Venezuela
Where beer is cheaper than water
Words and photos by Graham Milton
Three English boaters visiting Venezuela on a paddling mission. They found countless of rivers, meet incredible people, and has epic adventres…
With weeks and weeks of minimal planning Graham Milton, Ben Bedingham and Stu Martindale, were off for 6 weeks exploring a country with Andean Mountains, Caribbean beaches, Amazonian jungle, the mighty Rio Orinoco, the highest waterfall and 5 Miss World winners! A place where beer is cheaper than water and petrol is cheaper than beer. Furthermore a country where, if you were gifted with blond hair you were in for the time of you life….and the name of the place……..Venezuela!
Three was on the small side for a trip of this sort, especially when you consider the only 2 sensible ones were half blind. Nevertheless we set off with our tactical pilotage charts and a contact called Tom who ‘might be useful’.
Tom owns Arassasri Trek in Merida and he had done a helicopter fly over a few years back of the Rio Arigacua – a river that flows south from the Andes through the jungle. His video footage had proven the river to be too hard to raft but it looked great for kayaking…. a pushy grade 4/5 snaking its way through kilometres of dense overhanging lush jungle.
The glimpses we got of the river from the road through the dense jungle looked fine, it was just an illusive 60m in 1km section that we didn’t see from the heli footage that set that exploratory ‘it will be ok’ side of you brain into war with that more reserved sensible side.
After a brief bit of hassle from the military we set off the next morning from the town of Aricagua for our first fully self-supported jungle first decent. We planned to spend two nights in the jungle, where the chances of rescue would be tricky to say the least even with our sat phone, GPS and massive machete!! And of course we all know the jungle is massive!! We did encounter a rather large snake on an inspection but it was dead and wrapped around a rock. I didn’t paddle the rapid quite as I was planning and capsized just the other side of the snake...hence we named the rapid ´Dead snakes Revenge´. We worked out that this must be about the start of the section that dropped 60m in a kilometre. It turned out that this was the hardest rapid and the river never reached the After a brief bit of hassle from the military we set off the next morning from the town of Aricagua for our first fully self-supported jungle first decent. We planned to spend two nights in the jungle, where the chances of rescue would be tricky to say the least even with our sat phone, GPS and massive machete!! And of course we all know the jungle is massive!! We did encounter a rather large snake on an inspection but it was dead and wrapped around a rock. I didn’t paddle the rapid quite as I was planning and capsized just the other side of the snake...hence we named the rapid ´Dead snakes Revenge´. We worked out that this must be about the start of the section that dropped 60m in a kilometre. It turned out that this was the hardest rapid and the river never reached the gradient the map threatened. Everything was runnable, with just the one tree choked portage.
The river finished at a stunning reservoir and there was just a few km of flat water to the bridge that crossed the lake.....or not. The river valley was flat for a lot longer than expected and we were very lucky to find the only bit of land that we could have camped on at about 5pm. It was 30km on the flat (8 hours) before we reached the dam.
At the dam we had a lot of hassle from the military who carried big guns as if they were handbags. We had no ´permits´ which we apparently needed but they were soon happy we were not Colombian drug barons or spies and we got a free hot dinner. One lady who worked there took pity on Ben and Stu's hands (which had been savaged by ants the night before) and took them straight to the medic. Ben laughed as Stu let out a little whimper of pain from the surgery as the doctor treated his gashed leg. Stu enjoyed explaining to Ben that they had not treated his leg and that whimper of pain was an injection for the ant bites....in the behind! Sitting outside the surgery I thought this was great fun as the ants didn't go near me because I smelt far too good!
The trip was a great success and when we were back in Merida we went on local TV live for about 20 mins. It was a kind of tacky ¨Hola Merida!´ live morning TV. Before we knew it we were all sat of the sofa with this presenter asking us questions about how extreme we were! We just thought she was extremely hot! It soon deteriorated to the rather gorgeous presenter asking us what we thought of the Venezuelan girls.... I deflected the question to Ben who just recommended that they die their hair blonde! That afternoon Tom had arranged for a national television channel to come around and interview us at his office. We could not let this stardom get in the way of paddling and we were off on our next trip the next day. This meant we didn't get to see it on TV the next day but people recognized us from the TV even in the mountains……..life as a Z list Venezuelan celeb!!
Our next mission was in the next valley along and involved looking at three potential first descents. The Mucutuy and Canagua are two tribs that join to form the Mucucachi that then flows to the same reservoir as the Aricagua. This time we had an English speaking driver called Roque who turned out to be invaluable. The Mucutuy proven to be flat and then lethal but the Canagua was a stunning river. It had beautiful steep green mountain banks and some small volume creek to medium volume river running. The Mucutuy then joined us to form the Mucuchachi.
We set off self supported from the village of Mucuchachi and on the first night we sat around our camp fire and chatted about how nice and fast the first 15 or so km had been. Little did we know that we had just started on the most relentless river that any of us have paddled and it was going to throw nearly everything that expedition kayaking can at us. Photo, videos and memory are some what lacking from the next 2 days as our minds were preoccupied with the river.
