VENEZUELA and T&T 2009

WE have just got bak from our four day safari in Los Llanos. We started the trip with a horrible winding journey in a kind of jeep through the mountains, on which I actually threw up... Luckily it got better as we stopped at a condor station to see some condors - huge, majestic vultures that are emblematic of the Andes - which are being reintroduced in Venezuela as they were at one point extinct. We also went for a walk through the mountains, where it was actually freezing cold and very misty and atmospheric! We ate lunch in a little wooden restaurant high in the hills, where we enjoyed delicious trout, a speciality of Merida.

After a lot more driving we eventually arrived at our first posada in Barinitas, a town near Los Llanos. Here we got to do white water rafting which was so fun!! ALice even got to go in a little canoe to get the action up close! We got very, very, very wet and screeched a lot as we tumbled through the rapids. Once we had dried off and calmed down, we had a delicious meal of Llanos beef.

The next day we set off in the bloody jeep again and headed for the plains, entering Apure state. It started to get a lot hotter and a lot flatter, with vast, green plains and an endless horizon, dotted everywhere with beautiful, white, angular cows, the main livestock raised by the Llaneros. Finally we arrived at our camp, a very rustic place in the middle of nowhere, shaded by two enormous mango trees where the mangoes fell like grenades with terrifying thumps in the night! On our first afternoon there we were taken by our jokes giude, Howard, on a boat trip through the marshy river, where we saw snakes, beautiful birds, caimans and huge, pink river dolphins blowing air. It also rained torrentially, and my hands and arms went numb for hours! After the usual delicious dinner, we went to sleep in our big dorm, where the ludicrously touchy feely Spanish couple had somehow managed to stick two beds together, making us rather anxious about any non-mango-related bumps in the night..

The next day we went on our first safari out into the plains, where the guides managed to catch an anaconda for us to touch! The anacondas are huge, muscular constrictors, and we could see an awkward lump in the middle of this one where it had just swallowed its lunch! We also saw herds of adorable capybara, enormous guinea pig-like rodents with big fat bums which I fell in love with! Howard told us that if a llanero girl has a nice arse, they call it a 'capybara butt'...

In the afternoon we went horseriding, and I was given the most mental horse who just wanted to gallop the whole way, so that was lots of fun (I really want to start riding again now). We trekked through the marshy land in burning sun, and saw a cute anteater sleeping in a palm tree. Again, we saw hundreds of species of incredible birds, including neon scarlett ibises, brightly coloured falcons, the world's oldest breed of bird, and the world's biggest stork.

That night a joropo band (a kind of Venezuelan blue grass with a harp, cuatro and maracas) came to play at the camp, and all the guides got drunk and the women went round dancing withevery available man. Afterwards, with our questionably compos mentis guide, we went on a night safari. Alice and I rode on planks on the top of the jeep, watching caiman eyes glowing in the water. This crazy guy waded into the pitch black water with bare feet and only my crappy torch as a light, and snatched up a baby caiman, which Alice and I held with glee! We also saw another anteater, and another crazy guy got out of the jeep and chased it until the anteater reared up with its arms splayed and did a kind of lairy defenive dance, in the style of, 'come and have a go if you think you're hard enough'. So funny, and completely unexpected!

The next morning we got up with heavy hearts at the prospect of another day in the godforsaken jeep... Luckily we were rewarded when we returned to Merida with a lovely meal out with our friends from the posada and the trip, followed by cocktails in a rammed, improvisatory bar that seemed to basically be someone's living room. We are having one last day in Merida before (hopefully) heading to Coro tonight.

Love Hannah and Alice