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The Orinocco delta	Start page Venezuela
The Warao indians	Venezuela links
A walk in the forest	Photo's Isla Margarita
Visit to the indians	Photo's tour
Thoughts	Map of Venezuela

photo's Indians   (go with  top to the upper part of the table)
river plants (1)	river plants (2)	river plants (3)	The river banks(1)	Top The river banks(2)
The river banks(3)	The river banks(4)	The river banks(5)	The river banks(6)	Top The river banks(7)
The river banks(8)	The river banks(9)	The river banks(10)	The river banks(11)	Top The river banks(12)
Monkey's (1)	Monkey's (2)	Monkey's (3)	The mangrove forest (1)	Top The mangrove forest (2)
The mangrove forest (3)	The mangrove forest (4)	The mangrove forest (5)	The mangrove forest (6)	Top The mangrove forest (7)
Indian snack	Indian snack (2)	Indian snack (3)	indian snack (4)	Top indian snack (5)
The lodge (1)	The lodge (2)	The lodge (3)	Visiting (1)	Top Visiting (2)
Visiting (3)	Visiting (4)	Visiting (5)	Visiting (6)	Top Visiting (7)
Visiting (8)	Visiting (9)	Piraña		Top

Orinoco delta
This delta is all mangrove forest. You can't see the sea, but you'll notice the tide. When it is high tide, the rivers stream inside the land, when it is ebb, the river streams back to the sea. You'll notice this effect miles from the coast. Some rivers are small, other rivers are broad and sometimess rivers are full with river plants.

The level of the water varies a lot because of the tide. When it's high tide, the water in the mangrove forest is one meter more high then when it's ebb. When it's ebb, swamps get dry again and you can see the  roots of trees.

All transports take place by rivers, because of the tide there're no roads in the area.  That's good, because the lack of roads the land is not developt. In the rivers there're many species of fish. Examples are the notorious piraña's but there're also dolphins, In the evening you sometimes can see little monkey's at the river banks. (You need good eyes)

When you're in the forest you forget time. You don't hear a radio, a car, talking people etc. You don't have the stress of the modern civilization, the only thing you have to watch is the tide. (When you want to go somewhere).

The Warao indians
In the Mangrove forest lives the Warao indians. They still have their own language and culture. Warao means canoe and yes a canoe is very important in this area. The indians rarely see people outside the region, they sometimes see tourists like us. The indians do not have things. They have a canoe and a self made house, but that's it. Still I don't want to say they're poor. They have evrything they need nearby: When they need a canoe, they make one from the wood, when they want to eat, they fish or go to the forest. They don't need cloths (unless some tourists like us visit them). They're all relaxed and when you're in a boat you see hammocks swing and children swim. (In the water with piraña's).

The wooden houses don't have walls and are standing at high piles because of the high tide. It's very easy to go somewhere with a canoe, because you can always folow the stream. When it's high tide you go somewhere into the land, when it's ebb, you go back (in the direction of the sea).Sometimes the indians move to another spot. They leave their house and when another indian family wants to move in, they may do so without paying anything. But even this indians do want to have posesions. Some indians like our guide had a motor at their canoe and our guide was wearing a watch. (I don't think he could read the time).

When you're a tourist your hotel is a lodge made by the indians. It does have all comfort like streaming water, toilet and wooden walls. They closed the windows with mosquito nets and there's also a mosquito net above the bed. Of course there's no radio, phone, television internet etc. there's no electricity! But you don't realy want all this stuf. Near the lodge the indians sold self made souvenirs. They have all the time, so all the things are of top quality. When you want to have a good hamock, this is the place to buy one. They use the profit for buying rice, medicins or a motor for their canoe. Indians are not used to bargaining.

A walk in the forest
Our indian guide made a walk with us through the forest. we went by canoe and after several small rivers he found a place to go on land. When it's ebb it's "dry". Well, dry means: you can walk on the ground, but it's still wet. So don't wear white clothes, because they'll get full of mud in no time! We walked over muddy trails and over  fallen tree trunks . For lunch we first got a very sour berry and after that, our guide search for us the delicatess of the  Mangrove forest in a palm. The guide was  chipping the palm and yes, the delicatess was there........ a large white wurm. He took a part of wood from the palm, killed the wurm and placed the wurm upon the wood. Who wants this delicious snack? The indian guide did laugh a lot about the tourist that almost vomated by the look of this food. I'm a hero, so I just ate the wurm without vomating. It didn't have much taste, it had a sweet taste and felt like a mussel.

Visit to the indians
Our guide aranged a visit to an indian family. He did not realy make an appointment he just stopt at an indian house and asked if we were welcome. As soon as we went to the indian house, you could see the indians prepared themself for the visit: they put on their clothes. Wen we entered the house, the floor cracked a lot. We wundered if it was strong enough to hold us. The guide told us, that he had once visited a family with tourists and the tourist were to heavy for the floor. He said the indians did laugh a lot about that. Still I was glad the floor was strong enough for our visit. So we stood in the house and......we looked to each other. The indians didn't speak English and they didn't speak Spanish as wel! Of course we didn't speak the indian language, so we couldn't communicate. We saw people who lived in the nature and didn't know anything about modern life. They saw ????????? After the guide did gave some gifts, we left and waved to the indians. They waved back. A remarkable experience.

Thoughts
I fear for the modern "civilised"human being it's to difficult to respect these  "underdevelopt" cultures and to leave them alone. So I think in future this culture will disappear because of the wood, oil and tourist industry.  (I feel a little bit guilty for that) Although the indians doesn't have posessions, they're rich because they live in harmony with nature and with each other. Everybody wants to have something special, so I already saw some indians had posessions. A plastic bucket, a radio (which has no use, because there're no radio stations in the area), a digital watch etc. I think in time you will see more and more of these things. It will start with a iron knife, a polyester canoe etc. Then after a decade nobody knows how to make a wooden canoe anymore. Indians will realise they don't have a television set, refrigerator, washing machine etc. When they realise that, then they suddenly are poor people.

I thint tourist are partly responsible for this future. Because of the tourist indians will start wearing clothes. Somne indians will learn English or Spanish and have contacts outside of the region. They will get some luxuery goods and bring these goods to their family.Maybe some indians wil live outside their region and shame themself for their "underdevelopt" background. They will only talk spanish, because that's more inteligent. And slowly the indian culture will disappear.

At the edge of the indian area there was a scool, from a missionary. I'm sure the missionary would have the best intentions, but why should indians need to read and is it necessary to believe in god?

Our Dutch guide told us, the Venezuelan government needed a part of the indians terretory for oli. They gave the indians a nice house with walls and a piece of land. A lot of Venezuelans would have been very happy with it. But the indians couldn't live in the house. They builded their own house, without the walls. The houses were used for storaged and the indians slept in their self made house in the garden. Most of these indians are depressed and are not happy with their new life as a modern citizen. When I was in the mangrove forest I didn't see depresed indians.