The next day the river turned a chocolate brown colour although we don’t think this is because it had risen or was in flood but it was certainly higher than normal. The road had long left us as we delved deeper in to the jungle, more remote than we had ever been before. The first gorge opened out into a rapid that on inspection looked big but doable. On closer inspection the ‘s’ move required between two pourovers that were certainly playing for keeps was too risky. Next, the river narrowed to just 3m wide…..with a 3m wide hole. The portage looked nearly impossible. I was confident that the hole would punch and with a bit of encouragement the three of us we were charging towards it on a wing and a prayer. We all punched through and continued on our way. Eventually the river opened out into beautiful fields with rolling hills and palm trees but the pace continued. No more than 300m could have passed between each medium to large volume class 4 or 5 rapid until we set up camp.
The next day more big rapids followed with big decisions to be made. We had gelled well as a team by this point, realizing that this would be the only way to get to the lake safely. We eddied out in the last eddy above an impressive walled in section. From the eddy it looked like all the river went crashing into rocks on the river left. River left looked impossible for an inspection. Stu took the machete between his teeth and went river right up the steep dense banks for a high inspection. Progress up the steep banks was almost impossible. The vegetation was too thick and the ground too unstable. This was quite a worrying moment considering that this was similar to the banks along the whole river. Ben reported back that he could not see much but an abseil down to river level off a tree root may enable one off us to battle on further into the gorge. Stu’s handy rope work set the abseil up and I went down to see if a portage was possible. After some very sketchy climbing out of sight of the others I was just able to make my way into the gorge. As I jumped over the next rocks I was delighted to see a small channel bend sharply left and get back into an eddy. This then went into a walled in pourover which was completely unportageable. On a closer inspection the pourover looked relatively tame and I could just about see out the end of the gorge. Ben and Stu were just going to have to trust me on this one.
One and a half hours later we snuck our way through the gorge and pressed on towards the reservoir. We had already missed our 12 O’clock deadline to meet at the dam. The river still didn’t give up until at last the flow stopped and we had conquered the Rio Mucuchachi.
At least this time we had the GPS co-ordinates of the dam. Two hours later, after paddling through the trees to get around the huge log jam, where river met lake, we saw the dam but it was still 4.5km away. 40 minutes later I saw what looked like a jeep zipping back and forth across the horizon line that was the dam. When I pointed this out to Stu and Ben, their eyes squinted and the reply came ‘what dam?’
As we got changed Rouque told us how the chief engineer at the dam had warned all the ‘friendly’ Venezuelan mountain guerrillas of our presence and to let us by safely. And as for those bubble we saw on the lake, they were probably the family of crocs that lived at the end of the river. He also had a helicopter primed if we didn’t appear that evening.
Words and photos by Graham Milton
Where beer is cheaper than water
Words and photos by Graham Milton
Three English boaters visiting Venezuela on a paddling mission. They found countless of rivers, meet incredible people, and has epic adventres…
Three was on the small side for a trip of this sort, especially when you consider the only 2 sensible ones were half blind. Nevertheless we set off with our tactical pilotage charts and a contact called Tom who ‘might be useful’.
Tom owns Arassasri Trek in Merida and he had done a helicopter fly over a few years back of the Rio Arigacua – a river that flows south from the Andes through the jungle. His video footage had proven the river to be too hard to raft but it looked great for kayaking…. a pushy grade 4/5 snaking its way through kilometres of dense overhanging lush jungle.
The glimpses we got of the river from the road through the dense jungle looked fine, it was just an illusive 60m in 1km section that we didn’t see from the heli footage that set that exploratory ‘it will be ok’ side of you brain into war with that more reserved sensible side.
After a brief bit of hassle from the military we set off the next morning from the town of Aricagua for our first fully self-supported jungle first decent. We planned to spend two nights in the jungle, where the chances of rescue would be tricky to say the least even with our sat phone, GPS and massive machete!! And of course we all know the jungle is massive!! We did encounter a rather large snake on an inspection but it was dead and wrapped around a rock. I didn’t paddle the rapid quite as I was planning and capsized just the other side of the snake...hence we named the rapid ´Dead snakes Revenge´. We worked out that this must be about the start of the section that dropped 60m in a kilometre. It turned out that this was the hardest rapid and the river never reached the After a brief bit of hassle from the military we set off the next morning from the town of Aricagua for our first fully self-supported jungle first decent. We planned to spend two nights in the jungle, where the chances of rescue would be tricky to say the least even with our sat phone, GPS and massive machete!! And of course we all know the jungle is massive!! We did encounter a rather large snake on an inspection but it was dead and wrapped around a rock. I didn’t paddle the rapid quite as I was planning and capsized just the other side of the snake...hence we named the rapid ´Dead snakes Revenge´. We worked out that this must be about the start of the section that dropped 60m in a kilometre. It turned out that this was the hardest rapid and the river never reached the gradient the map threatened. Everything was runnable, with just the one tree choked portage.
