Marc De Ver­teuil

All my life the Orinoco Riv­er has fas­ci­nat­ed me. Grow­ing up in Trinidad the riv­er was al­ways felt, nev­er seen. Mys­te­ri­ous nuts, seeds and plants drift up on Trinidad's beach­es. Don­key eyes are the most fa­mous ones. When we ask our par­ents where they come from we are al­ways told: "Oh, that comes from the Orinoco."

The Orinoco changes the very com­po­si­tion of the sea around T&T. It di­lutes the salt wa­ter around our is­lands. The riv­er brings nu­tri­ents that feed reefs and rich fish­ing grounds.Few Trinida­di­ans ven­ture up the Orinoco. There are ru­mours of smug­glers, hu­man traf­fick­ing, crime and rev­o­lu­tion. I de­cid­ed to take a look for my­self.

I took a pirogue from Ce­dros to Ped­er­nales. Ped­er­nales is a tiny vil­lage less than an hour by pirogue from the Ce­dros Coast Guard base and cus­toms jet­ty. It is a sleepy place. There is not much else than a Guardia Na­cional post, a guest­house and some small shops. The vil­lage square, Plaza Bo­li­var, has the oblig­a­tory bust of Si­mon Bo­li­var and mu­rals of Hugo Chavez. It is the gate­way to the Orinoco Riv­er from Trinidad.

I cleared cus­toms with the Guardia Na­cional in Ped­er­nales. The young Guardia on du­ty took a look at my cam­eras and told me it is for­bid­den to take pic­tures of mil­i­tary units and in­stal­la­tions. He then of­fered me a cup of espres­so cof­fee. Wel­come to the Orinoco!Af­ter clear­ing cus­toms I took a riv­er taxi to Tu­cu­pi­ta, 90 miles up­riv­er. You must get your pass­port stamped there.

I ex­pect­ed the Orinoco to be an emp­ty wilder­ness but the riv­er is like a high­way. The Warao, the in­dige­nous peo­ple, pad­dle their ca­noes and dri­ve their bal­la­hoos up and down the riv­er. Warao vil­lages–moriche palm leaf huts built on stilts–line the river­bank. A few huts have satel­lite TV dish­es and wash­ing ma­chines. Gen­er­a­tors pro­vide elec­tric­i­ty.

Tu­cu­pi­ta is an un­at­trac­tive, run-down town. Rusty 1970s, 80s and 90s De­troit built cars dom­i­nate the streets. Clas­sic car lovers could have a ball.The ru­mours of smug­gling may be true. One taxi dri­ver asks me how I like Tu­cu­pi­ta. He then en­quires if I want to buy co­caine.Pol­i­tics is ever present. Po­lit­i­cal mu­rals dec­o­rate walls. Por­traits of Chavez and Ch� are paint­ed all over.

The cri­sis in Venezuela is re­al. One trav­eller came from Trinidad with two box­es of Pam­pers for his ba­bies. Cars stopped and peo­ple called out across the road, ask­ing to buy them. I was told that there was a short­age of ba­sic goods like cof­fee and cook­ing oil.

Af­ter get­ting my pass­port stamped I hired a Warao bal­la­hoo to get to the Orinoco Delta Lodge, deep in the Orinoco Delta. In the West In­dies a bal­la­hoo is a fast schooner. Warao bal­la­hoos are wood­en speed­boats. They look like a com­bi­na­tion be­tween a pirogue and a ca­noe. All seem to be pow­ered by 40hp Yama­ha out­board en­gines.

The Orinoco Delta Lodge is Eden again. I woke up to the grunt­ing of Red Howler mon­keys. There were tou­cans and macaws in the trees. Riv­er dol­phins swam in the wa­ter. I had come with­out ex­pec­ta­tion. I found par­adise. I swam in the Orinoco. A few sec­onds af­ter div­ing in to the murky wa­ter I thought of pi­ra­nhas, ana­con­das, caiman and elec­tric eels. It was a short swim.

To catch pi­ra­nhas you have to beat the wa­ter with your rod to at­tract them. This mim­ics the thrash­ing of an an­i­mal as it hits the wa­ter. I didn't catch any. The Warao, on the oth­er hand are ex­pert fish­ers. I bought fish from them for lunch.Warao means "boat peo­ple" in their own tongue. In the Delta you can­not go far with­out meet­ing a riv­er, stream or marsh. All trans­port is by boat.

The Moriche Palm is the Warao "Tree of life." It pro­vides them with build­ing ma­te­r­i­al, fruit, med­i­c­i­nal oil that can be used as a sun­screen, The leaves are used for roofs and bas­kets.

It is al­so the home of the Moriche worm. The Warao con­sid­er it a pro­tein-packed del­i­ca­cy and aphro­disi­ac. I was of­fered one. I ate it live. It squig­gled be­tween my fin­gers. Ap­par­ent­ly the head is not as tasty as the rest of the worm so you bite that off and spit it out. You then eat the still wrig­gling grub. The taste is not bad. I'd say it was a chick­en nugget with the con­sis­ten­cy of a smooth­ie.

Go­ing to Venezuela scared me. The coun­try suf­fers one of the world's high­est homi­cide rates. Tourists avoid the coun­try. What I found was a peace­ful Orinoco Delta. There are risks to trav­el­ing any­where. Be alert. Do not linger in pub­lic. Do not flash mon­ey or jew­el­ry. Be smart.Hon­est­ly, this is not for every­body. Trav­el by boat to the Orinoco from Trinidad is for ad­ven­ture trav­ellers, not tourists.

The re­wards are great. The Orinoco Delta is one of the world's last re­main­ing wild places. An eco-ad­ven­ture in Trinidad's back­yard.