"Ana Ana", said Domingo Grande. Then, after a thoughtful pause, "Gebura". "Now, this is 'field work' research!" I said, to no one close by. I was swinging in a "cinchoro" (hammock) on the stilt house platform over the muddy river margin as a gentle rain soughed down on the palm thatch roof.
"Gebura Gebura" said Domingo Grande. I was showing him color discs he would name in his language--"Guaroa"--a language in which his name is "Irida". Of the few words we might have shared before our hour and a half "interview" in the languid afternoon on the Rio Orinoco, his name given him in Spanish (presumably to distinguish him from some "Domingo the Lesser") was about one fourth the vocabulary. This, after all, was at a site that might be called "destination travel" in the trip-monger's argot, since it certainly was a way station along the route to nowhere, and you would have to definitely make a deliberate effort to be here!
In fact, in my publisher's argot, this classifies as "extreme travel"--if not just by getting here, certainly in getting back! That, Kurt Johnson--my publisher, bird watcher, and enthusiast for his working title under which he had grouped my previous travel tales--Luis Ayala, and I had certainly carried to yet another extreme. We made a believer out of Kurt on the last excursion on which he had asked to join. Without realizing the outer limits that previous adventure travels had carried us to, Kurt had found himself dropped into remote Amazonas Territory, Venezuela nine months earlier, and then helicoptered to summits of two of the rainforest mountain "Tepuys" that had never been explored or even touched by any prior human expedition. This incredible experience for starters left him eager for an encore, new bird species to spot and "life list" and other "terra incognita" to be seen.
And Luis Ayala was up to it. Luis--my Venezelano Hermano, pilot, fellow surgeon and hunter-gatherer had come up to join me on a "primitive arms" hunt in Cumberland Island National Park Wilderness last month, and had said he had made contact with someone who could furnish us Orinoco River transport and access to remote areas of the massive delta of the Orinoco River system. This is in the Venezuelan border territory "Delta Amacuro." Not only could Kurt spot more unseen bird species, but my anthropologic interests could be stretched by getting into very isolated groups of delta Guaroa Indians, so little assimilated into modernity that few spoke Spanish, even though they are fellow Venezelano citizens.
So, Domingo Grande, aka Irida, was sitting in front of my hammock naming colors as he saw them, so I could record what he perceived and what he called these perceptions. This was a "shakedown run" for the field work kit I will be packing off to Africa only a few days after Christmas--less than a week away--on a Senior Fulbright Scholar appointment in multiple remote African venues.
And, of course--we just might encounter a few additional adventures along the way!
It was not as though this began as a holiday in the off season! This excursion fit within a week that includes the usually busy holiday season at year end, and all the activities of reunions of family and friends, plus the special poignancy of departure for an extended absence in remote locales. I had prepared my usual year-end review letter of all the adventures from 1995 "The Year of the High Pass", but the typist had "missed the window" before this trip and the typescript had not yet returned in time for the mailing in the already-addressed envelopes with the personal coverletters that had been pre-prepared. My IBM Thinkpad, which had been programmed to sustain the link in connectivity throughout my remote travels in Africa, has not had a functioning modem to connect me to the world from my office despite three previous replacements during the warranty year, and it was still not up to function at the last day before leaving. That day included my final examinations in two Human Sciences PhD program courses and the submission of final research papers as well as sabbatical leave application and approval of the itinerary for the Fulbright Program, for which not one valid visa had yet been obtained, pending research clearances and residency permits in four of the nations to be visited.
On the last day of the Maryland hunting season, a magnificent ten-point buck shook his head at his entourage of eight other deer in the Derwood deerwoods in the fresh snow as I scrambled to organize details of departure, which occurred the following dawn through Baltimore-Washington International via San Juan to Caracas.
The same hectic schedule was true for Luis Ayala who had to postpone departure for one day while scrambling on both social, family and other Christmas preparations, a reception for us at his home, rescheduling his surgical and professional workload, and the dropping out of our Terramar partners who had intended to join with us, since none of them had been in the Delta or had seen the Guacharo caves in the coastal range of Monagas State, either. This meant restaging our excursion for a small adventuresome group to which Luis had added Anna Teresa, his seventeen year-old daughter for one of the poignant father-daughter excursions they had enjoyed from her youth before she became too busy being a young lady to join in further adventures of this sort on a regular basis. Luis' wife Odette was working full time as an interventive radiologist and also all night long preparing the special Christmas holiday "Huallaca" treat for the reception the evening before our departure.
We threaded our way out of Caracas in the pre-dawn before the usual snarl of traffic from the five million people packed densely into the valley of Venezuela's capital, and went out to the general aviation airport and packed Luis' Cessna Twin YV 1562P.
We got an early start. However, like several of the flight arrangements during the course of this trip, that did not mean efficiency. After takeoff and circling to head east to the Delta, Luis noted the discrepancy in fuel flow and pressure and returned to the Caracas airfield to have the port engine fuelline checked. Sure enough, it was plugged. In apologizing for the delay, Luis had said, "It is better to be here wishing you were there, than to be there, desperately wishing you were here!" Just how true that is was immediately evident when a comparison was made with the starboard engine, where a very large fuel leak was found in that fuelline, not similarly reflected in a change in pressure, so the fuel supply problems to each engine were fixed, only one of them having been apparent in the readings. This good fortune may have used up most of our luck for any other contingency that happened along the way, and was not the first nor last delay. However, in good form, we took off a second time and flew from the Distrito Federal to the territory of Delta Amacuro, and its capital city Tucupita. This is a very tropical town with a bit of the same feeling I once had experienced in Guayaqil, Ecuador, among the ambience of an equatorial riverbank town under torpor and lush abundance of life on the wet muddy banks of the river, with color fluttering overhead in birds and butterflies. We were greeted by an amazing sight upon landing in Tucupita airfield. We rolled up in Luis' plane to park it adjacent to the Aeroclub, and there three meters from the wing is a caged "Pantera Onca"--el tigre, a jaguar of the Delta Amacuro. On the other side of this beautiful copper-eyed cat is an artificial Christmas tree with tinsel and colored lights! We have arrived in full exotica.
There are several exotic things about the Venezuelan economy, as well. Three days before our arrival there was a 71% devaluation in the Bolivar, the currency. The International Monetary Fund advisors said that was inadequate, and the exchange rate at 285 Bolivares to the dollar which we got at the airport upon arrival had changed to 325 four days later upon our return to Caracas. The government subsidization of many major commodities and the state-run failures of major industries such as iron and the major petroleum resource, has made Venezuelan economy make a sudden about face. The subsidization of petroleum is such that gasoline here costs less than ten Bolivares for a liter of the highest test gasoline. At the exchange rate of our arrival, this would mean that there would be a price of $.15 per gallon for even the highest test aviation gasoline which would be something around 10% of the world market price. By the time of the further devaluation, this had shrunk further, and there was suggestion that there would have to be a price of 60 Bolivares per liter for fuel within the next month. It is open to some question as to whether the price in U.S. dollars would be much changed at that point at the current devaluation continuing rate.
