Los Llanos, Venezuela's wetlands

The Andes run across the north west part of Venezuela and between those mountains and the Orinoco lie a large flat plateau. In the rainy season this area floods and it becomes a large wetland area. It is Venezuela's equivalent of Brazil's Pantanal. There are a mass of unique wildlife here, hundreds of species of birds, plus anacondas, ant eaters and jaguars.

One of those things that almost goes without saying is the number of street sellers, or perhaps one should say road sellers, one of the most dangerous jobs possible standing between moving traffic but hopefully the existence of a sleeping policeman makes the vehicles slow done enough to be safe.

The road and the surrounding scenery became very flat.

Occasionally the road crossed a river, more o an arroyo at this time of year at the end of the dry season.

But there were plenty of animals still about such as these caiman lodging around next to a virtually dried up river.

Plus some other wildlife...I would give its name but I have forgotten it and I hesitate to give an opinion as I know that my friend Mike Branson would be on to me in minutes to correct my misidentification.

And another photo of the huge amounts of birdlife nearby, a type of woodpecker...unless Mike disagrees!

There was a storm brewing and we knew that it was coming our way so we would be getting wet shortly.

A tiger heron...one of the few birds that I can confidently identify without contradiction!

Sunset over Los Llanos.

We had finished the tour but at a last resort, we went to a local bridge from where we could watch the commuting of the birds between the fields and their roosts. It was a spectacular sight but photos are few as the light was too poor for my feeble camera...but these trees would soon be covered with Scarlet Ibis on the upper part and white birds on the lower half.

But there was a beautiful sunset.

We saw a deer on the grasslands in the early morning as we went out on the next morning.

This is what an caiman infested pond may look like. Each of those black dots breaching the surface of the water is a Caiman.

A close up of a Caiman.

And our local supporters were working their way through the wetlands in order to find an anaconda, despite the risks of anacondas and caiman.

Some of us also risked the potential of being eaten and had a go at finding an anaconda trying to hide in the mud of the last few pools before the rains came.

I was ever so relieved that I didn't find an anaconda as Carlos and his co-worker found a giant snake.

I was quite happy to watch and take a photo rather than hold the snake!

It was a lovely place where we stayed...

and the nature came to us...

but some where less welcome such as these ibis whose favoured roost was in one of the palms just above our heads, despite the noise and electric light that would keep them awake into the late evening.

Not to forget some other all night noise makers...

and other wildlife, and this one I am sure would have eaten the food of my fork if I hadn't had kept waving to keep it away.

And then it was time to go fishing...for piranha or any other fish that we might catch for our evening meal.

Carlos found a turtle ad we were able to have a close look.

Everything was fine until Alan who was telling us all about this prehistoric creature sat down and lost his grip on the turtle. Then we had a large and probably angry turtle walking about the bottom of the boat.

We did some piranha fishing and caught quite a few. This is Amy is demonstrating the size of her catch...but not quite large enough to take home to eat.

We were being watched by some local eaters wh had learnt that people fishing also meant a potential meal for them. We would throw back what was too small for us to eat but they would have some easy fishing.

We threw the fish back but if we threw them far enough from ourselves, they would swoop and expertly catch the released fish before it could escape.

This is a better view of the roost where the scarlet ibis slept at night...all the reds are birds but the light was failing so there weren't better photos of the daily event of birds gathering to roost.