Back from the Fire Swamp

I just returned from 4 days in the Fire Swamp otherwise known as Los Llanos, Venezuela. It is home to many rodents of unusual size - the capybaras - and hence the above princess bride reference. The capybaras are the largest rodents in the world and are about the size of your regular household dog. Day one of the excursion was spent mostly driving from Merida to Los Llanos, but along the way we say all kinds of Caymen (crocodiles), a herd of Capybaras, and and a gigantic Anteater. Day two we took a river boat safari where I was able to swim with the pink river dolphins (they're too fast to get a picture). In the evening we went hunting for Anaconda. After several hours we ended up finding a 5-6 meter (18 ft), 250 kilo (500 lb) Anaconda. However, I managed to accidentally erase half of my pictures from the trip. So you all get to see the picture of me holding a two foot baby alligator as opposed to the largest snake in the world. (Hopefully one of the other people in my group will see this and send me a photo of the Anaconda cbwarner@gmail.com ) Day three we went back to the river to do some Pirhana fishing. Well....everybody else did some Pirhana fishing. I was only there to feed them the meat on the end of my line. Which only added insult to injury seeing a tree branch scraped up my eye while I was riding on the roof of the jeep to the river. That evening we went on a horse ride through the plains. It didn't really beat catching a gigantic Anaconda. Today we left early in the morning and now I am in the bus terminal waiting for my next bus to Santa Elena where I will go on another six day hike to the top of Roraima.

Until next time,

Cristobal