With economic, professional, personal and other major factors in rapid flux and interference, there had been some question as to whether it was wise to launch an adventure travel of this sort at this time, but there was further question of how much life, youth, opportunity would remain further, which I reflected on in the relationship of Luis and Anna Teresa even more than in my own. Kurt had described this as a "once in a lifetime trip", which I would have to agree with, but then follow on by pointing out that such once in a lifetime opportunities are coming at me several times per month, with bigger and further travel following only a few days after the planned conclusion of this one. But, as I have already said, here we are! Tucupita, Delta Amacuro, Venezuelan Delta along the eastern and southern disputed border of Venezuela with the adjacent unknown Guyana frontier, and we have transport access to the remote regions of the Orinoco from Tucupita to the Atlantic with a lot of unknown in between.
A very positive moment occurred following our arrival in Tucupita in taxiing over to meet Abelardo Lara who is the owner of our boats and contact point for our visits to Rio, Selva and "comunidades indegenas". He pointed out the extent of the Orinoco Delta in the territory of Delta Amacuro and then using a "culebra" (carved wooden serpent) as a pointer, pointed to the village of San Francisco Del Guayo, a catholic mission station at the margin of the delta district of the mouth of the multichannel Orinoco entrance into the Atlantic as our final destination. On the opposite wall there was a poster of South Africa, tying this trip and my next one together with a quotation from one of my seventeenth century English literature heroes who was a guiding light in my medical ambitions and literary aspirations, Sir Thomas Browne: "We carry within us the wonders we seek without us; there is all Africa and her prodigies in us." Religio Medici 1642. Hold that thought--it will apply equally to the tropical rainforest ecology of the Orinoco Delta as it will only a week or two later in multiple African venues!
We took a taxi down to the riverbank town of San Salvador twenty-three kilometers from Tucupita where we packed our gear into the bongo (long large canoe, in contrast to the short shallow draft "curido" with very little freeboard and high maneuverability). "Tunagua" was the name of our craft and we would get to know it well--if not on the eight hours downriver, certainly on the 11á hours return trip! Immediately on setting off into the slow muddy current of the Orinoco in its braided channels around mangrove islands with floating hyacinths islands coalescing and breaking apart in pushing Venezuela's coastline further out into the Atlantic, we began spotting birds. Despite previous birdwatching expeditions, many of these were new to Kurt and his quick reference to his two inseparable attachments--Zeiss binoculars and Venezuelan birdbook. The life list was expanded, by an additional twenty-three species by the time this trip was over, with an estimate of more than 125 new ones had the prior trip not already scored on those. By the time these magnificent colorful exotic birds are seen the second and third time "they become trash birds and it is time to move on to find others."
Because of our late start from our return trip for the fuel lines' repair, we were late in getting on the river. We made reasonable progress downstream with twin Yamaha outboards pushing us at a very fast rate, but 135 miles is a long way to travel by water. We stopped once or twice to see a couple of fishing huts along the way where we had picked up a "corvinetta", a large silvery white bass-appearing freshwater fish that hangs out along the mangroves, and a tiger-striped catfish for a later dinner. We also stopped to see, and also have Abelardo Lara call in with a light sighing sound, the "toninos"--freshwater porpoises.
As we went further downstream, the river broadened. This is one of many river channels, and the largest of them is called "Rio Grande" which certainly lives up to its name, as it goes south down toward Ciudad Bolivar and then on to Ciudad Guyana. Just beyond the latter town, the river is twenty-two kilometers wide! In part of the Rio Grande, there were navigation markers along major shipping channels and we saw one major ore boat coming up to Ciudad Bolivar where cerro Bolivar is the richest iron ore lode in Venezuela. This mountain would be a source of great wealth were it not mismanaged by government. Privatization plans were well under way when the minister in the government arranging the privatization and profitability was sacked, cutting off ferrous metals as a source of economic rescue in the current economic crisis.
Late takeoff, and long distances, despite high speed in our river travel meant sunset on the Rio Orinoco. This also meant that we were navigating blindly in the darkness of equatorial night for the latter third of our travel. Orion and the red star Betelgeuse were bright overhead with the myriad of the galaxies surrounding them. Venus was so bright that a shaft of light was seen on the surface on the wake behind us much as the full moon might cast in the northern hemisphere. There was no competing "light pollution" from the riverbank until very much later when we ran into isolated mission station outposts with their own generators. Twice I saw spectacular shooting star cascades and once a passing overhead satellite.
After sunset there was a chill from the air moving over us as we knifed through the black water. Once we struck some floating object hard enough to kick both outboards out of the water and cause some concern whether pins had been sheared and would need repair in the dark. Even in the Rio Grande, this would not be the kind of place one would wish to be disabled in transport, since rescue or even location would not be imminent. Twice heavy cumulus clouds towered overhead and then gushed rain against which we huddled while the Guaro Indian at the stern with Abelardo in the bow kept on navigating through the night. Three hours after dark we made a turn into one of the river's decussations as the great river split into multiple mouths headed to the Atlantic, and ahead we saw a very different star. In addition to the millions overhead, this one was placed at the top of mangrove trees very much as it is on an oak in Derwood at this time of year many latitudes away but for the same reason. We had arrived near the mission San Francisco Del Guayo. We were welcomed to Abelardo's house with his very competent crew headed by his wife who is an excellent cook in the stilt house built up over the muddy bank of mangroves protruding out into the river. The roof had been recently rethatched from a storm that tore off the last one three years ago, and this geometric wonder was amazingly watertight, which it had a chance to prove several times. In having a cup of coffee while stretched tangentially across the cinchoro swinging gently in the river breeze over the river, I was amazed to hear the familiar melody of Christmas carols in a language I did not recognize. To my even greater amazement, Guaroa and Japanese have many words in common! Abelardo explained some of the staple parts of the Guaroa's life such as their use of manioc as their starch staple and cassava with occasional variety from yucca. The diet is almost exclusively the starch of these yam-like new world root products and fish. I found out that fishing is not so much sport as on-demand food gathering by tying a baited hook around my toe from a handline tossed out in the river; when my toe twitched in the hammock awakening me, I was aware that catfish were moving.
I am not as good at cinchoro sports as Luis who has developed it to a fine art! He proved that on many occasions. The languid torpor of the pace of life took over very quickly, and seemed to be slow motion by night and by heat of midday with only movement around dawn and dusk.
