeans. All we have at home is
moose,
wolf,
bear,
lynx,
wolverine and
muskox. Pretty plain and dull animals all of them. But here in Los Llanos you can find ant eaters, capybaras, caimans, anacondas, piranahs, howler monkees, turtles and maybe a hundred different kinds of birds. Los Llanos is a great adventure for anyone who enjoys seeing wildlife and it is a true paradise for bird watchers.
On day 1 of the tour we met the others who were joining us on the tour. They were Nicole and Paul from Holland and Regine from Germany. We left Merida in the morning and our driver drove us up in the Sierra Nevada
Sierra Nevada
Emma with Sierra Nevada as a background mountains, which we had to cross to reach Los Llanos. The road in the mountains at one point reach an altitude of 3600 meters. Not the highest road in the World but that is higher than most.
In the high mountains the climate is totally different from the surrounding areas. Most of the days the mountains are covered with clouds giving the area much rain. The locals call the vegetation up there the cloud forest. The cloud forest sometimes reminded us of a tropical rainforest and sometimes of a Scottish moor.
The Sierra Nevada mountains ends quite abruptly and we soon left the high mountains and entered the Los Llanos plains. There the landscape is totally different. It is completely flat to start with and there are very few trees. In the higher plains there used to be forests once but they were cut down to give space to farms. In the lower plains however there have never been any forests. The lower savannahs are subject to flooding several months a year and therefor trees don´t grow there. The few trees that grow on the Los Llanos savannah can be found around the small farms where they have
Sierra Nevada
Waterfall in the Sierra Nevada mountains been planted to give shadow to the people living there.
In the afternoon we arrived in the farm where we were going to stay for the next three nights. After we had vacated the car and made ourselves comfortable in the tourist guesthouse that was our home there we went for a walk in the surroundings. Even near the house it is possible to see a lot of wildlife such as capybaras and caimans. But this evening we only saw firefies. We really liked the fireflies. They give up a sharp flashing light that make the entire plain look like a huge Christmas tree. It´s very nice!
On day 2 we woke up at dawn, that is just before 6 o´clock, when the nature came to life. First on the agenda this day was a boat tour in a river nearby. From the boat it is possible to get very close to the wildlife.
On the ride we saw several families of
capybaras. The capybara is a rodent and look a liitle bit like a guinea pig. Only that the capybaras are slightly larger. In fact they are the largest rodents in the World. It is a
Sunset over Los Llanos
Sunset over the Los Llanos savannah strange feeling to see a guinea pig the size of a german shephard dog.
The river is very rich with bird life. So we saw at least a dozen different species. There were storks, egrits, various grebes and several different kinds of birds of pray. But much too few of our favorite bird,
the roast chicken, for us to be really happy.
During the boat ride we also saw a cute little snake hanging in a tree, one cayman and several fresh water dolphins. Dolphins are very playful animals and they happily jumped in the water around our boat. But it seems like they were not so happy having their photos taken because they were rarely visible long enough for us to get our cameras ready. Consequently we don´t have any good photos of them.
Because the plains are flooded each year the roads in Los Llanos are all built higher than the surroundings. When the roads were built they took the building material from the side of the road thus digging holes there. These holes have become small lakes or ponds where there is water all year around. These ponds/lakes are the favourite hunting grounds for the
caimans.
Looking for an anaconda
Here we are looking for an anaconda. We found one. In fact Nicole was standing on it when it was discovered. The caiman is a small kind of alligator and like other alligators they enjoy sitting in shallow water to ambush their pray. It is very easy to spot caimans when driving through the Los Llanos. In a day´s drive it is possible to see several hundreds. Fortunately they don´t see humans as food, we are too large for them. But if they feel threatened they could bite off a hand or a foot so it is better to stay away from them.
In the afternoon this day we went to look for
anacondas. Anaconda is a non-venomous snake famous for its size. A grown female anaconda can grow to well over 6 meters in length. We went to an area where it is possible to find anacondas and started looking. Some local trackers helped us finding them but it was Regine who was the lucky one. The trackers and two of us were looking in the shallow water of a small lake to try to find the anaconda when Regine, standing several meters away from the shore of the lake, asked "Is it possible to find the snakes here because I think I see one?". It turned out she
Emma and anaconda
Emma is getting hugged by an anaconda had found a huge anaconda, possibly more than 5 meters in length. But to make the story even better it turned out that Nicole was actually standing on the snake when it was discovered. We could never see the entire snake though. She was pregnant and had just eaten and then it is better to leave the anacondas alone. So we don´t know exactly how large she was. But we went to another place and there the trackers found a male snake that was close to two meters long. That snake we could hold up and take some nice photos of. But it seems like the snake wasn´t too happy about that treatment because he urinated on us...
On the way back to the camp we managed to spot an ant eater. Though it was far away from us and we never managed to catch any photo of it. That was a pity. But it was fun to have seen one at least.
This day was the
Midsummer Eve, the highlight of one of the most popular Swedish holidays. Traditional celebration of Midsummer involves drinking vodka, singing and dancing among other things. We tried our best and sang a
Ake and anaconda
Ake holding an anaconda traditional midsummer song and did some dancing to entertain and educate (and scare?) our friends on the tour.
On day 3 of the tour we first went away and did some
piranah fishing. We don´t know much about piranahs but we believe their blood thirsty reputation might be slightly exaggerated. But they are flesh eating fish so when we fished them we had to be careful. If we hadn´t been they could have taken a bite out of us.
In the afternoon this day we took a horse ride in the savannah. On the back of a horse we got a nice view of the plains and it was a quiet and peaceful way to travel. The only drawback was the fact that we are not used to horse riding. Afterwards we were sore in our legs and butts.
In the evening on this day we ate the piranahas we caught in the morning. This day was Emma´s 30th birthday by the way. So her birthday dinner was fried piranha!
On day 4 it was time to go back. Most of this day we spent on the road back to Merida. We will tell you more
Caiman
Fierce looking caiman. about our experiences in Merida in the next entry of this blogg.
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Caroline
non-member comment
Grattis Emma!
Otroligt coolt! Och GRATTIS EMMA! Vilken födelsedag du hade! Wow.