Crossing los Llanos

Posted by Åsa on 30 August 2009

San Fernando de Apure  2009-08-22

After exactly four weeks pedaling we have left the Andes behind us for a while and even crossed a big part of Los Llanos, the big wet lowlands with the many rivers that is covering about a third of the country. (Venezuela is more then twice as big as Sweden).

A big part of the over thousand rivers that Venezuela has are passing here in Los Llanos, the bigger ones are Apure at which shore we are right now and the legendary Orinoco.

Los Llanos is very scarcely inhabited and there is far between the villages (normally about 30-40 km) that are often just consisting of a few families or big ranches called Hatos. There are big natural pastures interrupted by huge flooded areas. The people that live here are ranchers and there is quite a lot of zebu, water buffaloes, donkeys and horses grassing on huge pastures. Many times the animals have sank so deep into the watery march that you do not see their legs. The birdlife is impressive as the abundant sight of Capybaras, Caimans, the Orinoco crocodile, caimans and other wildlife.

The road could not be straighter and flatter. The dazzling heat over the asphalt stretching out into the infinite in front of us.

The first two days we were really optimistic and we felt super strong, enjoying the easiness with which we were suddenly advancing, instead of the 60-70 we made a day in the Andes here we easily made the double. We were fascinated by the wildlife and the dramatic change of the landscape. The air that was so thin and crisp up there in the Andes at 3-4000m suddenly became thick and dense like water, costing us some effort to inspire.

The third day, and the fourth and the fifth…. ;-), we were still enjoying, but the distance between the kilometer signs seemed to grow larger and larger, our average speed of 28-30 km/h the first days were dropping to 20-25 km/h, we started to have pain in the bottom, I have taken the color of a crab while Javi has turned black, under my cycling shorts my body is covered with read spots, a mixture of all kind of bites (mosquito, spider, pulga??) and probably an allergic reaction to my sweating…

We are always more or less wet, we sweat a lot, we drink a lot and it rains a lot.

Here in San Fernando de Apure that is in the shore of the Apure river the road crossing Venezuela like a straight line from west to east suddenly is interrupted by a stretch of about 80 km. San Fernando de Apure and Caicara del Orinoco are connected only by the river Apure, if you want to go by road you have to make a 400 km detour through more straight, flat, never ending roads of Los Llanos

Seeing this in the map when we entered Los Llanos we were convinced there would be service by boat connecting the two cities on the Apure river. Arriving here we received the bad news that there is no regular traffic on the river neither regarding cargo nor passengers….

Upata   2009-08-30

Another week has passed and we are rapidly getting closer to the border with Brazil and are about to enter La Gran Sabana in two days or so. We will leave the lowlands and climb to a height of some 1000m. La Gran Sabana is world wide known for its beauty and for its Tepuis. We are planning to make a trekking of five days in the National Park Canaima up on one of the two Tepuis in the world that you can visit, the rest are protected.

After some investigating and dealing in San Fernando we finally found our man and our boat that would help us to cover the 80kms by boat. At five in the morning the next day we sat out for Cabruta on a little boat on the river Apure. We spent five hours in the boat watching the landscape pass by and the tranquil life along the river, some few huts and a little boat every now and then. When we met the Orinoco the river converted into something reminding of the sea, in the middle of the river the banks on both sides could only be seen as a dark strip of land in the far distance. The waves were impressive. On one river bank the sun was shining, on the other the rain was falling heavily, we were somewhere in the middle, luckily heading for the sunny side J

As soon as we had disembarked on the river shore the tropical storm hit also our side with all its furious power, washing us ashore.

Waiting for the ferry to carry us to Caicara del Orinoco a group of young boys were swimming and jumping to the water from the ferry. They were the first people I have seen swimming in the rivers here as the people fear the piranhas and the caimans that are very abundant in the backwaters of Los Llanos. The boys didn’t seem to have any fear though and were enjoying the freshness of the water with great vigor.

The following five days we have spent to reach here in Upata have been very nice. The area is if possible even more remote then Los Llanos and it has been really impressive to know that in the south, to our right, there is as good as nothing but dense jungles, no tracks, no roads, no villages. There the nature still rules. Ever now and then we crossed big rivers like the river Caura that born deep down there in the almost unknown pristine forest. There has been a lot of “wild camp”, pasta and oath meal porridge. Just like I think  it should be in a real cyclists adventure.

The road was a bit hilly and the climate was a bit fresher and it was a welcome change after the monotonous flats before. We kept having abundant rains, even more furious and powerful here, lasting very short time. I am amazed and fascinated by the rains here and the beauty of the sky before the rain arrives is mesmerizing, it is warm and soft, refreshing on the skin. For me the rains in the tropics are always welcome, and I feel like a plant thankful when in the pressing heat I receive my showers of the day.

The rain was slightly too much for our tent one early morning though when we woke up by the water fast rising in the tent, the place where we had put the tent had turned into a roaring stream (ok, exaggerating a little bit, but that’s how it felt like running around in the first morning light trying to save as much luggage from getting soaked as possible).

11 comments. Tags: Paramo, Los Llanos, asa. Location: Upata, Argentina