And dawn was spectacular! As in all equatorial and tropical environments, the dawn birdsong made no necessity of the alarm clock I had thought I should set. If that were not enough to cause a stirring in a hammock, a sound that began like the whirring of a hand-cranked pump and then summed to the wind in the trees was later identified as the red monkey with punctuation by the howler monkey. Passing cuaridos, the graceful dugout canoes, were expertly paddled by even young children coming and going along the river branches. In addition to toninos, I was told there were manatees in these mangrove swamps but they are hard to see and usually nocturnal. I noted that Abelardo rarely talked to the group around the stilthouse in Spanish, but mainly used Guaroa, especially for the one individual that I identified as the "Penguino-equivalent". There was a diminutive Piraroa Indian at Yutaje along the Corocoro River who was occasionally the butt of many jokes and the packhorse for much of the burden assigned to him who used very little Spanish and not much Piraroa even when called upon. The Guaroa Indian that served this function and role in the Orinoco Delta was named "Burro". Then I was introduced to "Domingo Grande" and we worked out my request for a "color interview" with him. At first he was worried that this would involve some major invasive biopsy to satisfy this investigator from another planet, then he was mainly concerned with how many color discs there were after pausing long and hard and trying to think of the name of a few of these colors, passing on them and feeling quite embarrassed by his ignorance when he could not name them. One of his Guaroa mates, I tried to interview later, a cassava gatherer, was so embarrassed and upset after thinking so hard over the first several colors and just not knowing what the names of several subsequent ones were, that he withdrew slowly and then vanished, dropping down into his curiado, with the cassava roots that he paddled downriver.
In addition to this anthropologic investigation, birdwatching was as complicated as looking out from the hammock at the Caciquerie that were singing, chirping and squawking all around us or the green-winged macaw that would perch on the hammock cords or peck at buttons. Pairs of squawking Guacamayas--the scarlet-winged macaws--would screech overhead and preen themselves on the top of mangroves catching the morning sun.
After a hardy breakfast, we set off in curiados paddled by one Guaroa guide for each through the small channels in and around mangrove islands to see spectacular iridescent blue Morpho butterflies, a white-tailed trogon, large snails that laid clusters of eggs just above the waterline on the mangrove roots and hear lots of birdsong overhead as we paddled around the shallow muddy channels in a maze that the Guaroa alone knew. Cacao was in spectacular flower and the hyacinths were in bloom along the way. We met a squatter farmer who had worked an ingenious system of dikes and automatic irrigation by simply squatting on a small mangrove island and clearing it. He spoke Portuguese, English and little Spanish, but was not a Guaroa Indian, and as a consequence, he was having some difficulty with the territory political structure who were not eager to have him continue and expand his self-sufficient industrious efforts. He proudly showed us his agricultural achievements and then knocked down several fruits that we had not previously seen or tasted, using a long pole to do so, and sent one of the Guaroa Indians up a nearby palm tree to crack coconuts for the milk and pulp which he gladly shared with us in his hospitality and bid us good day as we moved on in our curiados.
After the heat of the day had passed, we went to the San Francisco Del Guayo mission. Two or three residential nuns had carefully kept it clean and tidy, and in total nonfunction. There had been no money for over four years, and the school and other functions of the mission had closed down with the exception of the small clinic at which Luis and I made brief rounds. While Kurt wondered off on his own, attracting more stares than he produced through his binoculars, Luis and I went through the stilt village of San Francisco Del Guayo and observed the communal living of those Indians who had built elevated platforms connecting three systems of houses. The first is over the river and is quite public where a family lives, cooks, eats, connected to a platform in the rear in which hammocks are suspended with stone and mud fire rings between them in a communal living arrangement where young boys were on one side and young girls were on the other and all others were mixed. Further behind along the elevated stilt platforms is a third set of "taboo houses" where menstruating women or those about to deliver are housed. We did not enter them, nor did other males; it was seen that there was an intact midwifery system looking in on them. There were not very many women of reproducible age that were not actively reproducing, it seems, since the typical family had dozens of children surrounding one or two women. Young girls looked very pretty and colorful, but they got to look quite old quite soon. The mission had installed a generator, and there were wires strung between the huts. At one point I was warned "cuidado!" I looked to see what was being pointed out and they added, "Coriente" and I noted that there was a bare copper wire, that when curled forward would make contact with another, and this was the switch that delivered electricity for light into the hut. In this somewhat primitive circumstance, (surely being a violation of some housing code even in Delta Amacuro) there was the ubiquitous presence of the Japanese byproduct of worldwide sound pollution--the boombox! It was lying in a circle of litter of flashlight batteries that had been used to power it, presumably when the "electric switch" was not connected. In this very colorful and quite authentic setting in which I felt at first a bit like a voyeur, and then a curiosity in my own right which was rather entertaining to these people who were clustered around in the rather regular routine of every indistinguishable day's activities, I took lots of photographs, first from the hip, then even with fill-in flash for the darkened interiors of the huts with the spectacular sunset over the Orinoco as backdrop. Only a few of the younger men seemed to have been aculturated to the idea of tourists to the degree of asking for money, although quite a number of artisans were producing things for their own consumption such as the cinchoros or weavings and patterns that looked like "tapa cloth" from the South Pacific, or very tightly woven baskets that were intricate in design. Luis Ayala has a very extensive indigenous basketry collection from the Amazonas and Gran Sabana Indian groups, and added several to his collection. At one point I had been offered some beaded necklaces, first for sale, and then was given one as a gift. Luis had purchased one for me as a gift which sported cayman teeth--so that I may look every bit as authentic as Crocodile Dundee! As the sun had set and it was dark there were flickering torches; in this eerie twilight I heard a sound that sounded like an antiphonal chant, and I came into the rear of the San Franciscan chapel for evensong with my tape recorder running.
I had tried to learn a bit of the Guaroa language and knew some minimal phrases by the time of my leaving. The small dugout canoe is the curiado in Spanish, but the guvavaca in Guaroa and the small paddle is the dancaulete in Spanish, but jajaga in Guaroa. I was told that the Guaroa language had been written since the mission activities here began some seventy years ago and a Bible at least in New Testament form had been written in the language but none could be produced for me. It was mainly an oral tradition with little need for the written word since there were few of the people around me who could read in any language and none that could write.
After a very good dinner with plantains, yucca and several ingenious ways to fix various cuts of the catfish which seemed to be the staple, we had a pantort dessert and went out into the night with my headlight in the curiado to see what could be found along the mangrove channels. The experience was not as bone-chilling for Kurt on this occasion as the lapa hunt was on the Corocoro River in February, possibly because that was his first time to ever be confronted by the immensity of the palpable blackness of the riverine rain forest at night and the explosion of sounds and the bioluninesence around. We saw and heard less life on this brief excursion and called it a success when we flushed one cayman of indeterminant size from the mangrove banks.
