After spending a few days getting over the hangover of our London friends visiting, we decided to go on a four day safari tour of one of Venezuela's most diverse flora and fauna regions - Los Llanos.
Situated in the south central region, the savanna goes for as far as the eyes can see and is flanked by 'gallery forest' on the edge of the plains, before the mountains of the Andes rise up around it.
We travelled from Merida with our tour guide Harry (http://www.venezuela-adventura.com/), Venod from NYC and Brendon from Oz. Everyone got on well, which is good as it took 12 hours to get there! in the back of a Land Cruiser.
We were promised Piranha fishing, the worlds biggest bird - the Jabaru stork, the worlds biggest rodent - the Capybara, the worlds biggest snake - the Anaconda and loads of other amazing birds and animals.
And did we see them.... yes we did, in abundance! We fished for fresh water bass (the Pabon), we found giant male and female anacondas, we fished and ate piranhas, we saw anteaters, giant mice, falcons, eagles, cute burrowing owls (who live underground in borrowed holes), giant cayman's - up close and personal as our guides caught them with their bare hands! The list is huge!
Maudie liked it on the roof of the jeep, and spend most of her time up their surveying the savanna, whilst I was tucked up inside. One night on the way back to camp, we experienced the firefly mating night - a once a year event, when the whole savanna is lit up by tiny lights as far as the eye can see. It was amazing!
The other bonus was Mango season, the camp was surrounded by huge mango trees, bursting with fruit as the 3 week season was in full swing. All you had to so was sit and wait for one to fall, wash it and eat it - that's real fresh fruit!
We booked it through the tour company inside the Posada Suiza in Merida (http://www.venezuela-adventura.com/), we can recommend both the tour agency and the hostel - great value and friendly service, in a family run place.
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