Journeys through hyperreality: Up the Orinoco . . .

Time passes and inevitably memory fades, but at the same time the deeper legacy of a journey appears as out of the mist of details. Already another forest and another river and the canoe are beginning to poke up on the ticking revolving horizon. A summer of cycling backwoods trails in Canada had come and gone. Remnants of magnificent vast and huge temperate rainforests well past the time of explorers. Still magnificent trees of a thousand years and more being felled for a quick dollar. Long cold rivers heading north to empty into the Arctic . . . .

I returned home to moorland expanse covered in the purple flush of the flowering heather - still with curlews calling.

Now the final flourish of a slow and wonderful autumn - skeins of geese flying overhead southwards - and winter visitors and residents settling in for dark nights and fading colours . . . . . and a little wandering in the mind up the Orinoco . . . . .

From Samariapo to Tamatama
Leaving all roads behind is always a good feeling. OK, it would be quite a few days yet before we would leave the last military checkpoint, and maybe several weeks before leaving the last indian village behind, but this was now a very different land. However anyone at the military points up-river could have their suspicions and cause us problems both legitimate and otherwise.

Area of travel covered in this post (grey box)

It wasn’t that we were trying to get up the Orinoco further than we were allowed. The Alto-Orinoco above the settlement and military post of Las Esmarelda is a biosphere reserve created in 1992 supposedly to secure the ancestral homelands and traditional lifestyles of Yanomami and Ye’kwana indigenous peoples. At over 178,000 square kilometres (compared with England at 133,000 square kilometres), the Yanomami territory in Brazil and Venezuela forms the largest forested indigenous territory in the world. The Alto-Orinoco biosphere reserve alone is 80,000 square kilometres. For the time being we were skirting the edges of the biosphere reserve, and in addition we had no intention or desire to enter Yanomami occupied areas. For travel past Las Esmarelda permits were required, only issued to humanitarian groups, anthropologists and as could be expected high paying tourists on very specialist and costly tours, and even then all these are quite restricted. While we travelled the Orinoco, traversed the Casiquaire and followed the Pasimoni along the edge of the core protected areas we were in theory OK, but if we strayed into Yanomami territory basically they are the "law" as I had found out previously.

In 2001 and 2005 I'd travelled the same route, these years heading for the Rio Siapa and Manipitare plucked off the only maps I had then for their remoteness and the thousands of shades of green of the forest. My first journey up the Orinoco to Tamatama in 2001 had seemed a magical visionary journey. A dilapidated bongo full of friendly Pamoni Indians traveling up river all the way to their village of Cano Tamatama. On reaching Tamatama I wrote a little of the journey which can be found here in the original - Tamatama where the Orinoco splits.

The Alto-Siapa was however another core Yanomami area (*1). In a camp a few days up the Siapa in 2005 we had a visit from a boat loaded with Yanomami going way up stream to a tribal gathering. They caught us unawares. We usually "hid" our camp by dragging the boat out of the water and camouflaging it out of sight of the river. The idea was that, until we got past Indian "civilisation", by doing this we were less vulnerable to being discovered, particularly while sleeping. On this occasion I was travelling with Gareth, a young English guy I'd met in Caracas. We'd stopped for a day to try and get rid of a fungal infection which was eating the skin on my legs and slowly heading northwards . . . .

Gareth and the inflatable canoe, Tamatama. 2005

It was quite early morning when they arrived; we were cooking breakfast when a group of maybe 12 Yanomami men suddenly walked straight into our camp. We smiled and started to chat in a shared limited Spanish. They were very inquisitive, especially of our gear which was picked up and examined closely. We were to find out later from the friendly military at San Carlos de Rio Negro, the military post on the Rio Negro close to where the Casiquaire ends, that once we'd left the Casiquaire and entered the Siapa we entered a land where the Yanomami were law, with little influence of the Venezuelan military despite their efforts to buy the Indians cooperation with machetes and outboard motors. Of all the tribal people I have met on my travels the Yanomami are the most obstinately proud people. No sign of any humble awe at Westerners and their technology, or even really respect - more like an aggressive glow of the strongly held feeling they have that the place is theirs. This is refreshing although it doesn’t lead to the most relaxing encounters. After ten minutes or so talking and "gathering" our gear, words were spoken and the whole group were obviously making a move. One guy had my rucksack on his back, another had my fishing rod in his hand, and the guy who appeared to be the main man had my boat paddle in one hand and my machete in the other. It was another of those moments where how do you decide what to do? We were several weeks paddling from an easy way out. Stranded without our major gear while not fatal, would be dangerous, and would at least mean the end of heading up-stream - the adventure, which would have been less pleasant to say the least, would be more one of getting out in a fit state.