After an all night rain the dawn birdsong was delayed while the rain continued. Tendrils of mist rose from the river as the curiados glided through it in ghostly fashion again with a star suspended over the fog reminding us in this exotic environment that it was Christmas. After the birdsong had returned when the rain stopped, I heard a battery-operated radio jingling something about a "one-horse open sleigh"--hard to translate under these circumstances through any language.
And very like the Thai people whom I considered "amphibian" as they live along the klongs in a similar delta of the Mekong River, the morning ablutions begin when the Guaroa Indians walk down the notched log from their stilt houses into the river fully clothed and lather up pouring water over their heads from plastic buckets that are tossed from the platforms on ropes to draw water. Women are seen cleaning fish on the log quays as men poke along with very ancient rusted out scales for metering out cassava: "honest weight, no springs". As I looked over from the hammock and saw the dugout canoes silhouetted against the sunrise following the rainclouds, an "arco iris" double arched over the river framing the scene as Guacamayas screeched and preened in the dawn slanting rays flashing colors that were too bright to be natural. Kurt was set off in a curiado with a Guaroa guide to find a cleared space to sit and watch for birds which was the sum total of the rest of his day. We headed out in "Tunagua" (which was the name of the boat) to explore the mangroves for several scarlet ibis rookeries which we encountered. We returned to a muddy beach where a fishing camp was located, and the Guaroa Indians were there cleaning fish and mending nets with the women of the group sitting on their raised platforms grilling cut sections of catfish over attended fires and boiling the yam products in an endlessly repetitive daily sameness. I thought that this was an art so well practiced they didn't have to look to see it done, since they were staring at me. One woman with seven children looking like they ranged in age from zero to six had suspended most of them in hammocks which wiggled and swung in the breeze as she poked about in this less than "gold star sanitation rating" food preparation, as another girl looking to be early teenage was beating wet clothes with a wooden mallet. Pigs would come to swill the laundry slop and she would regularly beat twice on the clothes and once on the pig to the accompaniment of great squealings, without so much as cracking a smile or recognizing this as anything other than one of the natural rhythms of life. Some very hungry looking and mangy dogs ranged very close to pick up what scraps the pigs hadn't already foraged. I had taken several photographs when one of the children, whom I recognized to be retarded, with strabismus and scoliosis, began to cry. I apologized saying, "Lo siento," and trying to be somewhat soothing, before I realized that no one in camp except two of the fisherman spoke Spanish. One of these had been to the mission and the other had been upriver to Tucupita, so they knew the world. While being somewhat depressed by the simple sameness by their everyday lives in this environment with the big event of their three or four months' encampment on this sandbar being our visit, I suddenly realized that the lunch that was being prepared was ours! Despite the recognition of the circumstances of its preparation, I will have to say that it was very good, and also that I was happy that Kurt missed it--as the author he has contracted to write his preventive medicine textbook!
If I were to subtitle the impressions from my cruise from the mangrove deltas into the Orinoco River mouths as they enter the Atlantic I would entitle it "Flashes of Color in the Flooded Forest". There was no ground to the islands. Fish were swimming where birds had been at low water point, and the scarlet ibis would flare and wheel over fluttering iridescent blue morphos. Golf ball like fruits and acorn like seeds would drop into the water where they would be audibly munched by fish that would feed on them like trout rising to a dry fly. Beneath the platform of the fishermen's stilt house where the nets were being mended, doleful eyes were staring at me from several locations. I recognized the "mud skippers." They would race back and forth as the water lapped up or down the mud bank and would dash away when a passing pig or dog came too close. In one of the houses on stilts there was a large sow lying beneath the floor suckling a dozen noisy piglets while on the platform above a woman in a hammock had a baby attached to each breast. Along the roofline two dozen black vultures huddled as the passing rain squall pelted them looking very annoyed as water dripped off their scowling beaks. Behind the hut was a rack on which there was drying fish and cassava, the two staple elements of the sameness in diet, activity, and daily life--a mind-numbing experience, even for the brief interlude of a foreign visitor.
There is no school here since the mission closed its rudimentary school function four years ago, and the government school teachers had been on strike during the one later interval when public schools were supposed to substitute. None of the women spoke Spanish, none of the men or women could read, and only one of the men counted, when the Bolivares were given him for the lunch they had prepared. We had come in as outsiders, and had taken the best they had, and returned very little; I had carried away with me very distinctive images, a full tape, and lots of photographs--most with the impression of a depressing torpor with a slow death of human potential in a simple, relatively easy, and not very stimulating daily routine. The beadwork, basket weaving, net and hammock making were the highest cultural achievements I could see, and although I had admired them and congratulated them, they were accepted as just another part of the daily utensils. When we had finished eating, scrawny dogs and chickens cleaned the scraps.
Murako was a very well organized and highly authentic Guaroa Indian native village. The highly organized community was over five hundred in number, and they were all sitting in their various aggregations by gender and age while the taro, yucca and cassava was being prepared for the late evening meal. In this group, several artisans offered their handicrafts. Luis and I were also called upon to treat a woman who had diarrhea and was quite dehydrated sitting in her hammock. The medical kit that we had carried in Tunagua had some quinalones in it and we distributed those to her and her immediate family who were similarly affected. At that point, there was a realization that there were a couple of doctors around, and other complaints surfaced and we had to examine some fairly chronic and non-specific illnesses.
There was a brief flurry of--should we say "local interest"--when two dogs were stuck together and could not be pried apart by the small children who were trying to separate them. This action seemed to attract other male dogs who tried to get in on the fray, not recognizing that the problem could probably be best described as "lock out"--probably the most education the kids had had.
I saw extended family groupings, lots of children, pregnant teenagers with a group of little kids who were very heavily affected by scabies, some who were obviously anemic, and one remarkable house with hammocks that seemed to be tended by young girls that looked like an elder hostel. There was a group of young men who were actively engaged in a work contract group that were putting up new wooden pilings and platforms around the group housing. The gray pasty taro that I have seen in the South Pacific is called "Akuma China" recognizing that it seems to be a staple in other oriental areas.
When I had bought a couple of reed basket-like handicrafts for what came up to about $5.00, I asked how long it took to make them. I was told four weeks work. I asked the same question about the dugout curiado, and was told, "It is hard to say, since they work when they want to, and then sit back for weeks until they feel like it again."
