Hi Everyone,

From Tucupita we travelled further inland to the Orinoco Delta which is an enormous area of jungle only accessable by river. We made a 3 hour journey by a long tailed boat powered by 2 intermittent outboard motors. All food and provisions were taken with us, water, food, cooking materials, bedding, clothing, everything we needed infact.

It is typical of this Country, where money can be best spent it is wasted. The Government give handouts to the locals but dont do the whole job, for example, they have bought boats for tourism etc but the locals have to scrounge very old motors to power them, the 2 outboards we had were ancient and broke down every 15 minutes or so. How much extra would it have taken to supply boat and motor? It appears that so much of the Countries revenue disappears into beaurocratic back pockets, or am I still being cynical?

Our guide, Richard, is a native of the area and has been active in promoting the Delta for the past 13 years, he has travelled extensively within the Delta and has been studying life in different villages and bringing the more adventurous tourist to visit the area. I say more adventurous because you do not get any frills with this type of trip.

Sleeping is by way of hammock in a communal living area, Living, sleeping and eating combine and become quite normal in a surprisingly short space of time. The call of nature is answered by way of a wooden walkway with a form of toilet perched on some wooden slats surrounded by ferns and massive palm leaves forming a screen. A simple roof, oil burning lamp and you are away, oh and bring your own loo roll and put mosi repellant on first, we need go no further!

Washing is in the river accessed by jumping off the wooden jetty and then climbing out via the steps to stand on the landing jetty / deck to soap yourself, wash your hair and then rinse off by jumping back in. This is not for the self conscious! Bum and bits abound and its fun swimming with the Pirrahnas and Crocs, it was on my agenda anyway so I just got on with it.

Two things will stay with me from this time. First the stars coupled with the complete silence. I have never seen the Milky Way properly, now I have seen it every night for weeks and still marvel at it. Second is being woken by the sound of Howler monkeys. If you have never heard this nothing can prepare you for it. They are about 2 feet high and sound like 20' monsters such is the noise. They have large jowls and just let rip with a deep gutteral sound that fills the area and surrounds you.

At 3.00am on the 2nd day I was woken by the initial sounds of these wonderful animals. Far away at first, growing ever louder and closer, until finally directly opposite where we were sleeping, not 50 feet away. It is impossible to stay asleep, impossible to ignore and impossible not to be completely captivated by it. I was totally unprepared and failed to capture the sound on my camera. The next morning I thought I would put this right and got up super early to catch every second of the show. Nothing. Nothing at all. Obviously I had put them off and watched as a group of about 5 Howlers climber the canopy opposite where I was and picked at some fruit. They just sat there looking at me, eating away as if to say, 'you think you're going to film this do you Pal!' 'Well think again' Then they just climbed away and that was that. I never did get another opportunity to capture the sound properly. The next morning they were in a different part of the Jungle and although it still sounded impressive, a proper microphone would have been required. Never mind I heard them and that was enough.

We were taken on a walk into the jungle, now don't go getting carried away, we must have only gone 400 yards but it felt like miles. It is hot, sticky, wet and oh so humid. The jungle floor was more like muddy rotten vegetation than ground. We had to wear Wellie Boots and walk on tree and plant stumps to prevent sinking up to our knees which was easily achieved.

Another local guide accompanied Richard and we were shown how the indigenous people use their surroundings. Antiseptic from a tree that bleeds red sap, like blood, small coconut type fruit which has anti-toxins contained within the juice and settles stomack upsets, we seemed to drink quite a lot of those! Palm trees cut to provide Palm Hearts. I am told that this is quite expenseive back home and comes in a tin, not here, we had it fresh from the tree. The jungle consumes everything and a fresh tree will grow in just 3 years such is the fertility of the soil and surroundings. We tripped along merilly amongst spiders and snakes, oblivious to most dangers I'm sure. However, I was only really brought up short once when a leech was heading end over end towards the neck of my shirt. In dispatched it swiftly. It is hard to describe just how difficult it is to move around in such conditions, it is physically draining and really difficult to make much progress.

Several played at Tarzan and swang from vines etc, we tasted water captured in certain other vines hanging from the canopy above. Would I be able to survive and do a Ray Mears or Bearc Grills? Absolutely not. I think I would melt before anything dreadful could happen. It was good fun though and a wonderful opportunity, we did find a small Boa which was just lazing around digesting its meal, well it was until we arrived! Yuo could still see the animal in its belly. Richard, of course, had to impress the girls by capturing the thing and then taking it back to the shelter to show everyone else. We ended up entering the rear of the shelter / camp so it was off with the Wellies and clothes and straight into the river, on mass.

We were due to go on a boat trip that afternoon but the Heavens opened and we eventually spent a wonderful time lazing in hammocks watching the rain bounce off the river and just chilled out because we could. We did eventually venture out to visit some of the neighbouring villages. I was actually quite shocked to see how some of these people survived. There are many issues with Govenrment handouts which I shall not go into, but listening to Richard account for the current situation, it was sad to see a culture in decline. Young men are no longer learning the old skills because they are given money and therefore do not need to make money, very sad indeed. The children, however, are a different thing altogether and are a complete joy. Ever cautious but once won over they beamed with smiles that could melt the hardest heart, really good looking children with a lovely disposition. Some of the local kids came to our shelter one evening and sang and danced for use. There was no formality in this. They were simply with the parents, it was not for money, it was purely for the joy of doing what they do and welcoming us to the Delta. The locals visited us every day and brought fruit, fish and vegetables, they swam with us and played, it was a delightful time.

We were at the shelter for a lot shorter period than I would have liked, I had begun to feel quite at home and enjoyed the environment enormously, it was just so natural an existance. Despite all the obvious difficulties, these people are also without all the pressures of the outside world and unfortunately only seem to suffer the problems which have been brought in such as plastics, bottles and other various types of rubbish.

Despite most people having stomack upsets it was an experience I would repeat tomorrow and was sad to leave, this was compounded by the accommodation we had on the nigtht we came out of the Delta, it was appalling and was more like a concentration camp than a motel. The Italian owner needs to be brought to justice for that, I have never stayed in anywhere quite as rank!

Fortunately it was just the one night and we had an early start as well to remove us from the dump. We were now headed for another Ranch just outside Cuidad Bolivar which celebrates the Liberator of Venezuela, Simon Bolivar and you know how much I like Ranches

See you soon.

Chris