Los Llanos - The Land of Crazy Animals

Our Guamanchi guide was awesome, and he surprised us numerous times by seeing animals from really far away. In this case it was an ant eater, a rather rare sight in Los Llanos. We were able to get rather close, and the ant eater ended up almost running over Mark.	There are lots of caymans in Los Llanos, and this small dude was almost run over by our car. He was resting in the middle of the road, and looked rather annoyed by the fact that we bothered him.	Here is a much bigger fellow, and we got to see lots of them on a boat trip down a river. In addition we saw several freshwater dolphins, a species that is actually endangered. We did not see any anacondas in the water, but saw several on land.

I have no idea what this cayman was thinking, but perhaps it wanted some raw horse meat? After having tried the latter in Japan, I do not really know why the cayman would bother, but I do not actually know if he finally decided to attack or not.	It can be seen much easier if you enlarge the picture, but a rather big anaconda is hiding in the grass. We got to see a total of 3 anacondas during our trip to Los Llanos, and I had to make up new excuses each time not to touch them.	Our guide guessed this anaconda to be around 8 meters, and from the size of its body, we guessed it had just eaten a rather large meal. This is definitively the pet to give a kid you do not like.

An unforgettable experience in Los Llanos was definitively fishing piranhas, and though I did not get any, it certainly tasted good in the evening. We are here gathered in front of the river, all kind of worried to fall in. An anaconda was resting in the grass to our left, a presence that did not make things easier.	Because South-America is rather full of thieves and bandits, cattle owners do their utmost to mark their animals. On this farm, they would catch about five or six animals at a time, for then to mark them.	The marking is done by burning, and additionally by cutting off a piece of the animal's ear. It was all rather violent to observe, but I guess this is the way things used to be done in the Old West.