So . . . . . . I walked over to the main man, and very un-aggressively, and with a smile, calmly joined him in holding my paddle. Maybe it was the smile that did it. I'm not sure what Gareth was doing at the time, I was too focused. For a split second in actual physical contact with this Yanomami I imagined I saw something dark and wild in his eyes, he gestured with my machete, but almost immediately he smiled back. He then said something to his companions and they all put down the kit of ours they had collected and filed out of the camp back to the river and their boat. You can imagine the huge sigh of relief as we realised how closed we’d come. But the relief was just slightly premature. I then grabbed my camera and headed down the obscured path to the river to try and get a photograph of the departing visitors. As soon as I turned the corners down to the water I could see the tail end of our canoe just leaving the shore. In an instant I ran straight into the water and managed to grab the long rope we had tied the boat up with. Two boys in the boat leapt out and swam to the waiting Indian boat and the second potential mishap was averted. I waded back to shore and pulled the boat up as the Yanomami now all on board started back up river. I raised the camera to see a couple of the guys gesticulating, basically saying no to being photographed, strengthened by one of them pointing his taut bowed arrow in my direction. I lowered the camera . . . . .

A sigh of relief, Yanomami, Rio Siapa, Amazonas, 2005

Anyway, in 2014 this was my third time travelling up this river, and the plan was to avoid the Siapa, and the Yanomami where possible - so more relaxed? Still reeling a little from the machete wielding maniac, it still had me on edge, but Rich and Eric were also relaxing into the journey. Relaxing, but with a sense of urgency to get in our own boat and paddle. I can feel that now as I write, a sense of urgency to get to Tamatama . . . . . . .


Samariapo petroleum and cigarette break

Almost before the sun had risen we stopped to take on some barrels of petrol, and have a cigarette break. We were taking more fuel than we needed up river, because the further up stream you travel the more valuable it becomes. Two huge square tanks of fuel plus a number of barrels in addition to the fuel they needed for the return journey. It was slightly unnerving to see the guy who had just had a mouthful of petrol from the pipe when starting the siphon standing only a few metres away and light up a cigarette!

The boat folk seemed good people, although we knew they were taking supplies to gold miners up a remote river. The Orinoco from Puerto Ayacucho to San Fernando de Atabapo is still pretty huge, and follows the Colombian border. The river in this section was near its peak level and the bankside was flooded forest in many places.

Richard watching the forest go by.

A long day up the wide river and, in fading light, we branched off into the mouth of the Rio Atabapo to get to San Fernando de Atabapo, a trading post opposite the Colombian border a few miles off the Orinoco. We were pretty keen not to get stranded in San Fernando. It is slightly off the main Orinoco so we didn't want to miss potential traffic, and we had hints our ride was going further up stream, but our new friends seemed reluctant to take us further up the Orinoco despite going further themselves and this puzzled us. They were proposing we get another boat from here. I kept trying to find out why to no avail apart from that they were not going to Tamatama.

Anyway they were spending the night in San Fernando, and so after visiting "relatives" with a run-down house on the riverfront we booked into the only hotel in town, which also doubled as the bar and pool hall for the resident Colombians from across the frontier. Our hostess from the boat, Hormellis was staying in the same place and we joined her that evening in the bar, which was interesting to say the least.It was a lively night, but I was surprised how wary of the Colombians our friend was despite her trade. She was very wary about being overheard if we tried to talk about sensitive things. She said that many FARC (Colombian Guerrilas) came into Venezuela and even took refuge in the Selva over the Venezuelan border to avoid the Colombian military, even making it seem as if the Casiquaire where we were heading would be inhabited by these outlaw Colombians. Apart from our group, the rest of the clientele seemed to consist of Colombians who were over the border in Venezuela, probably not for the most legitimate purposes. Up river (Orinoco) are many illegal gold digging operations and many of the grampieros are Colombian.

I must admit the Colombian guys, as opposed to most of the Colombians I had met elsewhere in both Colombia and Venezuela, were not too friendly and never gave us much of a smile. Whatever they were, and even though we were pretty relaxed with our beers, they kept to themselves. Anyway a few too many beers later we managed to get some sleep, and in the late morning found that we had somehow managed to change our friends minds - maybe they didn't feel it safe to leave us there on our own. They were taking supplies of fizzy pop and food up the Río Ventuari to mining camps of some sort, but the military in Samariapo and San Fernando seemed to let them past as being above board. Anyway our friendliness and the drunken evening persuaded them to take us a further 80 odd kilometres up the Orinoco to very close to the point where the Ventuari branches off. A short while and we were back heading up the Orinoco. Still a huge flow, with seemingly endless almost unbroken banks of forest. Macaws and toucans occasionally crossing the river, and more frequent sightings of primates.