One of the unique things that I saw when I was walking through Murako was a young man who separated himself from the crowd and walked over to me very intently observing something that had struck his attention. Dangling from my shoulder is a Nikon camera with a 200 mm telephoto zoom lens, on the opposite shoulder is a camera loaded with print film and a tape recorder and he ignored all this technology to zero in on my left wrist to look intently at my wristwatch. He wanted to know what the little symbols on it meant and how I could play it. He expected some music to come from it, and had I had time to set the alarm in such a way as to trigger a program I might have been able to entertain him. However, I thought it might be worthwhile to do so by playing back a bit of tape for him, and then I realized that I was standing in the middle of a crowd of a hundred onlookers and didn't want to cause a collapse of the pilings beneath us! I had previously packed up several watches to go to Africa, and could have used a few here in Venezuela.
If "getting there was half the fun" returning was "double the pleasure"--or at least the adventure! In fact, at several points the standard response could be made "I've enjoyed about as much of this as I can stand!" The boat ride upriver seemed to take forever, since one of the engines had been cannibalized by the other of Abelardo's boats. So we had one fewer engine, and a greater number of craft to push upriver. This meant there was insufficient fuel, and we went on a gasoline search that took half of the trip, at every point along the way stopping where a barrel was displayed on the river bank and finding that "Yes, there was no fuel!" Along the way, Kurt called out for a stop which was occasioned on one instance by an "Aruca" also known as a "horned screamer" here seen in pairs. A real triumph came when we saw a "Rufous crabhawk", a very rare bird which we not only saw but I photographed through the telephoto lens. Another high point for some of us and a low point for one of us was when Kurt jumped to the front of the boat onto what he thought to be a reasonably stable stony beach along the mangroves and sank immediately into soft unstable mud, getting mired down at some great concern. When it was all over, we had suggested that at least he could recover with a beer or two, since he was a rather continuous consumer of the "Polar" which somehow we never ran out of, but not for failure of good tries at drying up the stock. What was humorous, in retrospect, was that Kurt's sinking into the mud on the banks of the Orinoco is exactly what had happened to Luis when he had jumped into a boggy bank on the Assawoman Bay when he had come up visiting me in duck hunting a decade ago. Each experience was considerably more funny in retrospect. I also pointed out that the endless futile search for fuel was very much like the continuing Jeep failures encountered on Cumberland Island a month ago. Each was repeated in another experience such as an all night search for a housing in the coastal range near Caripe Bay a few days later.
As we pulled up along a sandy beach to await the search for fuel, we looked back and saw a large storm cell coming up the Orinoco. The sun was setting spectacularly in the west as the storm was rising in the east rolling up in an audible rush. With his pilot's eye, Luis estimated the top of the cell at 17,000 feet, and the bottom of it right at the river line. We quickly pulled the tarp over the awning of the boat, and hunkered down, possibly getting ready ten seconds before the storm hit. The combination of the howling rainstorm and the sunset made for a spectacular experience in sound and light. We huddled in one corner while the wind and rain lashed, drenching us despite the jury-rigged shelter. After the rain, come the mosquitoes. Dark quiet corners out of the wind attracted swarms of mosquitoes which clustered as we cowered before them. There was no choice at this point but to put back into the river and drive into the wind with the rain still lashing. I got chilled out in this process, and in the dark and continuing driving upriver to complete the 11á hours to San Salvador's river bank, the return trip wore out some part of its charm. Kurt was also wet and drowsy huddled in a corner as we ploughed through the dark night until we touched up against another boat that had tarps lashed over it and four men sleeping on top of the tarps. The moment we touched the boat, squeals and screams erupted, and Kurt "lost it!" The squeals and screams came from a boatload of pigs that the men were guarding by sleeping on top of the tarps, preferring the lashing of wind and rain to the effluvia from the source of the squeals beneath the tarp. They returned the compliment in great chorus--"O.K.", asked Kurt, "is this extreme enough travel for you?" " Only if you made this 11á hour trip upriver with the pigs!", I responded.
We got taxied over to the hotel Saxxi in Tucupita, one of the several new hotels in town, in which--to the best of my calculations--we were the paying customers that night. We all needed hot showers very badly to cut through the chill, and I started feeling more and more under the weather and decided to take a 24 hour holiday from eating, which started with the non-dinner for which I joined the rest of the group as camouflaged government security officers came in to the little restaurant to exchange large boxes wrapped in red and green Christmas decorations. We were handed very large and generous menus, but none of the items on the menus, of course, were available, so a simple request was made for coffee. "Yes, we have none of that, too."
In the morning, we could walk over from the hotel's room to see the "isla de la Fantasia" in the Rio Cocuina, a branch of the Orinoco on the outskirts of Tucupita. Briskly floating islands of hyacinths were rushing downstream and exotic raptors could be seen in flight from the river banks. We packed up by dawn, and packed the plane right next to the jaguar, wishing him and the Delta Amacuro farewell as we took off for an hour and a half flight to the next venue for a unique view of the special ecology of the coastal mountain range in Monagas state.
The Terrain to Caripe Bay in Monagas State and the Guacharo Hills
Upon arrival in the mountain town of Maturin, we set out trying to rent a vehicle. We were taken from a place where they had a very large display; we could choose from two cars, one was broken down and the other had been in an accident. We then went on to a Budget rental agency and had a whole garageful of vehicles to choose from. We chose a big full-sized Bronco out in front, gleaming with new wax and glistening in the hot sun with its black enamel and tinted windows. After getting all of our equipment loaded into it, its only trouble was that it could not start. There was another Bronco and, this one could start. Although not perfect, that was a better beginning, and we did get out of town while Luis managed not only to fly the plane that morning but drive the Bronco all afternoon. After an all day bumpy ride up the Orinoco in conditions varying from blazing heat to windchill while drenched and shivering, the roar of engines from boats, planes and Broncos in my ears, bouncing around in the back seat of the Bronco up 1,400 meters left me with motion sickness which dampened my excursions somewhat the rest of the day. However, it had not stopped me from wanting me to see the local attraction in the area of Caripe Bay which is the Cerro Guacharo Caves. First explored by Humboldt in 1799 they were known to contain the unique species of birds called the Guacharo bird or oil bird. These fed on a special variety of avocado and other fruits. The birds fed on these by night and returned to the cave at dawn and leaving as faithfully as Old Faithful can be timed back to the park at around 7:00 pm with a lot of raucous screaming.
