Cueva del Guacharo
From Rio Caribe we wanted to go inland to see Venezuela's famous cave where the nocturnal fruit-eating birds live.
What a mission it was to get there. Despite being a major tourist attraction there are only a couple of local buses that go to it a day. We ended up backtracking all the way to Cumana only to turn around and drive two-thirds of the way back before turning off the coast road to head up into the hills towards Caripe. It was a pleasant drive, however,and the driver amused us by stopping twice for his beer fix. One stop was a detour off the rain road presumably to some friends of his that he knew were in party mode and would have a beer in an icebox to give him.
We got to the cave by four and only just had time to do a tour before they shut up for the day.
The cave system is impressive, with huge and varied rock formations, including a hanging replica of South America, an elephant's head, a statue of Christ, and an embracing couple whose shadow danced Meringue with expert movements of the cave lantern by our guide.
The most interesting thing about the cave though is the guacharo birds and how they alter it. They are actually quite a big bird, up to 55 cm long with a wingspan of up to a metre. They have huge whiskers to help them navigate in the dark but the main way they do this is by making squeaks like bats for echolocation. The difference to bats is the clicks are highly audible.
When disturbed - by light, humans or otherwise - they make an incredible shrieking noise. We were told that guacharo means shrieking cries in the local indigenous language. I took an audio recording and hopefully their two distinctive sounds are audible.
It was dark in the cave as only dim lanterns are allowed so as to avoid stunning or blinding the birds and so we could only see their silhouettes, not their brown and white colour with curved beaks.
They fly out of the cave after dark and go and swallow oily fruit whole. During the day they then regurgitate it and digest it, discarding the seeds in the cave.
Despite the lack of light, the abundant guano or bird dung around provides a fertile start for the seeds to start to grow, but lack of light means the plants get a foot or two tall but are really yellow and sickly. The piles of fruit seeds looked like shingle beds, and were nice and crunchy to walk on.
Also in the cave live four varieties of rats (we only saw one type, but they were round, grey and cute like hamsters). We also saw albino crabs and catfish in the internal stream and a centipede.
Looking back to outside the cave from inside the stalagmites were silhouetted and the outside world a vivid green.
Too soon the tour was over and we washed our shoes in the river to remove the poop.
After setting up our tent across the road (first time we have used it in three months), we went back to watch the guacharos leave the cave for their night feeding.
They only left in drips and drabs but what amazed us was the number of family groups seated on the large concrete step like an auditorium. It was difficult to hear the birds over the children but I was pleased to see them taking an interest in wildlife.
We tried getting up early to see the birds return the next morning but once again it was too dark to see much.
We did get adopted by a lovely black dog who had slept in a tight ball near our tent.
It would have been good to see the museum but the only buses out were around six am, so we had to leave.
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