Jungle Adventures on the Casiquiare in New Book

In 2005, the writers Richard Starks and Miriam Murcutt travelled to the remote jungles along Venezuela's border with Brazil and Colombia to explore for themselves the mysterious Casiquiare Canal, a river joining the waters of the Orinoco River with the Amazon River via the Rio Negro. They travelled with Lucho Cherry Navarro, who organizes trips to the Casiquiare on a boat called the Iguana, which once belonged to the French oceanographer Jaques Cousteau.

The reason for their trip was to clear up some of the persisting myths surrounding the Casiquiare and to publish their findings in Geographical, the magazine of the Royal Geographical Society.

In the end they came back with so much material that the only way to do it justice was to write up their travels in a book and so in October 2009 they published: "Along the River that Flows Uphill: From the Orinoco to the Amazon".

Recently, I caught up with Richard and Miriam to hear more about their experiences in Venezuela, especially their visit to the Yanomami village of Viruinave, on the Casiquiare, and their frightening brush with FARC guerrillas in Colombia.

The photos, shot on the Orinoco and in the Yanomami village of Viriunave on the Casiquiare, are all copyright to Richard Starks and Miriam Murcutt.

Question: After publishing your first book together about US pilots in the frozen wastes of Tibet what made you opt for the heat and humidity of the Venezuelan jungle?

Richard: The book really began life as a magazine article. A few years ago - in 2005 - Geographical, the official magazine of the Royal Geographical Society in London, commissioned us to write an article about the Casiquiare, a strange river in Venezuela that is unique among rivers in that it is the only one in the world that manages to flow over a watershed - the watershed that separates the Orinoco and the Amazon river systems.
The magazine wanted an article about the peculiar geography of this river, because by flowing over a watershed, the river appears to flow uphill, and that, of course, is not possible.
Anyway, to write the article, we travelled by boat along the upper Orinoco and then down the full length of the Casiquiare to reach the Rio Negro, which runs into the Amazon near Manaus.
We then wrote the article. But so many things happened to us on our journey that when we came back we realised we had more then enough material for a book. So we wrote "Along the River that Flows Uphill".
It wasn't intended to be an antidote to our trip to Tibet - it just worked out that way.

Question: Was it a good choice for your second collaboration? Did you connect with Venezuela and find the adventure you were looking for?

Miriam: "Yes" is the short answer. We did connect with Venezuela - not so much with Caracas, which is where we flew to in order to begin our journey, but certainly with the rest of the country. I've been studying Spanish for several years now and I have to admit to a bias in favour of Spanish speaking people. We've travelled a lot in both South and Central America, and we've always had positive experiences.

Question: One of the most dramatic episodes in the book is your meeting with the Yanomami Indians both on the Orinoco River and the Casiquiare Canal. The image of the Yanomami fostered by anthropologists in the 1970s and 1980s is of a warrior tribe of "Fierce People". More recently, they have been seen as victims of exploitative missionaries, disease-spreading miners, vote-hungry politicians and those very same anthropologists. Did your understanding of the Yanomami change after spending time with them?

Miriam: We felt privileged to see the Yanomami, as it's highly likely that their way of life will radically change in the very near future. I should say that we visited the Yanomami only in villages along the Orinoco and the Casiquiare, where the river traffic brings them into contact with the modern world - we did not visit any of the nomadic tribes that live in the jungles of Venezuela and Brazil.
It was still possible to see how they used to live - especially along the Casiquiare, which is much more remote than the Orinoco - but at the same time we caught a glimpse of their future, as they adopt many of the goods that are already changing their way of life - things like plastic buckets, steel machetes, T-shirts and shorts. Until recently, everything they made and used was biodegradable, but now they're beginning to have a litter problem.
I can't say that the Yanomami we met lived up to their reputation for violence, although they were not an overtly friendly people. It's true, as we relate in the book, that we did have a run-in with a Yanomami Indian who threatened us with a poison-tipped arrow, but that was more our fault than his.

Question: The Casiquiare Canal was described in detail by the German scientist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt who travelled from the Rio Negro to the Orinoco in 1800. Did you learn anything new on your trip to dispel any of the myths surrounding this "monstrous error of geography", as one geographer described it?

