Heading up River

After our time in Pendernales, we headed up river early in the morning. The Manamo was wide and surprisingly deep, ranging from 20 to 50 feet. For miles all you could see was the jungle encroaching on the calm flowing mocha colored water. We welcomed the isolation after our time in Chagaramas, the busy port back in Trinidad. As we motored along, we were oblivious to the political turmoil in Venezuela. President Hugo Charvez had kicked out the US ambassador and his entourage; and travel warnings were posted for Americans heading there. Fortunately, the natives were also completely clueless about the international goings on.

As we approached the first Warrau village, we could see them running down their board walks to the canoes. By the time the Adamo was 200 yards from the village they were on there way to intercept us. We had been warned that the first few enclaves were not really interested in trading, rather they were looking for handouts from sailing vessels heading up river. It is tough to resist the cute little faces of small children hoping for some candy or treats. Before we knew it, we had handed out nearly half of our push-pop supply.

Trading or "cambio" is a major activity for Warrau Indians. They trade hand woven baskets and purses, beaded necklaces and bracelets, fresh fish, as well as cheaply carved balsa wood toy boats. In exchange, they receive food (milk, flower, rice, eggs), clothing, fabric, needles, thread, and medicine among other items.

We proceed on until we reached a split in the river. Along the left branch was a larger Indian village. The right branch was broad and split off into other tributaries. The depth in the split decreased to 15 feet. Perfect for anchoring.

It wasn't long before boats from the village began showing up to trade. The second boat to arrive had a friendly Indian, who spoke Spanish (most of the Indians only speak Warrau). Once he realised we were Americans, he handed us a piece of paper that had a hand written recommendation in English from a previous cruiser. The paper explained his name was Danni and he was the local guide. He could show us monkeys and caimons or take us piranha fishing. We used an English-Spanish dictionary to boost our virtually nonexistent Spanish language skills to communicate. In the end of the conversation we had agreed to go see monkeys and fish for piranhas in the morning, as well as recopy his recommendation on new paper, since his was falling apart.

The latter ultimately gave us an opportunity to really get to know the village. We didn't just recopy the text, rather we typed it up and included a photo of Danni at the top of the page. When he saw that he asked whether we could take pictures of his kids and print them. This lead to pictures of other kids etc... but more on that later.