We heard that melodious strident sound as we toured the cave. We saw the elaborate stalagmite/stalactite formations with the columns adjoining, found the areas that were imaginatively named after the figures they were seen to represent. Rats were seen scurrying on the floor of the cave and blind cave crickets were springing all about. But most noticeable was the roof of the cave with ledges on which perched the large and very noisy oil birds. Because of their diet rich in the vegetable oils of the avocado and other food products they ate, the young especially were very heavily laden with lipid, so much so that the Indians that lived here used the oil birds as torches. After we had toured the Guacharo Caves, we got back in the Bronco as Kurt wandered off to see what he could see in the Phelps ornithology park; he reported that he had "spied" several new species, which I hope he did since he missed the good show inside the cave. He had never thought he would see birds as exotic as the oil bird, but once he had seen one of those, the rest "become like trash birds". While he was out looking for new birds such as the resplendent green jay that also flies around the mouth of the cave, we trolled back and forth on the mountain roads to find a place for the evening. When the organization here called "Bellermann Cabanas" had been asked if reservations were necessary, they said, oh no, especially not in the middle of the week. To the contraire! Not only were they filled up, they were pushing into service those private houses that usually would accommodate a large family. So, we did so! Renting a large house with many facilities does not mean there are several basic necessities also available such as running water. We had to give up the first house despite its very spectacular setting on the edge of the mountain overlooking the very large valley of Caripe Bay. We went back to the Bellermann Cabanas explaining that we could not live in a house without water, so another house was made available to us which was even bigger and looked like a good place to throw a party for all the friends we could muster. I was not really up to partying, but what I would have liked would have been a hot shower. There was water in this house--just no hot water! We were about a day late on most of our transactions, and overcoming some of these little adversities was at least half the fun.
We retreated to the caves again, in time for the 7:00 show. In this event the birds edged close to the mouth of the cave and then began squawking and carrying on until they began flying out. We stayed through about 300 birds exiting, although at the peak of the season there are 25,000 oil birds resident in the caves.
The following morning we went around looking for the artisan who had done some original work. We tasted rose wine and Luis bought some rose marmalade. We drove over roads that were layered in spread out coffee beans to dry in the sun. After going through villages consisting of very much similar housing on the standard plan that had been made for the subsidized housing in Venezuela, we headed back to the Guacharo Caves. There we went through the museum of Alejandro de Humboldt, the explorer of South America who spent five years looking into such matters such as the current that carries his name along the Pacific coast and this Guacharo Cave. He also climbed Mt. Chimbarazo in Ecuador, which at that time was thought to be the tallest mountain peak in the world. Despite great hardships he encountered, he not only achieved the summit but also made scientific measurements. His interest spanned geology, natural history, pharmacy and medicine and much of the wonders that could be discovered in South America where they were his for the plucking in this early exploration--and one of these early findings and inquiries was into the wonders of the Guacharo Caves. Much as he had traveled with some friends with whom he exchanged views and was stimulated into new ones of his own, our small working party of explorers continued on the same exchange. Luis has begun ventures in horticulture in a small farm near Caracas, aquaculture in a shrimp growing industry that is entirely self-sustaining and vertically integrated called "Aquacam" and even attempted exploration of adventure travel in ecotourism--for which I suspect I have been a model along which he may expand in future in carrying others to various parts of this magnificent nation with all of its natural wonders. There is still much to be explored and discovered, since Humboldt two centuries ago did not find the last of it, and with a little help from our friends, there is still more to be shared!
Luis very efficiently flew us the two hours back from Maturín, Monagas state to Caracas, distrito federal. We camped back inside the Caracas Hilton, and went out to dinner to wrap up our exploration adventures and regroup for what comes next. I hope Luis will be joining me in Africa, and will return to the Cumberland and Assabow Islands next year as we work on still further adventures including an exploration of Papua New Guinea and its tropical rain forests. My departure for the Dark continent is imminent. His worries about the darkening future of the Venezuelan economy appear to be turning out even more so, so we are all positioning ourselves for the shock of changes in multiple spheres through which we move. We had our parting dinner and clearance of the expenses of this trip and the projection of the prospects of the next one at La Gran Charolais and said our farewells.
The next is not a pretty picture. The efficiency of a return to commercial airtraffic through smoothly arranged international connections to destinations that were clearly labeled where vehicles were awaited and luggage was checked through and to, completely fell apart, due in no small part to the inefficiencies in the Caracas system and two disasters that befell American Airlines, and which they--in their generosity--passed fully along to me. In turning in at the Caracas Hilton on Wednesday night late to get up early to fight the redundant "formalities" of Maquitea, we made the mistake of flipping on CNN as the first bulletins arrived that an American Airlines 757 bounced from Miami to Cali, Columbia, and crashed in the Andes with one eye witness seeing the fireball and no word from rescuers who would be entering the search area in no less than four or more hours to investigate. The telephone message from American Airlines would not allow reconfirmation by phone except during normal business hours, so I scrambled to do that first thing in the morning and suspended the George Washington University flag for the labeling of all the places it had been flown and been photographed during this trip with many more to be following in the 175th anniversary celebration during which I am carrying it through global remote spots as a courier to "raise the flag". After the reconfirmation we took off with a very unusual interval before flight--we got to Maquitea airport and paid the departure tax by standing in the first of eight consecutive queues, each of which were separated by gate changes, delays, confusion, and misinformation. Despite a five hour headstart, we were almost on time for what would have been departure had the aircraft not arrived some hour or more late, making the connection in doubt. When finally we did get seated, all in seats that had been reassigned, a struggle that was launched for vacant seats, we flew in to San Juan International airport by commercial flight fifteen minutes before the connecting flight to BWI was supposed to leave. "Not to worry, all flights have been delayed." "Right!"
I had to claim the checked-through bag in order to declare it through customs, where I was carrying one of the three carryon bags that Kurt had brought; he went on to the gate. He boarded the flight to BWI which was not held at all, as I hurriedly passed through the bag which was the last one off the conveyer belt. I arrived as they closed the aircraft door and they would not reopen it. For an annoying twenty-five minutes the flight stood at the gate while I was told that there was no way that I could get to Baltimore or Washington within the next 24 hours, and my choice was to stay in a hotel in San Juan or take a flight to Miami and stay there for what was called "overnight". A flight would be leaving at 9:15 which would take me to Miami for a hotel which would get me a voucher, prepared for a 7:00 am takeoff that would go to National Airport. They did not reopen the gate nor the door of the aircraft to let me on, but they did reopen the baggage to pull my bag from the flight, for reasons that are obscure to me, and brought it back down to customs. They also reported that my friend on board was "carry on", and if they reopened the door, it would be to eject him. Having gone through customs in San Juan, the rule states that because of being overnight I had a chance to go through customs once again in Miami--the only advantage for the shuttling through San Juan had been to avoid the Miami crunch. On perhaps the densest day of my year so far, the Friday in which I had to secure the final visas, prepare whatever I would be sending forward on charter, and do all the usual "re-entry" chores, and prepare for the departure imminently after Christmas--not to mention the preparations for the interval between with family coming to visit and friends coming to say farewell--I am cut short this one vital day. So, therefore, I have to take the option of going up to Miami to overnight there for early departure. Right!