Richard: In the 18th century, no-one believed that a river could flow over a watershed, so the Casiquiare was indeed dismissed as a 'monstrous error of geography', as we say in our book. Humboldt was not the first European to travel along it - that honour belongs to a Jesuit priest called Father Manuel Roman who paddled the river in 1744 - but he was the first to report on his journey and be believed. Humboldt described the bifurcation - the point where the Casiquiare leaves the Orinoco - in quite dramatic terms, but in fact there's nothing really there to mark the spot. The Casiquiare just slides off to one side of the Orinoco and disappears into the jungle. There's no real fanfare.

Question: So how does the Casiquiare join the Orinoco to the Amazon?

Richard: A certain amount of confusion was created by the translated description of Humboldt's journey. He wrote that the Casiquiare "changes direction", which a lot of people assumed meant that it changed the direction of its flow - sometimes flowing out of the Orinoco and into the Negro, then sometimes reversing itself and flowing the other way. This is still a popular misconception, which you will find in many Internet searches for 'Casiquiare'. In fact, the Casiquiare flows in one direction only, and what Humboldt meant is that the river changes direction because it meanders, and that's quite a different thing.
As for a full explanation of its behaviour, we deal with that in our book.

Question: Humboldt describes his passage down the Casiquiare as one of constant torture from moquitos and black fly, the feared "jejenes", that leave a nasty, raised bloodspot under the skin. What was the most uncomfortable part of your trip?

Miriam: It was all uncomfortable!
Basically, we were travelling on a river boat through the jungle. There were always insects, especially when we got off the boat and went on land, and all of them seemed either to bite or sting. It was also the rainy season - we had to go then, because in the dry season, the Casiquiare shrinks in size and can only be effectively travelled in a canoe or some other small boat. That didn't mean it was always raining - although when it did, it rained in sheets - but it did mean the humidity was extremely high. So you always felt wet or clammy. You never quite got entirely dry.

Question: You also mention a brush with guerillas from the FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, in San Felipe, near San Carlos de Rio Negro? In the book you seem to respond quite calmly to the situation but was it scary?

Richard: That's right. FARC tried to kidnap us and hold us for ransom when we were foolish enough to stray over the border into Colombia. It was extremely frightening for both of us, but like a lot of events like this, it seems more frightening when we look back on it than it was at the time it occurred. Everything happened so quickly, and we were so focused on the best way to react that we didn't think through all the consequences. It's only now, when we reflect on what might have happened, that we appreciate how lucky we were to have escaped.
Over the past 20 or 30 years, FARC has kidnapped literally thousands of people. Most of their victims have been Colombians, which is why they don't get much international attention, and they are held in the most appalling conditions - literally chained to trees or to each other for eight, ten, twelve years. Maybe even more.

Question: You mention Lucho, the owner of the boat who took you from Puerto Ayacucho to the Casiquiare and Rio Negro, how did you get in touch with him and is the trip you took something that others could do?

Miriam: Before we went on our journey, we searched for possible guides on the Internet and in some of the more out-of-the-way guide books. Lucho is one, but there are others - people who, for a fee, will take you along the Casiquiare. It's possible for anyone to make the journey we did, but as we indicated, the time of year determines the size of boat you can travel on. In the dry season, you'll likely have to travel in a bongo - a kind of large, dugout canoe - and camp on the river bank. Only in the rainy season will you find a boat large enough for you to sleep on.

Question: One of the main problems of a long boat journey is boredom. How long were you on Lucho's boat? Did you ever fall out? What did you do to while away the hours?

Richard: We never had any problems with the other people on the boat. There were a lot of them, so the boat was crowded, but we all respected other people's space. We read a lot, and we wrote a lot - either the article we were there to complete, or in the journals we kept which later formed the backbone of our book. I suppose it could be considered boring, but the jungle is so strange, at least to us, that it's endlessly fascinating. Also, of course, we were able to get off the boat and visit a lot of communities along the way. This helped break up our journey, and also gave us a lot of good material for our book.

Question: For anybody who reads your book and wants to visit the Casiquiare, what advice would you give them?

Miriam: Plan well, and know what you're getting into. Consider going in a group of four or more, rather than just two. If something goes wrong you have more back-up.

