Crocs, Swamp Grass, And Miners
We met only one vehicle on the trail. This miner and his son wanted to sell us the dead bird on their dash for dinner.
As the moon rose over the Lago Chiguao, the macabre and twisted silhouettes of dead trees appeared off the bow of our curiara. Hidalgo, with one hand full-on the throttle of a Yamaha outboard, threaded the curiara through the dark maze of stumps and reeds. Scanning the banks with a flashlight, we spotted a pair of blazing red eyes on the shoreline. While cats' eyes are green, crocodiles, and caimans, are unmistakably blood-red. Hidalgo raised the barrel. The percussion of the shot whizzing by my head vibrated my eardrums down to my lower spine. An explosion of water filled the end of the spotlight beam ... missed. Our second encounter was about 3 feet long and too small to take. Nosing up to the shore, they let me jump ashore and try my hand at it. Armed with my headlamp and camera, I scrambled over the bow and down the mucky shoreline. My reptilian counterpart was less than half my height in length and an eighth my weight, but I was scared more that it was. Psyching myself up, I thought, "What would Steve Irwin do?" My hand darted for the tail ... missed. Fortunately for me, he thrashed a 180 and darted into the blackness.
During a normal year, we would be driving from this point on. But as the morning sun crested the aqueous horizon, we loaded our rigs back on the barge and navigated our way through several kilometers of shallow water. Thick swamp grass became a major problem, fouling our propellers with regularity until it became evident that we would be unable to reach dry ground. Dropping the ramp into the unknown depths of the swamp, we eased the Jeep's front tires off the edge. The water came up to the headlights, Felipe stood on the throttle, and there was no turning back. Fortunately, it leveled out just above the bumper and we slogged our way to terra firma.
The barge pulled away as we turned our tires south towards the edge of the jungle. The canopy rose high above us, obscuring the sun from our path and leaving the thick and tangled undergrowth to compete for all available light. Heavy rains had left the ground swollen and swamplike, and long pools of standing water lay in our path and to either side of the track. The encroaching jungle narrowed the trail to two muddy slots, with barely enough room to open the doors. With the window down for fresh air, the side mirror made for a perfect bug deflector, continually knocking scary-looking beetles and spiders into our laps. (Author's note: the black-and-red ones have a really nasty bite.)
Tire Trials, Trench Warfare & Pemon Indians
Peeling tires off the rims would be our nemesis. Clearing the rim of mud and resetting the bead was an hour task. The process involved trenching around the tire, digging out the mud, raising the vehicle with a Hi-Lift Jack and removing the tire, then cleaning the bead and wheel with less-muddy water and gently working the bead back on the rim. We would end up repeating this process six times during the first day on the trail.
Within 30 minutes, we had peeled a tire off one of the rims on the Jeep and realized that we might have a major issue ahead. Three days earlier, before leaving Caracas, one of our two original 80-Series Land Cruisers, both of which sported 37-inch TSL Super Swampers on standard rims, lost a pinion seal, crush-sleeve, and bearing. Without replacement parts available, we opted to run a Jeep YJ with 33-inch Mickey Thompsons and 10-inch offset rims. The problem was that the local miners all drive Toyota FJ-45 pickups and run 10-ply military tires, thus leaving a very narrow track. The Super Swampers wouldn't fit under the Jeep, and its existing setup-almost 20 centimeters wider than that of the miners-resulted in constant pressure against the sidewall, ultimately dislodging the bead from the rim. This situation would be our nemesis.
Clearing the rim of caked-on mud and resetting the bead was an hour-long task. The only compressor we had, an original-style ARB unit, created just enough volume to carefully set the bead. It would receive quite a workout in the days to come. The process involved trenching around the tire to access the lug nuts, digging caked mud out of the wheel, raising and securing the vehicle with a Hi-Lift Jack, removing the tire, cleaning the slimy bead and wheel with less-muddy water from the trail, and gently massaging the bead back on the rim. We would end up repeating this process six times on the Jeep before reaching camp that night. The only way to delay imminent failure was to inflate the tires to 65 to 70 pounds, well beyond the safety limits (we don't suggest ever doing this yourself).
With limited resources, locals make due with whatever materials are available. Makeshift bridges crafted from several logs lashed together were the solution to deep washouts and creeks. | 
When the sun went down, the flooded trenches seemed to get deeper, and everything outside the window seemed to be alive. | 
This little boy from El Tigre carried the DNA of a thousand generations of his people, the Pemon. |
Twelve hours later, 43 kilometers short of our expected destination and well past twilight, we entered a small clearing and had arrived in El Tigre, home to a small family of Pemon Indians. The stars emerged like brilliant Christmas lights, and a single dim light was visible from a small hut on the other side of the clearing. The place was empty, save one person. But after introductions, a few battery-powered lights were lit, a wooden table and chairs brought out, and the entire family emerged from a small mud and thatch abode. In the midst of living history, we contemplated the fact that this family's ancestors had hunted this jungle and tended corn in these fields for a hundred generations before our arrival. As we settled into our hammocks for the night, the jungle came alive. Monkeys howled in the distance, a dozen species of birds cried out from nearby trees, and crickets and frogs sang in an uneven cadence. We were guests in a special place.
Next month: We'll head even deeper into the Venezuelan Jungle, navigating ancient rivers on dugout canoes to the tallest waterfall on the planet.