It has been my belief that travelers should see Russia as the armies of Sweden's Gustavus Adolphus, the Emperor Napoleon and Hitler saw it - in the winter. Snow stretches to the horizon. Overhead the skies are gray and flurries are frequent. When the sky is blue the temperature drops. On occasion Celsius and Fahrenheit meet at 40 degrees below and Moscow becomes quiet. During the day people are few, traffic is light. It is still possible to buy ice cream on a stick but one must gnaw at it. At night near silence and empty streets - only the suppressed murmur of lorry engines left running. Street lights glow yellow in the cold and vapor rises from mysterious locations. If snowing more beauty - the Kremlin and Spasskaya Tower at night, bathed in flood lights and falling snow are visual spectacles. On route from Sheremetyevo International to Moscow there is a memorial marking the closest advance of the Wehrmacht to Moscow. It consists of three tank traps - roughly 30 feet high illuminated by flood lights. Driving by at night in a wild snow storm leaves an indelible image - Russia is a tough place to send an army.
So when my daughter Cathy, an ornithologist called one day and said "Dad, would you like to visit my research project in Venezuela?" my first thought was "They have no winter - what's to see?"
Caracas is a bright, warm and densely populated city - the metro area has 3.4 million people. The impoverished neighborhoods climb up and over the surrounding hills. The police enter these areas only in force. Caracas has music everywhere. Walk along to the samba beat emanating from a marketplace - turn the corner and it is replaced by different pounding music - that is in turn drowned out by other driving rhythms. We were joined by two of Cathy's friends from the USA and went to dinner walking a few blocks to a restaurant. I was happy with my "peasant's platter" rice, beans, vegetable and fried eggs - and enjoying the music. Then instantly total darkness - the restaurant and neighborhood experienced a power failure. In the time it took me to remove the fork from my mouth and find my plate the waiters were circulating with lit candles for each table. Dinner barely interrupted and now even more pleasant by candle light.
Our bus stopped in the middle of nothing. It was a vast, flat, hot area in the Los Llanos - and the location of the massive ranch of Tomas Blohm . Across the two lane highway a dirt road began and after a short wait the four of us climbed into the back of a 3/4 ton pickup. The driver and his amigo had been fishing. On the truck's bed a wire loop held the catch - ten reddish, toothy, ugly piranhas - great eating we were told. At the ranch Cathy's room in a bunkhouse was beyond simple - concrete floor, green cinder block walls, steel roof, one hanging light bulb, a hammock strung up (with mosquito netting) and one window. The window had curtains and each was clutched by a sleeping bat. But biologists are a sturdy race and remarkably social. Cathy gave a dinner party one evening that she prepared, cooked, served buffet style, all the while doing instantaneous translation for her Venezuelan and American guests. All greatly enjoyed dinner - taking extreme care to keep our food covered at all times - thus preventing disease bearing bugs from falling in from the thatched roof above. Tomas Blohm joined us for desert. (He is now deceased - dying years later.) Cathy's research on a small bird with prodigious engineering instincts - the Thornbird; Phacellodomus rufifrons - led to her receiving a Ph.D from Harvard.
A few days later after travel by pickup truck and bus we were now in a twin engine, five seater aircraft. The plane is flying directly toward Angel Falls. Sitting next to the pilot I am looking first up at the water's source tumbling off the "tepuie" (aka mesa) and then down - but unable to see the water finish the stupendous fall. The pilot was clearly enthused - "Magnifico ! We go around again !" Then in his best imitation of a Super Marine Spitfire the small plane banked up and right circling and then charged back toward the Falls. I heard someone behind me gag.
We touched down on a dirt strip in Canaima National Park and collected our packs. There are now six of us - we have been joined by a young couple from Spain. Our national guide is casual - shorts, open shirt, long, black hair - all Indian and proud. He leads us for a half mile down a path under a rainforest canopy and ending at a dark pond with an elderly canoe on the bank. "Now we swim" he announces. The young Spanish woman cannot swim - he helps her into the canoe. We push our packs into black garbage bags and place them in front and back of her. I eased into the warm water - it had a delicious taste - and began the 40 yard crossing. I looked back and saw our guide swimming toward me pulling the canoe by a short line. The passenger is stiff and clutching the gunnels. At a forest clearing we looked at another pond that appeared to end 30 yards away at a black wall. As instructed I swam across and grabbed a floating line. Then I pulled myself forward against a frothy rush of current and into the darkness. Quickly the water force subsides, light returns. I am standing in an exuberant, lush jungle garden with a waterfall and pond. It is surrounded by moss and leaf covered walls of the tepuie. The walls soar up as in a cathedral and open upon billowing clouds and an azure sky. This grotto - a miniature Garden of Eden - remains the most beautiful place I have been on earth.
For decades I enjoyed winter - I skied (badly) and jogged (slowly). For years November was my favorite month - and of course delighted in the changing seasons. But travel in Venezuela began the process of converting me to an enthusiast of living in endless summer.
Thornbirds