The next set of bad news is that the airbus coming down from Boston to San Juan is delayed for mechanical reasons and therefore is several hours late. This will put the return trip to Miami into arrival there several hours after midnight which will be about the right time to start trying to get the bag through customs to board the Washington flight. I then get to fly out to Washington, D.C. wearing my tropical outfit in winter going directly to the office with none of the re-entry chores accomplished and rather poorly equipped to stand by in the cold of the Metro stop to get my way to Derwood on my own lugging a bag that I had hoped was checked through to Baltimore. As this report is concluded, I remember someone saying that most of the adventures that were reported by others that had happened to me were probably exaggerations, since travel is really quite easy, and it is all automated in any event. Kurt Johnson might have said something like that at one time,--but he no longer does. If anyone would like to take over this component of the smooth, easy connecting, user-friendly commercial flight service, I will continue in dugout canoes, Luis Ayala's carefully managed light twin aircraft, my mountain climbing boots, running shoes, and various conveniences that I have found far more user-friendly than the mad melee of the human crush hurtled into the great global common denominator of international airports.
Travel is so broadening and such fun. But, Sir Thomas Browne had it right! You go abroad to seek that which is within, and some of those resources that are discovered along with the patience and the infinite thresholds for frustration that are stretched include the ability to accommodate and adapt to such things as the crazy currency fluctuations, mismanaged economy, the absurdities of many "formalities" regarding sovereign states and their imposed self-important regulations, and all the classic "impedimenta"--what a wonderful word! But one of the things that comes from travel experience is the stripping of a considerable amount of baggage. Once in awhile when I think I have not accumulated enough things, baggage goes astray, is lost,--sometimes permanently, often deliberately by intent of others--and I am reminded of how little I need in the way of things. Then I encounter people who have few things, yet whose lives are somewhat impoverished not for lack of those extra things but of problems arising, from lost potential and realization of some parts of their untapped capacities--such as the Guaroa in at least some of my encounters along the Orinoco River banks. Then, again, all Africa and its prodigies can be summoned up in the resources within--whether from a week in a tropical rain forest river delta or a year in remote African venues trying to adapt to scarcity and want, learning to consume less and enjoy it more. Sir Thomas Browne has helped add some of the "flashes of color in the flooded forest."
Dr. Rosemary Sulkas
Department of Environmental Occupational Health
George Washington University
Dear Rosie;
I know you enjoy taking a ride with me along some of these explorations and this will help in the green university as well. I am "carrying the flag" for the GWU 175th anniversary, and a return to the Amazon system in the Orinoco Delta. I thought you might enjoy what you see enclosed.
I am abroad as you read this and will be returning sometime in late summer, and will have more stories to tell from far flung and remote corners of adaptation.
I will try to keep in touch and you have my email and other World Wide Web connectivity.
Yours very truly,
Glenn W. Geelhoed, MD, FACS
Professor of Surgery
Professor of International Medical Education
Elizabeth Wells
Department of Biology
George Washington University
Dear Beth,
I know that you enjoyed my prior excursions into the untouched Tepuys in Amazonas state. At a time when I could scarcely afford it, but could hardly resist it, I had flown down to the Orinoco Delta and explored further in eastern Venezuela in very unusual ecosystems. I hope you enjoy a copy of the report attached.
As you read it, I'll be further afield in the remote areas of southern Africa. I will return in late summer, and might put together a program very similar to one that you had seen on my exploration of Amazonas for the Orinoco Delta system.
You have my email addresses and connectivity with World Wide Web and I will be carrying the GWU flag for the 175th anniversary celebration when it flutters over various remote spots on earth. I'll check back in with you, and you will keep up the green University work!
Yours very truly,
Glenn W. Geelhoed, MD, FACS
Professor of Surgery, Professor of International Medical Education
Dr. Robert MacLaury
Department of Anthropology
Building X
2150 I Street
George Washington University
Dear Rob;
Enclosed find a report of my recent exploration of the Orinoco Delta. The centerpiece for my work was going to be the color interviews, and I accomplished one in entirety and a good one it was. However, when I encountered a few others, they were quite spooked out by the idea that they first thought long and hard and could not come up with the color, then felt embarrassed, then so acutely uncomfortable they would simply fade away! A couple of them, who had never had a scheduled event of any kind in their lives, felt some pressing activity to be engaged in somewhere else when they realized that they may be called upon to do something that would have some reflection upon their intelligence and they didn't want to be embarrassed.
I found this a challenging way but also a fun one to communicate across languages in which they didn't even share a few Spanish words with me in some instances. My latter incomplete interviews were helpful to me in learning how to avoid this and put people at ease with respect to the remote African regions where I will be carrying the kit and adapting it further.
I hope that the information enclosed will be helpful to you, and I thought the report would be enjoyable on the Orinoco Delta ecosystems or the relatively isolated and untouched population for my model for the next groups I will be encountering in Africa, where I will be when you read this.
You have my email and World Wide Web access for connectivity, and I'll keep on checking back.
Yours very truly,
Glenn W. Geelhoed, MD, FACS
Professor of Surgery
Professor of International
Medical Education
Luis A Ayala, M.D.
Aerocab # 1234
P.O. Box 02-5304
Miami FL 53102-5304
Dear Luis;
I hope that you received a letter from my be now, and certainly a post card expressing my thanks for the wonderful opportunity that we shared together. As always, the greatest pleasure of the company was its shared component, even though the wonders of the natural world around us are truly astounding, the pleasures are compounded as they are being explored together.
I want to thank you so much for the experiences that you have made possible for me and the gratitude that I have in opening up new worlds in your wonderful nation to the continued exploration. I know that things are hard and getting harder in Venezuela--as they really are in the U.S. at a minimum and in Africa as a maximum. Nonetheless, this is the life that we have and we could well use the opportunity that we have at hand rather than awaiting changes outside us while changes within us may not be anymore positive than those of the Venezuelan economy!
I hope you enjoy a copy of the report attached. You have the complete addresses and emails connectivity as I am traveling, and I hope to be able to share with you many of the experiences of Africa, possibly in Papau New Guinea, and as immediately as you can see fit for my return to Venezuela to learn more. If the year-end letter has not included much about Orinoco Delta exploration, it was that it was written long before we did it, but I will be sure that you will be intrigued by the component that had to do with our Tepuy exploration in Amazonas. As always, Hermano, I am thinking of you and wishing you well. Keep the faith, and keep in touch!
Yours very truly,
Glenn W. Geelhoed, MD, FACS
Professor of Surgery
Professor of International
Medical Education
Kurt Johnson
J & S Publishing
1300 Bishop Lane
Alexandria VA 22302
Dear Kurt;
Aha! You thought just because I was on another continent I could not strike back!
