Crown Jewels on display in Los Llanos

Los Llanos is a vast, tropical grassland plain along the Colombia/Venezuelan border, similar to the much larger Pantanal of Brazil.

We flew from Bogota to Yopal, an hour's flight, then took a taxi for 4 hours, mostly blacktop, then an hour of good dirt, to the El Hato Aurora Reserve, a traditional ranching enterprise that has branched out into wildlife tourism.

The plan was to spot jaguars, but Rob having come down really sick in Bogota, much time of his was spent unwell, and we only got in one afternoon river cruise in a lancha and an early morning jeep safari to spot wetland wildlife. Gen found a bunch of wildlife, including giant iguanas, cruising around the accommodation and restaurant buildings.

The afternoon boat cruise turned up the usual suspects, such as hoatzin, caiman, capybara, and distant monkeys.

The hato or farm complex we stayed at, had its own attractions, including two guacamayos or macaws, cheeky chachalacas, muscular iguanas, random horses, a pushy, pet deer, a heron with a hapless soon to be dinner frog, and nesting birds.

The early morning jeep safari was in a really cool vehicle, a modified Toyota Landcruiser. We crossed the river, boarded the vehicles, then bumped into the mudlands where many hundreds of cattle had left 1000s of deposits, then up to a lookout to look in vain for a jaguar that had made a kill the night before.

As the burning orb of the sun rose, we dropped down to the fast-drying waterhole where an anaconda squirmed, and several caiman poked around with comical, aquatic plant headgear. Birdlife was all around, vultures, scarlet ibis, and much more.

Thought I'd share the best laughter moment of the trip. Final week included some kind of influenza followed by 4 days reigning uninterrupted on the throne, no food intake possible, power failed, torchlight procession to throne, blacked out, fell to floor, bashed knee, cut toe, blood everywhere, brain whirred faintly, somehow got back in bed. In morning Gen took photo of gory damage which she showed to friendly local girls who shrieked in consternation and patched me up with disinfectant and bandage. On closer inspection of the photo, behind the miscreant foot, proudly filling the background, was a bonus shot of my crown jewels in all their glory!

=======================================================================

Colombia, el Hato, los Llanos, Bird, Birds, Iguana, Caiman