The river finished at a stunning reservoir and there was just a few km of flat water to the bridge that crossed the lake.....or not. The river valley was flat for a lot longer than expected and we were very lucky to find the only bit of land that we could have camped on at about 5pm. It was 30km on the flat (8 hours) before we reached the dam.
At the dam we had a lot of hassle from the military who carried big guns as if they were handbags. We had no ´permits´ which we apparently needed but they were soon happy we were not Colombian drug barons or spies and we got a free hot dinner. One lady who worked there took pity on Ben and Stu's hands (which had been savaged by ants the night before) and took them straight to the medic. Ben laughed as Stu let out a little whimper of pain from the surgery as the doctor treated his gashed leg. Stu enjoyed explaining to Ben that they had not treated his leg and that whimper of pain was an injection for the ant bites....in the behind! Sitting outside the surgery I thought this was great fun as the ants didn't go near me because I smelt far too good!
The trip was a great success and when we were back in Merida we went on local TV live for about 20 mins. It was a kind of tacky ¨Hola Merida!´ live morning TV. Before we knew it we were all sat of the sofa with this presenter asking us questions about how extreme we were! We just thought she was extremely hot! It soon deteriorated to the rather gorgeous presenter asking us what we thought of the Venezuelan girls.... I deflected the question to Ben who just recommended that they die their hair blonde! That afternoon Tom had arranged for a national television channel to come around and interview us at his office. We could not let this stardom get in the way of paddling and we were off on our next trip the next day. This meant we didn't get to see it on TV the next day but people recognized us from the TV even in the mountains……..life as a Z list Venezuelan celeb!!
Our next mission was in the next valley along and involved looking at three potential first descents. The Mucutuy and Canagua are two tribs that join to form the Mucucachi that then flows to the same reservoir as the Aricagua. This time we had an English speaking driver called Roque who turned out to be invaluable. The Mucutuy proven to be flat and then lethal but the Canagua was a stunning river. It had beautiful steep green mountain banks and some small volume creek to medium volume river running. The Mucutuy then joined us to form the Mucuchachi.
The next day the river turned a chocolate brown colour although we don’t think this is because it had risen or was in flood but it was certainly higher than normal. The road had long left us as we delved deeper in to the jungle, more remote than we had ever been before. The first gorge opened out into a rapid that on inspection looked big but doable. On closer inspection the ‘s’ move required between two pourovers that were certainly playing for keeps was too risky. Next, the river narrowed to just 3m wide…..with a 3m wide hole. The portage looked nearly impossible. I was confident that the hole would punch and with a bit of encouragement the three of us we were charging towards it on a wing and a prayer. We all punched through and continued on our way. Eventually the river opened out into beautiful fields with rolling hills and palm trees but the pace continued. No more than 300m could have passed between each medium to large volume class 4 or 5 rapid until we set up camp.
The next day more big rapids followed with big decisions to be made. We had gelled well as a team by this point, realizing that this would be the only way to get to the lake safely. We eddied out in the last eddy above an impressive walled in section. From the eddy it looked like all the river went crashing into rocks on the river left. River left looked impossible for an inspection. Stu took the machete between his teeth and went river right up the steep dense banks for a high inspection. Progress up the steep banks was almost impossible. The vegetation was too thick and the ground too unstable. This was quite a worrying moment considering that this was similar to the banks along the whole river. Ben reported back that he could not see much but an abseil down to river level off a tree root may enable one off us to battle on further into the gorge. Stu’s handy rope work set the abseil up and I went down to see if a portage was possible. After some very sketchy climbing out of sight of the others I was just able to make my way into the gorge. As I jumped over the next rocks I was delighted to see a small channel bend sharply left and get back into an eddy. This then went into a walled in pourover which was completely unportageable. On a closer inspection the pourover looked relatively tame and I could just about see out the end of the gorge. Ben and Stu were just going to have to trust me on this one.
One and a half hours later we snuck our way through the gorge and pressed on towards the reservoir. We had already missed our 12 O’clock deadline to meet at the dam. The river still didn’t give up until at last the flow stopped and we had conquered the Rio Mucuchachi.
At least this time we had the GPS co-ordinates of the dam. Two hours later, after paddling through the trees to get around the huge log jam, where river met lake, we saw the dam but it was still 4.5km away. 40 minutes later I saw what looked like a jeep zipping back and forth across the horizon line that was the dam. When I pointed this out to Stu and Ben, their eyes squinted and the reply came ‘what dam?’
As we got changed Rouque told us how the chief engineer at the dam had warned all the ‘friendly’ Venezuelan mountain guerrillas of our presence and to let us by safely. And as for those bubble we saw on the lake, they were probably the family of crocs that lived at the end of the river. He also had a helicopter primed if we didn’t appear that evening.
Words and photos by Graham Milton
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