A few hours later and we arrived at the military post of Santa Barbera, and this I think was the reason our friendly boat people hesitated to take us further than San Fernando. It was a little confusing here. Just a few miles upstream our boat was branching off up the Rio Ventuari, but the military guys wouldn’t let us “camp” out on their land until a boat going up the Orinoco would take us. A perfect spot since every boat going up river had to stop here for the check. We were thoroughly inspected, having to empty our bags. I was a little concerned that the specialist gear, (GPS, automatic cameras, binoculars etc) would raise questions as to where we were going. But in reality the guards were looking out more for other people and contraband (firearms and gold mining chemicals and equipment) going up river. It appears to be a lucrative business with the gold miners giving the military 50% of the gold they mine in return for turning a blind eye. We had the feeling our boat had a similar deal as our boat was lighter when we left each checkpoint. So our bags were loaded back onto the boat and we went a few more miles up river before being dropped 2km away on the banks at the only really available point, a fishing camp called Manaka. This was actually a case of deja vu for me, again . . . . .


Archipelago - Where the Ventuari (top right) joins the Orinoco (bottom right)

Where the Orinoco and Rio Ventuari meet the river forms a huge archipelago of lush forested islands, with a series of rapids and rocks - one of the blackspots for river navigation. The last time I had come up river this had been a multitude of rushing torrents and we had had to pick our way carefully up rapids and between exposed rocks. Now the river was swollen by earlier rains way up stream, a high water period, so it was just vast flat water and islands as far as the eye could see.

Manaka camp was empty. It is basically a fishing camp for wealthy Venezuelans who fly there. At low water the fishing was some of the best, now with huge volumes of water the odds were on the side of the fish so the fishermen stayed at home. Two guys were looking after the facilities and they were bemused to say the least by our appearance (our friends' boat had already departed). Exactly the same had happened on my second trip up the Orinoco. Wildlife was abundant there, a snake or two and our first swim in the waters of the Orinoco, relaxing in the evening sunshine as a myriad of birds came to feed on the flowering and fruiting trees in the camp, and then we watched as large bats emerged and hunted out over the river as the light faded. The caretaker of the camp was friendly, and offered us one of the lodge cabins to sling our hammocks, but didn’t really want us there. The next morning, after they fed us coffee, we were delivered to the first village up stream, Mucurucu to wait for a boat to pass. So far we were keeping moving.

Macuruco was a quiet village, friendly locals, but no boats going any distance up river. We slept on the ground on the bank side, under our tarpaulin, ready for a quick departure and to watch out for passing boats. We shared the bank side with a small encampment of Colombian garimpeiros who invited us over for coffee, and we sat chatting under their dripping tarp through a torrential downpour. They had obviously been there a while. We'd been a little wary of them as people downstream had warned us to be. They were rough looking, but pretty friendly unlike the guys in San Fernando, telling us stories of searching for gold. Sometime the next day, after a damp night of tropical storms under our tarp we got a ride with locals up to the Piaroa village and military checkpoint of Carida on the edge of a lagoon to the south of a large river island.

Carida and Cerro Yapacana on the Orinoco

Carida and friendly military

Given the offish nature of the military so far we weren't expecting a friendly reception. We unloaded our bags on the shore and sat next to it getting our bearings. Behind us was an empty building in front of the soldiers' post, and down a path to the right the Piaroa village. We planned a quick escape further up river - it was another 100 miles and more to the start of the Casiquaire. Given that we understood all river traffic should call in the check point there seemed very little traffic that day. In the afternoon we had a visit from a soldier. He was actually friendly, doing his military service in the back of beyond. He took our passports away, but soon returned with them and said he would try and help us get a ride. The head man of the village owned the green hut behind us. It was attached to the back of his house, and he invited us to set our hammocks up in the rain and more importantly mosquito proof building. His children kept a fascinated eye on us and everything we did, particularly our initially unsuccessful fishing efforts. One young boy befriended us and even started to teach us some Piaroan words.

On arriving at Carida. An illustration by George Roux from Jules Verne’s The Mighty Orinoco (*3)

I'd passed Carida before, but no-one recognised me . . . . . . After no lift the first day, we started fishing from the landing rocks to stop us using too much of our food. We had a budget of 150g of carbohydrate (rice and pasta) each a day, pretty minimal to start with so we needed to supplement it with fish when we could, so as not to start into our bodily reserves too soon . . . . .

