Fishing village on the Catatumbo River 🇻🇪
A very long journey (or rather, endless hours of waiting) preceded our arrival in Catatumbo.
You can't get there by land—you have to take a boat. It's hard to find a boat. Sure, there are tourist boats at exorbitant prices, but we wanted a free one! Free only happens early in the morning with fishermen, who might not take you—it's a matter of agreement. We arrived in the village of Puerto Concha (where the boats depart) on a Friday, and on weekends, as it turns out, no one goes anywhere; even the fishermen stay home. So we had no choice but to spend three whole days there.
What kind of place is this that we've waited so long for? It's all for the lightning! The lightning that flashes in the sky. The Catatumbo lightning is a unique natural phenomenon that only occurs here. Multiple lightning bolts appear in the sky simultaneously, and this continues for a long time, making them visible even from a great distance, and everything around is illuminated almost like daylight. Well, it's interesting, right? At the very least, very unusual. And it happens constantly, every night, regardless of whether it's raining or not.
So, they took us to a small fishing village that's built entirely on water (the same "palafites" as in the recent post). We weren't expecting this; we thought there would be proper "land" where we could pitch a tent, but no such luck. There's no land at all! Sure, there's some vegetation, but it's more like a swamp—the water is about knee-deep. Walking between the houses requires walking on planks that are constantly prone to breaking. Yes, but here, in these houses, people don't live permanently; they come here for a sort of "shift," working. They catch fish (even stingrays are caught!), fillet them, salt them, and then sell them. That's the real fisherman's life.
The main course is, of course, fish! Any kind they catch. And for sides, there's rice, fried plantains, and vegetable salads. Everything is fresh, piping hot. The hospitable Venezuelan fishermen treated us to meals more than once, and everything was delicious! We even went for a swim there, following the example of the local children whose parents take them. They get bored there, so they have fun as best they can!
One very nice thing: we found capybaras! More precisely, baby capybaras, very small ones. We cuddled them, took lots of photos – so cute! It was the first time I saw capybaras in person. One very unpleasant thing: they've most likely already been eaten by now, just like their mother, which is why they ended up alone in a big box with the fishermen. No comment on that!
And everything would have been fine, but there was absolutely no room for a tent: the fishermen themselves live inside the houses, and they sleep in hammocks suspended from the ceiling. So we settled on one of the wooden "porches," right next to the entrance to one of the houses. We thought we'd be able to watch for lightning from there at night, but no such luck! That night, such a gale-force wind blew up and the rain fell so heavily that the tent was practically blown away! The sky was covered with thunderclouds, and going outside was impossible. I can't remember ever being caught in such strong winds and rain, especially on the water!
Nevertheless, morning, of course, came, and the sun came out again. We dried our wet clothes and started thinking about how to move on—and then it turned out this wasn't the best place to watch lightning! According to our fishermen, it was much better seen from another fishing village called Ologá, not far from here. And very soon, a boat was leaving for a fishing trip and agreed to give us a lift.
And so began a new adventure! 🔥
#Venezuela #Maracaibo #Catatumbo