Richard: Don't go into Colombia - at least not in the part near where Colombia, Brazil and Venezuela come together. It's almost entirely lawless, and to a large extent under the control of FARC.

Question: Richard spends much of the book lamenting the lost days of the great adventurers, especially his heroes, the Welsh explorer Henry Morton Stanley and David Livingstone. Now people can Google Earth any spot on the planet, are there still great adventures to be had?

Richard: There are always great adventures to be had. One person's great adventure can be just another day in the office for somebody else.
I think nowadays the thing to consider when planning an adventure is the amount of risk you might possibly face, and whether or not that risk is worth taking, given the reward you hope to get. This is something we had not really considered before, but our brush with FARC made us think seriously about the level of risk we were prepared to accept. That's one of the themes that runs throughout the book - you want to push the envelope as people say, but not push it to the point where it breaks.




To purchase "Along the River That Flows Uphill: Between the Orinoco and the Amazon" click here:

Catatumbo Lightning - a Venezuelan mystery

Anybody who has travelled to the houses on stilts in the south of Lake Maracaibo to witness firsthand the mysterious natural phenomenon known as Catatumbo Lightning, or El Relampago del Catatumbo in Spanish, will understand the awe that these great arcs of thunderless lightning inspire.

The lightning can be seen on an average of 160 nights a year, with the electrical storms lasting up to 10 hours and with up to 280 lightning flashes an hour.

One of the first to pen an account of the phenomenon, and so bring it to the attention of the wider world, was the German scientist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt, who described the powerful and sustained lightning flashes as "electrical explosions that are like a phosphorescent gleam".

Humboldt referred to the phenomenon as "El Farol de Maracaybo", or "The Lighthouse of Maracaibo", because navigators on the lake are "guided by it as by a lighthouse".

"The distance, greater than 40 leagues, at which the light is observed, has led to the supposition that it might be owing to the effects of a thunderstorm, or of electrical explosions which might daily take place in a pass in the mountains," wrote Humboldt in his famous book "Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America."

While it can be seen from hundreds of miles away, the main area in which Catatumbo Lightning is produced is in the sky over the mouth of the Catatumbo River as it empties into the south of Lake Maracaibo, known in Spanish as Sur del Lago.

Most tourist trips organized from Merida start at the small fishing village of Puerto Concha, on the shores of the Sur del Lago, from where boat trips can be arranged to houses on stilts in the Las Cienagas de Juan Manuel National Park, where the best views are available.

Congo Mirador is a community of some 120 stilt-built shacks reached in two hours by boat from Puerto Concha.

As the documentary suggests, there is still no accepted single cause for the phenomenon, which remains a mystery, although most theories are linked to the atmospheric conditions that result from heavy winds blowing down from the Andes Mountains in Merida, which then collide with ionised gases - specifically the methane created by the decomposition of organic matter in local marshes.

One of the companies offering Catatumbo trips from Merida is

Fanny Tours and Adventures

FitVen2009 showcases Venezuela´s natural treasures

Caracas: Venezuelan Tourism Minister Pedro Morejon pledged a greater emphasis on promoting national and international tourism at the opening of the annual International Tourism Fair (FitVen 2009) in Caracas on 1 October.

The aim of the event, which was organized by the Ministry of Tourism (MINTUR), was to showcase Venezuela's most popular tourist attractions, including Angel Falls, the highest waterfall in the world, the crystalline waters and unspoilt beaches of Los Roques and the tranquil Andean mountain villages of Merida State.

This year, the tourism fair was held from 1 to 4 October in the spectacular setting of the Hotel Humboldt (2,105 metres above sea level), on the top of the Avila mountain, overlooking the Caracas valley on one side and the Caribbean sea on the other.

Visitors were able to wander among the colourful stands representing the different states of Venezuela at the installations of the Waraira-Repano cable car station, which houses an artificial ice-skating rink and a newly-inaugurated convention centre.

In total some 600 tour operators and airlines took part in the event and countries such as Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Mexico, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Japan had stands promoting their own tourist treasures.

The tourism minister made several important announcements at the opening of the fair, saying that the Venezuelan government is "running over 140 projects for the construction of hotels, guesthouses and tourist services."

He also said that the difficult problem of crime and insecurity will be tackled in part by a new tourist police, which is being set up within the framework of the National Police.

