School is out but we wanted just a bit more Venezuela before heading home for good. Los Llanos is a place many had told us was quite incredible. It had many birds so that made talking Mike Simpson into going a piece of cake. Fair warning: there are many pictures so I will try to curtail my comments.
The main reason to go to Los Llanos is the animals, including:
Capybara. The first ones we spotted found us all yelling "CAPYBARA CAPYBARA!!" after the 783,237th we all were heard to mutter "good god, not another one?"
Cute, but everywhere.
Birds: so many, so so many. There are those that can name every bird we saw- I am not one of those.
This is Victor, who drove us around Hato Cedral, the ranch/wildlife reserve. Upon seeing a likely anaconda watering hole he promptly took off his shoes and grabbed a pointy stick.
Then he wandered out into the grime and started poking, explaining that if it moved when you poked then there was a snake in there.
Told you so
Beautiful, but scary- the muscle on that thing was crazy. He asked if we wanted a family photo holding it, and I don't want to sound dainty but that thing was covered in muck, I mean seriously I had new shorts on.
Cool looking bird but not liked by Wilder as it eats capybara babies.
Mike and Lisa
Red Ibis
little cute owl on fence
Luca and Mike
Luca and Lisa decided to run back one day (this was after they had seen cayman!)
Victor, again showing that he is either crazy or the man, tied some meat to a string and chucked it near the edge of a pond. And look what crawled out!
Back from the wildlife tour.
How most Llaneros get around, though horses are still frequented.
Wilder and I working on our high schooler "whatever" expressions.
Luca, Samuel, and Valentina
and more capybara
white hooded orinoco goose? geeses?
Another cool Victor trick: toss a piece of meat in the air, watch a black eagle snatch it with a talon.
Still not impressed? Watch Victor put some meat on a stick and hold it over the water.
Dance Cayman dance! Clearly these animals have the tail power to launch into a boat. I think it is only a matter of time before they realize people taste better than meat on a stick.
This is that bird that fans its wings up and makes itself look like a face with 2 huge eyes. Apparently it was not motivated to do this for us.
Hey look, Victor caught a pirana.
Toss it on shore... and you get the picture.
The bug eyed tortoise
red headed, black winged, white bellied, stepchild bird
They had an impressive statue of Hugo overlooking the ranch. Here we are with our guide Churi. Churi made this trip an incredible one- so much fun (even if Luca is giving the OMG I can't believe I'm stuck with these people look).
and still more...
who you calling red headed stepchild?
So if you plant a cowbird this is the tree you get.
this guy gave the sloth a run for my most favorite Venezuelan animal. Crazy to look at. As Mike said I would hate to be the guy before photography who discovered it and had to convince people that he wasn't making it up.
Here we are celebrating our anteater sighting (well spotted Mike) with a few frosty polars.
and here we were
and a few lesser known...
On our way back to the airport we drove through Chavez' home town. And as such enjoyed the copious propaganda billboards.
and that my friends is a Clint Eastwood stare- well played.
Roadside bananas
and lunch, Churi took us on a little detour, but more on that later
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