Venezuela - First descents and getting lucky
 
 
Check out some Google Earth markers of some of the river we did – the are notes on each marker!
River notes of the trip coming soon!
A true combination of youthful naivety, luck and determination we managed to pull off a very successful expedition. We were fortunate to hook up with Tom Evenu from Arassari Trek who had already done a helicopter fly over of an unexplored river with proved to be too steep for his rafting from the footage he took – but looked ideal for us. We submerged ourselves fully self sufficient for 3 days in the jungle for the first time on this uncharted river. We came out the other end only to find our ‘take out’ bridge was not there and so paddle for a further 40km till we found a dam where we were promptly escorted off by the military. We featured on National TV and regional TV live sooner after our return to Merida which was all quite amusing. Next up was the Canuagua which flowed into the Muchchachi. The Canagua was a great 2 day jeep supported river. We then packed our boat for 3 days self support on the Muchchachi. This proved to be a huge step up, the river was relentless for 3 days which forced us to gel as a team to make it the lake. We soon found that the jungle we were in was not only inescapable but made inspecting rapids very hard and if not for a high risk climb we would have been trapped watching the river rage round a blind corner. Please download the film Stu Martindale made of our trip Check out the articles published is Paddles Magazine. You can also read the article on line at http://www.kayaksession.com/kayak-venezuela.php Films.htmlContact.htmlhttp://www.kayaksession.com/kayak-venezuela.phphttp://www.kayaksession.com/kayak-venezuela.phpshapeimage_5_link_0shapeimage_5_link_1shapeimage_5_link_2shapeimage_5_link_3