The Tourism Ministry also plans to refurbish the iconic Humboldt Hotel (see below), an architectural jewel built in 1955 that looks like the set of a James Bond movie with its sixties furnishings. Sadly, it hasn't operated as a hotel since the 1970s.

The project would see a complete overhaul of the defunct cable-car link to Macuto on the Caribbean side of the Avila, which would allow visitors from Caracas to reach the beaches there via the mountain.

Getting to the fair was an adventure in itself as all the visitors, exhibitors, performers and reporters who attended the four-day event arrived in one of the 70 new cable cars, which take no more than 18 minutes to travel the 3.5 kilometres from the base of the mountain in Mariperez, Caracas, to the Waraira-Repano station on the Avila.

Inaugurated in September 1955 by then Venezuelan president General Marcos Perez Jimenez, the cable car system fell into disuse in the 1970s and had to be completely overhauled in 2000 by a private concession called Avila Magica.

In 2008 the cable car system and the installations on the mountain returned to the state and are now run by the government tour operator Venetur.

Cueva del Guacharo - Oilbirds and Elephant Ears

Come to Caripe in Monagas State any time during November, December or January and you'll find coffee beans laid out to dry wherever there's a flat surface, even on the roads. But it's not the local java that brings tourists to the high cool valleys of Caripe but the strange and wonderful nocturnal oilbirds that inhabit the dark recesses of a spectacular local cave, La Cueva del Guacharo.

The Guacharo Cave is one of those Venezuelan musts - like a fly-over Angel Falls or a few days in the "Blue Lagoon" paradise of Los Roques - although few people make the four-hour drive from Cumana to see it.

As the light begins to fade and darkness shrouds the gaping maw of the cave's entrance, the cacophony of clicks, squawks and shrieks from deep within starts to gather momentum and rise in volume. At first only a few flickering shadows emerge into the half-light, adding an air of mystery and suspense to this nightly ritual. Soon, they are followed by a fast-moving, shimmer of black as thousands of oilbirds leave the cave en masse, taking to the sky and spreading out over the forested hills.


This is an event you can experience in few places in the world. Oilbirds are found in caves in Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia and Trinidad, but none are as impressive as the Cueva del Guacharo, where the greatest concentration of oilbirds is found.

Never seen in the sunlight, the thousands of birds that live in the cave only venture out at dusk, when the hills come alive with the squawks of Guacharos.

Misinformation about the oilbird abounds. It was once believed that the birds would leave the cave and fly to Brazil to feed on the fruits of palm trees, although scientists have now proved that the 32 varieties of fruits and nuts the birds feed on are found within a 50km radius of the cave.

The locals obviously still prefer the Brazil theory, given how many people have told us the story today - "Brazil? Oh further, uuuf, much further", one guy reckoned.

Although we share the experience with a dozen or so Venezuelans, a couple of British birdwatchers and a German tourist, there's still a sense of privilege as we watch the birds emerge, a sense that we are seeing firsthand something that most people will only see in a wildlife documentary - if one exists.

German explorer and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt saw a very similar sight on 18 September 1799. There were no roads back then so he and his faithful companion Aimee Bonpland were led through dense forests by a group of Chaima Indians from the local Franciscan mission. Humboldt's awe was all the greater for finding such a remarkable cave in this remote spot.


Humboldt set out to find the lair of these whiskered, reddish-brown creatures after hearing fantastic tales of birds that lived in the dark like bats and ate only fruit.

He was as astonished by the screeching cries of the birds as visitors are today. In ancient Castilian the word "Guacharo" means "one who wails or laments" and anybody entering the vast entrance to the cave soon founds out how apt a name it is for these odd birds.

The noise serves a function, as Humboldt discovered, for the oilbird is the only bird that can fly freely in total darkness as the audible clicks, created by clacking its beak, are used for echolocation like bats.

The "clicks", emitted at an incredible 250 a second, allow the oilbird to manouevre at high speed through the cave and a highly specialized sense of smell allows it to find the fruits and nuts that make up its diet.


During his visit, Humboldt carried out the first scientific study of this unique bird and gave it the Latin name Steatornis caripensis, which means rather charmingly "fat bird of Caripe".

