I love Los Llanos

So i am in a hurry today, got a lot to do tomorrow and there's only three days till the big trip, so this is gonna be cut short:
I do. For real. It is amazing how in peace they are with themselves out there. Plus all the nature, it is so fantastic. We got the monday afternoon and we chilled for a little while, getting settled in the hammack houses and such. Then we had dinner and went to look for small caimans. Pretty cool, though I didn't want to try to catch any. It was a great experience looking out over the water and see the light from your headlamp reflected in their eyes. It almost looked like the sky (which by the way was gorgeous!). I never knew there were that many caimans in the small lakes. and you could hear them getting in to the water every now and then, some of them were pretty big! we went to bed early that nigt and woke up the next morning at 4.30 am, as the birds where making some seriously crazy sounds! fortunately I was able to go back to sleep, and I went horse back riding around the ranch with the first group that morning. it was so great. first of all I got to sit on a horse again, though it has nothing to do with what I do at home, and second of all you just got to see nature in a whole new way. we got really close to some owls that live in holes in the earth, and we got close to a whole bunch of other birds. pretty cool if you ask me. And Mikkel and I got to run a lot with our horses as they were the faster ones. A lot of fun! that afternoon we went on the big anaconda hunt. I tried really hard to get into that muddy water and poke around with a stick, but I couldn't get myself to stay for more than 5 minutes. I just could not handle it. so I went to wait on the safe side while Necandro and his sons (some of the other ppl from the group kept looking but they were the ones who knew what they were doing and they are by far the very best at what they do!) found the snake. I did not realize how terrified I am of snakes till I tried touching the tail of the first snake we found. It took my several times but in the end I got to hold some of the last half of the snake. I have never before had to focus that hard to keep myself together. I had to go sit down when they let the snake loose and the tears just started pouring down my face. Keep in mind, this first one was only like 2-2.5 meters. The next one we found was 3-3.5 and our Venezuelan guide, Luis, held the head while I got to stand next to him. It took several times but I made it! crying all along. The next one we got was like 4-4.5 meters and I made it to the head this time!! once again crying, but i did it! and I am so proud of myself for doing it! The last one we got was like 1.5-2.0 meters and I held that all by myself!! so proud of myself!
the next day we caught pirat fish, and the day after we went to catch caimans. we got one that was like 2.5 meters, but it did not scare me at all - though i didnt go into the water that time either. At night we had a party and it was so much fun! Friday, the last day, we had a boat trip down the river and we got to see the really rare river dolphins! plus we got see an insane amount of rare birds and other animals, like the riverpigs.
today we drove home, and it was a long 10 hours, but it was okay. tomorrow we will be able to do a little shopping in the afternoon, then lunch, meeting, poolparty, and then there's a ton of things we need to do before leaving for the big trip on Wednesday. oh by the way, I got to the man who washes clothes today, it is done monday. only thing is, i have only got one pair of short and one shirt now. oh wells...
take care, and stay tuned for more on my next update!