Catatumbo Delta / Maracaibo Lake / Punta Concha Trip

As planned, we left Mérida at 7.15am on Tuesday morning on the Arassari Catatumbo expedition.

César was our guide, Ramón our driver; the group was made up of the two of us, an English woman, a Scottish couple and five Catalans from Spain. Either by accident or design, César is also Catalan, so they had plenty to talk about. (My Catalan is somewhat rusty, but I did pick up a word or two!). Perhaps the most interesting thing about the Brits was the twenty year age difference between the Scottish couple: female our age; male our parents' ages (more or less ;-).

On the way to the southern shore of Lake Maracaibo we stopped at various scenic and cultural spots. The first, and most interesting, was a sugar producing factory - the manufacturing process is pretty convoluted, and all done by hand and ancient mechanical machinery. We also visited a tobacco gum factory (the famous Venezuelan "chimo", ghastly stuff that blackens your teeth and befuddles your senses), a restored coffee hacienda, and a cute little Andean village. After a long drive and a stop for lunch, we arrived at Punta Concha, at the end of a river that flows into Lake Maracaibo. We took two motor boats along the river ('native' drivers), slowing down to stare up at red howler monkeys and a panoply of different species of bird. In the lake itself (which is really, really huge - the biggest in South America -, and slightly salty) we spotted river dolphins. They're pretty shy, so they stayed away, but we could see them leap through the water clearly in the bright sunset.

Our accommodation that night was a palafito, a hut on stilts in the middle of the lake. Generally used by fishermen, they're useful for avoiding the mosquitos that swarm the shores. A recent storm had destroyed lots of them, but ours had obviously survived - which inspires confidence, I suppose -, and had running water to boot.

It was dark by then, so we ate a quick dinner and set sail once more. The moon was full that night, but luckily it was cloudy, so we travelled in darkness. We were hunting caiman: you shine a torch towards the shore, looking for the light reflecting from their eyes. Once you see one, you can't miss it - their eyes shine bright red just above the surface of the water. César must have special kung-fu powers, because the boat glided in towards the creature he reached down and grabbed it out of the water, dangling it for us to poke and ogle the poor beast! Turns out that the light in their eyes blinds them (temporarily, of course), so they stay stock still, and once caught they just go limp. They're pretty ferocious when released though, and the one we found had lots of pointy teeth! We let the poor thing go in the end, and it scuttled off. We were looking for boas, too, but never found any. We did spot an owl though, sitting up on the top of a tree.

We slept in hammocks in our palafito, in the open air with a thatched roof (and mosquito nets) above us. At night the spooky Catatumbo Delta lightening starts up. Apparently there's a scientific explanation, which has something to do with swamp gas rising from the delta. The result is a display of lightening (but no thunder) which occurs practically every night. Very spooky!

A storm whipped up during the night, but Katherine and I had managed to choose the side away from the wind and the rain so we were fortutitously left warm and dry.

The next day was a bit damp and cloudy. We set off along another river, but there wasn't too much wildlife about. We did see plenty of birds with impressive-sounding names (ospreys, vultures, eagles and so on), and a couple of monkeys, who were no doubt annoyed at being woken up by a bunch of gringos.

On the drive back home we stopped at an impressive waterfall, where César excitedly announced that he might have discovered a new species of frog (his speciality), and we all gawped at a tarantula (yeah, a real live tarantula!) sleeping under an overhang. We also trekked through cloud forest to a picturesque river, into which I promptly leapt for a bit of a swim (only one other person was brave enough to join me - and it was not Katherine :-).

We got home late in the afternoon. Fantastic trip - loads of stuff we'd never seen (or even heard of) before, and stuff that we'll probably never see again - or forget!

Today, Thursday, was spent performing various administrative tasks in Mérida - shopping and so on. We also took a steep little walk down the side of the meseta (we were going to do it a couple of days ago but didn't get the time), and managed - finally! - to find an internet café with USB computers so we could upload all our new photos!