Rio Caura-Day 2

Day 2: Admittedly, I thought we Westerners, with our capitalism, missionaries and diseases had annihilated these people and their culture. For the most part, the indigenous Indians of the VZ rain forest have maintained their traditional lifestyle. Their enormous environment is only accessible by foot or by boat. The dominant tribe of the region is the Yeyuana o Vaquiritare while the lesser tribe is the Sanema O Chirichanaos Ramificaton of Yanomano. The yucca plant is their primary food. A brown skinned tubor that weighs a couple of pounds, has a potato like center, and tastes awful no matter how we had it prepared. The yucca moonshine will turn your insides out.

In the first settlement we stopped, Las palmas “Sanema”, we were greeted by 20 nude children swimming in the river. As they emerged from the water, they ran off to “cover up” as was preached to them from Westerners before us. There are numerous “tribes” of Indians most often along the rivers and their tributaries. They export no goods or resources to the outside world and live a self sufficient life of fishing, hunting, farming, and family time. They are a peaceful people (until we distributed whistles to all the kids of one of the villages) that are very content and happy. Perhaps the “modern civilized world” could learn a bit? The facial features and stature of the people clearly suggest that their ancestors migrated from the Mongolian/Asian continent many years ago. Many of them had eyes that were a mystical crystal blue or crystal green making them even more extraordinary.

Off in the distance ,we could see a white sand beach backed by a forested mountain with exposed rock and mist rising up from the rapids at our final encampment. The village had built a couple of large circular huts and a commons area to accommodate what tourists they get here. We went for a swim in eddies at the base of the rapids and marveled at the roar of fresh water making its way down the mountain. Our guide said a German once tried rafting this 3 mile stretch but neither he nor any part of his raft ever made it out.

Young visitors such as Parker and Sabrina are an extremely rare sight for the children that gathered and stared. It didn’t take long for Sabrina to whip out her collection of caballos (horses) and enjoy hours of play with the local girls. Meanwhile, Parker took to whittling, reading, and game boy. Most of the Indians are quite shy and tend to keep to themselves in part because only a few speak even Spanish.