Richard fishing in the shadow of Yapacana

Although we were keen to get on up river as soon as possible Carida is a spectacular setting. It is at the junction of the Orinoco and a group of lagoons. Over the top of the forest to the North East looms the imposing sacred mountain of Yapacana. The mountain is at the root of the Piaroa mythology - being the stump of a huge tree which once connected to the heavens. It rises abruptly from the surrounding forest at 80m above sea level, reaching up 1345m of sheer cliffs to a plateau. The place is also ominous because of gold. Despite being in the centre of the Yapacana National Park it has one of the highest concentrations of illegal gold mining in Amazonas. There are even rumours of underground mines, and it is estimated that around 2000 illegal miners operate in the area. Miners live in and off the forest hunting wildlife in the park with modern firearms, and extracting their gold using mercury much of which ends up as methyl-mercury in the rivers and streams.We were not planning on entering the forest around Yapacana, but we had to get up river past the area.

The Mountain of Yapacana. An illustration by George Roux from Jules Verne’s The Mighty Orinoco (*3)

We waited three days in Carida trying to get a ride up river. I think the boat people were wary that we might be gold prospectors – many of the garimpeiros were from Colombia and thought to be FARC guerrillas taking refuge in Venezuela. Carida also acts as a military post and although expecting a bit of hassle we found the guardia here pretty friendly. One guy in particular helped us negotiate with potential boats up river. Three days watching the forest, mountain and lagoon although frustrating was beautiful – the constant movement of birds over the river, monkeys and squirrels in the forest edge, and otters and river dolphins in the lagoon along with the shining eyes of caimen at night. I spent much time watching a group of Violaceous Jays in the trees across the small channel. The same trees contained our first Bare-necked Fruitcrow plus Crested Oropendula, Bat Falcon, Many-banded Aricari and Great Black Hawk and more (*2). Evenings and mornings were filled with the sound of howler monkeys deep in the forest across the main river. It seemed strange that although it was compulsory for boats travelling the river to stop at Carida, it would in practice be so easy for a boat to travel up the opposite channel of the river and avoid detection altogether.

Violacious Jay - Cyanocorax violaceus (Patko, Erika)

Many-banded Aracari - Pteroglossus pluricinctus (Gallice, Geoff)

Three days in Carida, waiting and wondering, washing in the lagoon with the locals, friendly soldiers and crocodiles. At least we were aclimatizing to the forest climate, but getting pretty restless. We caught a few fish - the first pavon (peacock bass) and a payara and others, but we wanted to keep going. On the third day a boat "Min Pequena Daniela" pulled in and we talked to the captain, Oriel. He was friendly but very reluctant to take us, three strange men and politely declined. After a short while he returned from the paper work at the soldiers post and our friendly soldier went to talk to him again, basically to vouch for us. It took a little, but he was convinced and agreed to take us to close to the mouth of the Casiquaire and Tamatama. We were off again.

On "Mi Pequena Daniela" heading up the Orinoco.

The first few hours were a beautiful and constantly changing view of Cerro Yapacana, with little evidence of the gold digging operations going on in the forest depths. On each boat we got as much information as we could about the state of things upstream and on the Casiquaire. We had warnings of FARC hiding out in the forests by the Casiquaire which worried us a little, and would have been a big change from the last time I was on the river. I was also keen to learn news of the Yanomami settlements on the river because of previous "hassle" with some of them. Oriel was somehow different. He didn't have a negative "this is dangerous" approach, but was very helpful and full of useful information. He seemed to think that FARC was not a problem on the Casiquire confirming it seemed that the scare stories were from people who hadn't actually been there. Having said this, Oriel didn't want to stop anywhere for long. Sleeping was just a few hours under our tarpaulin moored against some fallen, half submerged trees.

Captain Oriel and family

The Orinoco with the Duida Massif back-drop.

Heading upstream, this was the first feeling of the real vastness of the forest. Hour after hour of green verdant river bank, towering trees, groups of monkeys in the trees and the aproaching and passing massif of the Duida mountains. The big bright birds were flyling across the river ever more regularly and every mile or so seemed to be home to a pair of Bat Falcons. Most of the bank side looked hard to penetrate, but occasionally a view opened onto a swamp or a lagoon. Beyond Carida even native villages are few and far between On one brief stop by the riverbank we tried fishing and suddenly hit a good spot. Within seconds I'd hooked a sizable catfish, but at the same time attracted some big pirana. By the time I'd landed the fish (just a few seconds) it had sizable chunks missing, bitten out of it - although we caught several of the culprits as well.

The Orinoco - Over 100miles upstream on this boat. Lined with seemingly endless forest.

All along this stretch we started being visited by big bumble bee sized sweat bees. They seemed particularly attracted by my boots, but would also buzz around our heads. They seemed pretty harmless, but were loud and persistent, and we knew they could sting if reluctantly. At this point they were quite fascinating, but later on they would be less welcome. I spent hour after hour watching sitting perched on the prow of the boat. The wonderful fresh forest air bringing hints of life in the jungle straight to me, along with butterflies and buzzing friends.

Large Sweat Bee

Over the course of this blog I will mention quite a bit of the kit I took. First up the boots. The hot wet environment is a real hassle to feet unless you wear nothing (almost the same goes for the rest of you . . . . ). Even with bare feet, for a "soft" Westerner it can be hard to keep flesh eating fungus at bay. The last trip I'd had some simple light leather boots. They'd done OK, but seemed hard to dry out, and I felt I could do better, I maybe was wrong. The boots I took this time were really desert boots. Bought in South Africa, on the edge of the Kalahari, with snake protection and breath-ability in mind. In mind . . . . but not really in practice. They may have been a little protection from snakes (although I also used snake gaiters when walking into deep forest), but they weren't at all waterproof, and they had too much padding, and too much synthetic material to soak up water and sweat. So they didn't dry out quickly - not that they ever really had the chance - and they seemed to encourage some particularly unpleasant smelling microbes. Whenever I wore them fungus attack wasn't far behind. More to come on that . . . . . So the only thing going for them was the looks - by the end despite little use they disintegrated.

Boots from the edge of the Kalahari

After two days and most of the nights going up river we were approaching Tamatama. Ideally we wanted dropping at the village itself. I'd visited twice before and knew people at both the Piaroa Village and the Mission. Oriel was reluctant to drop us there though, mainly we thought due to potential hassle from the military, an unnecessary stop for him. We passed a Yanomami settlement a few miles downstream, not a good choice for us either, so we opted to be let off at some suitable bit of riverbank, spend the night and make our way to Tamatama the next morning. The bank where we ended up being dropped was steep and rose high above the water level. Definitely terra firma, but a tricky scramble with 20 kilo packs and a boat in a bag. We just managed to get off with our gear before the light started to fade and the rain started. Once we'd put the hammock up, all tied at one end to the same tree, we found the site already occupied by a large tarantula who was emerging from a hole at the bottom of it - although he appeared pretty unperturbed by us. This was our first night out in the forest, surrounded by the sounds of wild creatures in their world.

Tarantula at first forest camp - 15cm leg tip to tip.

The next morning we were wondering how we could get the boat built and loaded in the water given the huge vertical bank when we heard a boat coming up stream. He pulled straight in and gave us a ride to Tamatama. He actually dropped us at the military post and we smiling wandered in. This guy though was not a friendly guy. Some fairly unfriendly questioning, implying that we were not where we had authority to be. I was pretty confident that up to this point we were OK in theory, but this soldier was trying to be psychologically threatening. After getting nowhere for a while and the guy becoming more agitated I eventually decided to try offering him a little cash and straight away it worked. He didn't become friendly, let's say, but he did tune down the aggression and actually made us a cup of coffee, not out of niceness, but in order to justify taking some money. A slightly expensive cup of coffee, he would have thought exorbitant, but only really like a cup or two from Starbucks, actually yes, exorbitant . . . .

On my previous two visits to Tamatama the place had been virtually run by the New Tribes Mission, a USA based evangelical Christian sect which specialised in converting, reportedly by any means possible (*4). However in 2006 all western missionaries had been told to leave Venezuela. I was expecting there to be some missionary presence still, maybe Venezuelans, but the missionary houses, looking run down were all occupied by Piaroa and other Indians. A group of them joined us down by the river as we immediately got to work putting the boat together.

The finished boat (three seat version) and local onlookers at Tamatama.

After some time sheltering under our tarpaulin during a downpour, the boat came together surprisingly quickly and we were ready to launch, paddle a small stretch of the Orinoco and be sucked down into the mouth of the Casiquaire and uninhabited rainforest. The first river stage of the journey was over. From Puerto Ayacucho to Tamatama. We were leaving the Orinoco, not just the river, but the river basin itself. From now on the river flowed towards Brazil and the Amazon, and we would be completely self-contained, paddling with all our supplies and exploring some potentially uncharted waters.