Los Llanos

 

 

This past weekend, we made a trip into Central Venezuela to los llanos, plains which are like a combination of backcountry Louisiana and the Serengeti. We left around 4AM Friday morning and made a stop at a waterfall a couple hours later. We were all tired and groggy so it was pretty dream-like for most of us. Around 4PM we rolled into our posada, which was a family-run farm complex with ducks and chickens running around all over the place; we picked up and played with the groups of ducklings and chicks. Our lodging was an awesome screened-in bunkhouse with hammocks. Later on we went on a walk and played some Frisbee and bocce ball (bolas criollas en español) until it got dark. After dinner, they took us on a wildlife safari. Sitting on top of a bus, a guide shined a light on all the ponds, illuminating the eyes of the caimans lurking in the water. Later on that night, we sat down at a long wooden table and had a beer with some pretty interesting folks. There was an Australian who quit his job a year and a half ago and has been traveling ever since; not sure how has not run out of money. He was temporarily traveling with a German while they were both in Venezuela; this guy smoked about two packs of cigarettes during our conversation. They were with a guide named Manuel who lives in Mérida but is originally from Caracas; he gave us his number and told us to hit him up for future adventures. We also met an older guy who recently spent about two weeks living with an indigenous tribe in Venezuela. He showed us his pictures which depicted pierced natives were wearing nothing but a horn around their crotch fishing with spears. He kept repeating “la edad de piedra!” (stone age), which seemed pretty accurate to me. It just blows my mind that there are more than thirty indigenous tribes living in the rainforests of southeastern Venezuela that communicate very little with the outside world. Saturday morning we woke up early and took turns going on horse rides. I was in the second shift and my friend Ian had tipped me off about which horse was the craziest, so I had a pretty fun ride. He was itching to go fast, and I was totally down, so we spent a couple hours galloping around the plains until the guide got a little annoyed. I always forget how much I enjoy riding horses. After lunch, we climbed back on the top of the bus for another safari. About ten minutes in, the guide stopped the bus, walked off into a shallow pond, and after about five minutes of poking around pulled an anaconda out of the water. We took turns holding the ~six foot snake and letting it wrap around our arms. Later on, we went off road and drove around the fields until we came across herds of capybaras lounging in mud pits.  The world’s biggest rodents, capybaras are pretty hilarious little guys that can supposedly win a fight with a caiman. The rest of the afternoon was spent trying to find larger anacondas, but we had all run out of water and were getting pretty dehydrated so we headed back. Dinner was a pig that had been roasting all day; unfortunately we had heard it squeeling the night before, so it was with a bit of sadness that we chowed down on some of the best pork we have ever had. I had some bites of ribs that could have been mistaken for bacon. Our friends from the night before headed out earlier in the day, but a crew of about twenty Dutchmen had rolled in a couple hours before so we spent most of the night hanging out with them. They were traveling with what they described as a fraternity without the national organization component. We had a few in-depth political conversations; it was pretty interesting comparing our government systems, health care, and tax rates. The Venezuelans were not feeling our music, but our bus was parked in a nearby field so we moved out there, played some CDs, and danced a little bit outside. Sunday morning we went on a boat ride on a nearby river. We saw plenty of caimans, alligators, and even some freshwater dolphins! We only got a few glimpses, but they had a pinkish-gray hue and looked pretty strange, almost like something out of a bizarre dream. We pulled up on shore, and they gave us sticks with fishing line so we could fish for piranhas. When I first dropped my hook in the water with a little bit of chicken fat, I immediately felt nibbles, but it was not until about ten minutes later that I was able to hook one. Our group caught about twenty of them and we ate them for lunch later on. They are pretty bony and difficult to eat, but the meat is really tasty. Later on, we found a dead mata mata, a large turtle whose long flat head and pointy shell makes it look almost prehistoric. We rolled out around 1PM and spent the majority of the afternoon playing 21, a game which my friend Ian taught us. You go around in a circle counting to 21 and every time you make it to 21, that person makes a new rule (for example 14 is now 7, you have to speak in an accent if you are number 2…). Another great weekend! It is looking like this week is going to be heavy on the schoolwork, but I don’t mind all that much. So far, the academic component has been focused mostly on in-class time with little homework and requires about 10% of the work that I would usually do back at the U. Just a little jealous of the rest of the family hanging out in Hawaii, wish I could be there! ¡Hasta luego!