I had a brilliant 4 days out in Los Llanos, on a wildlife safari tour.
Los Llanos is located in the South Western part of Venezuela. It is a vast tropical grassland, and many parts of it stay flooded during the rainy season. Therefore it supports a rich collection of wildlife. There are giant rats call Capybaras, big snakes like the Annaconda, river dolphins, pirahnas, and a whole lot of different bird spieces.
Our tour took us through different mode of transport. We did tours on horseback, van, boat and we also went out for a night safari by foot. We also did different activities on the tour like pirahna fishing and tubbing down a river. My favorite activity was pirahna fishing. I mean, they were SO easy to catch! I caught like 5 pirahnas within 45 minutes.
The pirahnas are fierce creatures allright! They spot very sharp teeth, and over on the right you can see the result of their frenzy attack. Kerrin caught this fish 5 minutes ago, chucked it back into the water as bait and within 5 seconds, half it's flesh has been bitten off. Crazy shit!
We gutted our fish and got it ready for dinner. It was deep fried with salf and it was delicious!
And here is Tony Martin, my guide with his catch of the day. A mighty Anaconda. It was amazing to see him work as he was amazingly fast with his hands. You need it to catch this creature by the neck, and to hold it still to stop it from biting.
I was happy to see the giant snake caught, and to hold onto one as I haven't played with them since my snake keeping duty in Bolivia. The Anaconda skin is smooth and beautiful to touch. It has scary eyes from up close though as it is all hazy with no pupils showing.
And here you have another spectacular sunset at Los Llanos.
We did a lot of the overland tour on top of the roof of our van. The view from above over the plain are superb, with lots of birdlife seen.
Our guide Tony was pretty good. He definately knows what he is doing and is very knowledgable about the animals. But he is also impatient and a little ego-tistic. But the last day bought him back down to earth, as he cut himself bad on our little white-water adventure. After falling out of his tube and smacking head first into a rock down the rapids. That requires 10 stiches and you can see the big bandage over his left eye on the top photo!
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