Enclosed find evidence of the fact that this is not the case! During the long delay and all night vigil that I had to put in in any event while waiting for the inefficiencies of airline connections that were thoroughly gubbered up in Venezuela from the start, I at least tried to put together the report at the end of this trip before the re-entry crush of activities for which I needed the precious day that was wasted by the airline misconnections. However, I will be off in other places exploring using the same models that we have already tentatively proved in South America.
I hope you enjoy the enclosed report and can tell me whether it matches your text chapters anticipation in "extreme travel".
You know where to find me!
Yours very truly,
Glenn W. Geelhoed, MD, FACS
Professor of Surgery
Professor of International
Medical Education
Martheen Griffioen
6061 South Archer Avenue
Chicago IL 60038
Dear Martheen and Family;
Since I am already in and around the Dark Continent and have no immediate capacity to communicate back, I am leaving behind a report that I have just finished while being stranded through airline misconnections on return from Venezuela. The very precious interval of my day to get all last minute details between trips completed has been forclosed by the inefficiencies of multiple mishaps--none of them as presumably bad as the one that occurred on the flight through this same airline shortly before this take-off.
I am sorry to have your delay also in the year-end review letter, but I hope you have received that also by now. This should be a sequel that will explain more fully the adventures in the Orinoco Delta and what these activities were like, perhaps as a model for those further kinds of explorations that will be undertaken in Africa.
Happy New Year to you all!
Yours very truly,
Glenn
Robert G. Matthews, M.D.
11907 Oakshire Lane
Fairfax Station VA 26239
Dear Bob and Family;
Happy New Year! I hope you have not been disappointed in the delay in my annual year-end letter, which was not my intent. Neither was it my intent to be staggering back from my Orinoco Delta exploration through multiple disconnections of airlines--presumably none of them as bad as the one that occurred a few hours before this flight took off in the same airline in the same continent!
I wanted you to have some light reading to start your year assuming that the review of 1995 has already arrived and is already history in having been passed along to other chunks of the family if they are interested in following up on last year's missive.
By the time you receive this I will no doubt be poking around in the Dark Continent exploring places that you had already been, using the model of some of those techniques that I had just employed in the Orinoco Delta.
Enjoy the shared trip!
Yours very truly,
Glenn W. Geelhoed, M.D.
Ralph Blocksma, M.D.
Cypress Village Apartment A 725
9600 Middleton Park Circle E
Jacksonville FL 32224
Dear Ralph;
I am sitting in American Airlines Airbus reading a copy of a very simplified review of the British Virgin Islands as though they have just been discovered. It reminds me that I will not be there to rediscover them with you this February, and as you read this I will already be deep inside another continent looking around to find what I can learn. I hope by this time you have received my year-end letter even if delayed in its transcript while I took off for an exploration of the Orinoco Delta. And following that, please find a report that may be of interest to you and will supply light reading as your take off to Tortula this year!
Happy New Year to you!
Yours very truly,
Glenn W. Geelhoed, M.D.
Keith Carr
Legg Mason
1747 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington D.C. 20006
December 22, 1995
Dear Keith;
I hope you have received my year-end letter even if delayed so that you would have some light reading after the holidays. As you read this I am exploring another continent, but wanted to make sure I left behind something that would furnish you some reading material along with the long winter nights. It was great fun, once again, and even had a chance to learn a few things along the way!
Yours very truly,
Glenn W. Geelhoed, MD, FACS
Professor of Surgery
Professor of International
Medical Education
Reg Franchiose
1321 Clayton # 7
Denver CO 80206
December 22, 1995
Dear Reg;
Hope you have received my year-end letter even if delayed. You know where I am and how to reach me.
As I am now leaving from South America, in a very much disconnected and delayed flight, I have used up the window of the brief day when I had hoped to get lots of things done. Therefore I am leaving behind me a report on the Orinoco Delta exploration that would be good fun for you to read in the interval while thinking of Africa.
Happy New Year!!
Yours very truly,
Glenn W. Geelhoed, MD, FACS
Professor of Surgery
Professor of International
Medical Education
Bonnie Geelhood
1735 Washington Apt F-18
Fulton CA 92324
December 22, 1995
Dear Bonnie;
You know where to find me and know where I am! Although I may be a long way away in a Dark Continent, on the way back from a very disconnected and further delaying series of airline flubs from South America, I am preparing a report that I will leave behind to give you some light reading material between your examination reviews.
Happy New Year to you!
Yours very truly,
Glenn W. Geelhoed, MD, FACS
Professor of Surgery
Professor of International
Medical Education
Michael Geelhoed
9039 Welles Way
San Antonio TX 78240
December 22, 1995
Dear Michael;
I am headed back to Washington by a very secuitous route where I will be seeing you very shortly. In a very much late fashion, this will reach you and I thought it would be fun for you since you have explored other parts of Venezuela with me along with Luis. This will be a supplement to the year-end letter which I hope you have received as well even if delayed.
Happy New Year to You!
Dad
Ivo Garrido
Hospital Centrale Maputo
Caixa Postal 1164
Maputo Mozambique
December 22, 1995
Dear Ivo;
I am enroute back from South America through a vanishing interval during which I had hoped to lots of last minute preparations. However, I thought I might summarize my exploration of the Orinoco Delta and forward that to you even in my presence in Africa whild this is being prepared in another continent away. I hope to do some similar exploration with you and to share this experience in all its richness that I look forward to so much.
Yours very truly,
Glenn W. Geelhoed, MD, FACS
Professor of Surgery
Professor of International
Medical Education
Donald W. Geelhoed
P.O. Box 5231
4725 NW Terrace 28
Gainesville FL 32605
December 22, 1995
Dear Donald;
I'm sorry I was unable to see you during the Christmas holidays nor before in our Cumberland expedition. However, I hope that you have received by now the year-end review letter to which this is a supplement.
Since you have been in Venezuela with me and explored with Luis and me some of the wonders of that area, I thought you might enjoy this report on my Orinoco Delta expedition.
Happy New Year to You!!
Your Dad
Colleen M. Kigin
321 Nahant Road
Nahant MA 01908
December 22, 1995
Dear Colleen;
Who says that remote control is a figment of imagination! I am suffering the very real and not imagined disconnections of American Airlines misfortunes by which have completely absorbed the interval day that I had hoped to accomplish all of my interval business on return from South America. However, the mishaps of my misconnections are not quite as significant as those of others suffered on the same airline a few hours before this takeoff in the same continent!
I thought you might enjoy a review of my experiences in the Delta of the Orinoco which I have prepared before leaving and hope that it may arrive as a supplement to your similarly delayed year-end review letter.
Happy New Year!
Yours very truly,
Glenn W. Geelhoed, MD, FACS
Professor of Surgery
Professor of International
Medical Education