Humboldt also investigated the significance of the cave to the local Chaima Indians: "The natives connect mystic ideas with this cave, inhabited by nocturnal birds," Humboldt wrote in his seven-volume account: "Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent during the years 1799-1804"

"The magicians (piaches) and poisoners (imorons) perform their nocturnal tricks at the entrance of the cavern to conjure the chief of the evil spirits (Ivoriokiamo)... The Grotto of Caripe is the Tartarus of the Greeks; and the Guacharos... the Stygian birds."

The Chaima Indians that Humboldt met no longer exist, their language and culture lost to the modern traveller. All we have are the snippets of information taken down by Humboldt:

"To go and join the guacharos is with them a phrase signifying to rejoin their fathers, to die," Humboldt wrote, "they believe that the souls of their ancestors sojourn in the deep recesses of the cavern."

"'Man', say they, 'should avoid places which are enlightened neither by the sun (Zis), nor by the moon (Nuna).'"

Spooky stuff indeed.

Even today, the experience of entering the high-ceilinged, pitch-black chambers of the cave is a strange one.

On my last visit, one boisterous six-year-old, ignoring his father's request to wait for the guide, ran off into the darkness only to return a few minutes later, spooked by the screeching birds. He clung to his father's leg and refused to move until he was persuaded by our guide that the birds wouldn't eat him.

There are some 10,000 birds nesting on high ledges in the cave and the numbers generally increase in the nesting season from April to June. Harvesting of the young chicks has long been banned but it once provided a valuable source of oil for the Chaima who would use it for cooking and in lanterns. The young squabs accumulate large amounts of fat on their bodies in the first few months of life, sometimes weighing more than double that of an adult bird.

To the Chaima the oilbirds represented both a valuable source of food and a link to the world of the spirits. Man and bird have lived in close contact since pre-Columbian times as the archaeological remains in the visitor's centre show. Chaima shamans would take hallucinogenic snuff and listen to the shrieks of the birds, believing they were the voices of the dead and that they could transmit prophecies of future events.

Although passages reaching 10.2 kilometres into the mountain have been explored, only 1.5 kilometres are open to the public. From the visitor's centre guided tours leave as soon as a party of ten is formed, taking about 30 minutes to get from the impressive stalactite-fringed cave entrance to the oddly-named "Room of the Breasts" (Salon de Los Pechos).


Along the way, guides armed with flickering Coalman lamps point out the most spectacular formations of stalactites (coming down from the ceiling) and stalagmites (coming up from the floor), all of which have been named over the years.

If you use you imagination - and squint your eyes a bit - close to the entrance you can make out a rock formation that vaguely lives up to its title of the "Virgen del Carmen". Further on you reach the long trunk and large ears of the "Cabeza de Elefante" (Elephant's Head) and the enormous cone of "La Torre" (The Tower).

Along the way, as you follow the stream deeper into the cave, you meet lots of other wildlife. While the oilbirds natter on above your head, living on the mushy soil and nutty guano of the cave floor are loads of weird, stunted plants, unable to grow any higher in the darkness.

In this strange terrain small rodents, such as the endemic spiny rat (Proechimys guyanensis), and centipedes, spiders and beetles feed off the fruit and seeds dropped by the birds.

Finally, you reach the plaque that marks the spot where Humboldt's Indian guides refused to go farther and he was forced to return.

For the Chaima Indians this entrance to the deeper chambers represented the entry to the world of the dead and anybody passing through it would never return. Luckily for my tour party the Indians were wrong. The only thing we experienced as we passed through the narrow passage into the "Hall of Silence" was a blissful deliverance from the clamour of the oilbirds.

Back outside, as the night closed in and the oilbirds set out on their nightly forage for food, we set about finding a way back to Caripe. For some reason the bus service stops shortly after the park shuts at 4 p.m. even though one of the best parts of any visit is watching the birds leaving the cave at about 6:30 p.m.

But even if we did miss the last bus back to town and ended up hitching a lift with some Venezuelan tourists, it was well worth it.

Story by Russell Maddicks

Click on the maps to enlarge them and see the tourist route through the cave:



Video: Cueva del Guacharo

Click here for interview with birdwatching guide Chris Sharpe on Venezuela's top birding spots

To see Steven L. Hilty's field guide "Birds of Venezuela" click here: