We were high above Venezuela in a turbo-prop plane, 10 adventurers with our faces pressed
against the windows, on the lookout for one of "The Natural Wonders of The World." Below us
was the vast rain forest of Amazonia, the arboreal heartland of our planet. The place a person
could descend from the Andes mountains, enter the Amazon forest and walk for 2,000 miles
before seeing the sun again.
One of the many majestic waterfalls hikers run across in the Gran Sabana; this one was part of the hike from the Indian village of Kavak.
The greenery was interrupted only by serpentine-shaped rivers and streams, all stained a dark cola color by decaying vegetation. The pilot announced that we were entering the Gran Sabana region, better known as "The Lost World" -- named after an Arthur Conan Doyle novel describing a South American plateau where prehistoric plants and dinosaurs lived isolated and unchanged for millions of years.
I had the novel open in my lap, and even though Conan Doyle had actually visited the area only in his imagination, many of his descriptions rang true. Plateaus rise thousands of feet straight out of the jungle. The tepuis (Pemon Indian for "mountain") are composed of the oldest rocks in the world: 1.8 billion-year-old blocks of sandstone that predate the drifting apart of South America and Africa, when both had been joined together as the super-continent of Gonwanaland.
The remote Indian village of Kavak where we stayed.
The tepuis are mystical, ancient islands above the clouds, with silver waterfalls plummeting from
their flanks into the green depths below. The plane suddenly banked, the clouds parted, and
cameras clicked. Dropping from the top of a towering tepui was Angel Falls, named after
American pilot and adventurer Jimmy Angel, the first non-native to glimpse the falls while on an
aerial survey to find diamonds and gold in 1937. Our pilot now took us in for a closer look at the
world's highest waterfall. Its total drop is 3,212 feet, some 15 times higher than Niagara - with a
dizzying cascade of over 2,000 feet.
Gold-mining in the jungle
Unlike other "Natural Wonders," Angel Falls has no roads leading to it, no signs, gift shops - not a trinket in sight. Suddenly, it is just there, high in the air, free-falling in front of your eyes.
The plane descended on a short, dirt runway alongside the Pemon Indian village of Kavak. The
Indians have formed a partnership with Aerotuy Airlines to guide travelers into the Lost World.
They had a roast-chicken dinner waiting and the accommodations were spare, simple, and clean.
The next day, led by a Pemon Indian in loincloth and macaw-feathered headband, we entered the rain forest. I felt an awe far beyond what I felt in any great cathedral. It was high noon, yet practically dark as night under the immense over-arching greenery.
Flowering vines ran along the ground, then looped and spiraled into the air to knit together in the canopy. Brilliant bromeliads, orchids, and fleshy pink flowers, most of them unnamed, grew in great profusion around us. We passed by hundreds of different species of trees. The smell was thick, rich with life and decay, the smell of uninterrupted warmth and humidity, the smell of a forest feeding on itself. Nothing is wasted; everything that dies soon nourishes the living. Like a massive green engine, you can almost hear it at work, surging with circular energy.
We learned about the small tree saplings that remain dormant for years, not growing at all - until a large tree falls, creating a gap in the canopy above. Then there is a mad scramble upward for the trees to reach the sunlight and spread their crowns. One species of palm tree, when knocked down, actually forms new stilt roots, raising itself up over time and then "walking out" from under fallen trees and other obstructions, into the light to grow again.
We then hiked out of the forest to a tanin-stained stream, following it back to where it flowed narrowly through a slot-canyon. The Indian pointed down into the dark water but before we jumped in for a swim, we all asked about piranhas, better known here as "Jungle Jaws." Our guide said that their ferocity has been greatly exaggerated.
"Where you have to be cautious is in sluggish backwaters during low-water periods when the piranhas are more concentrated and there's less food," he said.
The next morning we flew for 30 minutes to an isolated landing strip, where we were met by guides from Anaconda Tours. In sturdy Land Rovers we proceeded south to the point at which the Gran Sabana meets the border of Brazil. We stopped to go by dugout canoe to yet another splendid waterfall - the river feeding it colored bright red by the quartz mineral jasper riverbed. We continued on to what used to be the end of the road: "Kilometer 88" - now a rough and tumble frontier town full of free-spirited fortune seekers.
Left, a Warao weaver at work; right, some Warao children learn to paddle a canoe before they can walk.
Ever since the 16th century when the Spanish and Germans searched for "El Dorado" - a fabulously wealthy land where an Indian king was supposedly covered daily with gold dust - men have continued their quest here for the riches. We drove down rough roads where vast areas of the rain forest were destroyed by open-pit gold mines, where armies of lean, sun scorched men endlessly dug, then swirled soaked earth in wooden pans, desperate to find flecks of "color" - or a nugget big enough to buy their own mine.
The next morning we flew back to Puerto Ordaz, took a small plane north to the town of Matrin, then drove overland three hours to Tucipita, an Orinoco River port only 68 miles from the Atlantic. There we met Antonio and two Indian guides from Tucipita Tours. We climbed into a large, motorized bongo (dugout canoe) and left for a three-day exploration of the Orinoco Delta region, a vast 15,000 square miles of jungle and mangrove swamps sliced by a maze of channels. We traveled five hours a day through a wilderness punctuated by toucans, parrots and pairs of blue-and-gold macaws.
We saw crocodiles and turtles and the vanishing tail of an anaconda snake, which can grow to 40 feet long and 300 pounds.
We saw giant river otters - over six feet long, graceful and sleek in the water, their silky fur the color of dark chocolate. When our bongo was approached by dolphins, I rubbed my eyes. They weren't blue or grey, but bright pink, rubbery. Antonio then said that this dolphin hunts in the woods.
During the rainy season, the Orinoco rises very high, spilling over its banks, flooding the land, Antonio told us. The dolphin then goes out into the forests, catching fish among the tree roots. If it ever gets stuck, it has the amazing, pliable ability to turn completely around within its own body space.
While traveling in the Delta, our meals were made mainly of fish. Nearly every time Antonio or one of the Indians tossed in a baited line, they pulled out a different fish, all as varied and colorful as birds. In fact, there are more species of fish in the Amazonian waterways than in the entire Atlantic ocean.
One afternoon when we stopped for lunch, I got out of the canoe to stretch my legs, stepping partway into the dark forest. Standing still, I saw a flash - a brilliant bolt of blue lightning. Then again, the blue laser-light pulsed closer. It was a butterfly, the fabled Blue Morpho, as big as a plate; its iridescent wings catching and refracting the scant sunlight. When I turned around, disoriented, the forest floor was moving around me. When I looked closer I saw legions of leaf-cutter ants, all carrying lime-green fodder back to the nest. It was clear that these were the managers of the rain forest, the insects that pillaged, pollinated - the starting link in the food chain.
A tourist poses with some Warao children.
As the sun angled behind the trees, we stopped to stay with the Warao Indians. Warao means "canoe people". These Indians have adapted so completely to their watery world that their children often learn to paddle a canoe before they can walk.
The Warao dwelling is a palatito, an open-air pile house on the edge of the jungle, built from the trees cut down to make room for man. Many of the Warao were afraid at first of our eyeglasses and cameras, unfamiliar with white people.
One day, the men put on a blowgun exhibition. The blowgun is their main weapon for hunting food in the jungle. Its tube is up to 12 feet long, made from a smooth and polished hollow cane. The darts are slivers of bamboo, the tips coated with curare, a subtle poison that kills a monkey by paralyzing its muscle tissue. We watched as a single puff of air shot a dart the size of a needle dead-center into a target more than 50 feet away.
When one of the members of our party hurt his back and needed medical attention, a Warao shaman appeared. The man was very old and partially blind, but exuded an eerie aura of power. He danced around his patient and administered a poultice of herbs and medicinal plants while chanting. The traveler then stood up, his back once again straight and limber.
We slept in the Warao dwellings in hammocks made from fronds of the moriche palm. But actual sleep was difficult to come by.
The nocturnal sounds, at times, were deafening. There was a loud chorus, a mishmash of rumbles, whistles, clicks, uneven jack hammering - all from frogs. Out of a sound sleep I once awoke to hear a low, booming cough that reverberated across the river - a prowling jaguar, the third-largest of the great cats. And at dawn, eerie moans from Howler monkeys in the trees behind us.
Angel Falls, one of the wonders of the world.
The Warao rain forest is a world of staggering bio-diversity. In just four square miles there can be as many as 1,500 species of flowering plants and 750 different trees. Many of these plants have not been named, let alone studied scientifically. Nearly half of all the drugs prescribed in the U.S. owe their potency to natural chemicals that are derived from rain forest plants. And yet, the rain forest is now being destroyed at such a rate that within 40 years only isolated patches may be left.
Before leaving, I walked alone into the forest to say thanks. A few years ago, my life was saved by a South American tree. I'd come down with malaria on a safari in Africa and the drug that lowered my raging temperature was quinine, derived from the bark of the chinchona tree, known for centuries by the Amazonian Indians.
What other miracles are here waiting? I hoped there was enough time left to discover them.
As we were boarding the canoe to head upriver to civilization, we asked Antonio if we could give the Warao anything to thank them for their hospitality.
Antonio shook his head. "They don't want money. They have no use for it. Next time, bring them steel - knives. That they can use!"
Back in Caracas, we flew 20 minutes north to Margarita Island, the largest of Venezuela's 72 offshore Caribbean islands. For two days, we stayed at the five-star Laguna Mar Hotel/Resort - a perfect place for post-expedition "R&R"
Margarita is the Greek word for "pearl" and pearls there were, in miles of fertile, unharvested oyster beds - some of them as large as pigeon eggs. We spent one day wandering through restored colonial castles, churches and forts, and another relaxing on the beach.
That night, back in Laguna Mar's comfortable room, my wife and I couldn't sleep - we felt too confined and sealed off in our air-conditioned room.
Out across the balcony we strung the handmade hammock we had been given in the Orinoco Delta. There, suspended in the warm velvet air, with tall palm trees swishing like silk in the wind, and burbles of marvelous music from frogs in the undergrowth - we fell asleep, floating back to the wild Warao.