South America - Clean Breaks: 500 New Ways to See the World - page 258

venture in the north, near the Caribbean coast,
takes you on a joyride down torrents of snowmelt
from the world's tallest coastal mountain range,
the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.
After spending several years living with the
indigenous Koguis people and poor communities
of this area, anthropologist Fernando Tovar
encouraged youths of the village of Don Diego, a
scruffy roadside settlement, to help themselves
out of the poverty trap. They saved up to buy
three inflatable kayaks and Tovar organized some
professional guiding training. Now tourism plays
a key part in the local economy, with visitors
coming to be led downriver for a couple of hours
and then hiking up through cassava plantations
and villages, past areas where coca once grew.
The river is most exhilarating from September to
November; from December to August there are a
few small rapids but it is largely a leisurely float
past tree-lined shores, where indigenous Koguis
people come to fish and wash clothes.
Until recently, the only employment young men
such as Jonathan González could find was in the
narcotics industry. They would pick and process
coca leaves into paste with noxious chemicals,
which were afterwards discarded into the river.
Now he is a tour guide. On the borders of nearby
Tayrona National Park, other villagers have been
given grants to build twenty basic one- and two-
roomed posadas (thatched lodges), near waterfalls
and wave-crashed beaches. People who once had no
alternative to the violence-fuelled illegal drug trade
are now finding a new means of income via tourism
- from cocaine to kayaking, in other words.

341 ride
witH
cowBoyS in
venezuela

Saddle up and ride
with the weather-
hardened cowboys of Venezuela's Wild West.
From Hato Piñero, an 800-square-kilometre
cattle ranch and nature reserve bordered by
three rivers in the vast plains of Los Llanos, you
can discover some of the area's rich wildlife on
horseback, led by the llaneros (cattle ranchers).
Jaguars, ocelots and pumas may be hard to
spot, but you've a good chance of seeing river
dolphins, howler monkeys and numerous birds,
including ospreys, hoatzins, roseate spoonbills
and kingfishers.
Breakfast is a combination of pineapple, melon,
coffee, local honey and fresh arepas (fried balls
of maize bread), then it's off for a day's riding
via the Hato Piñero's biological research station,
which has carried out important conservation
work for species including jaguar and tapir. After
a day outdoors, guests return to the colonial-style
country house, which is more like an elegant
family home than a hotel, with stone floors and
furniture made from local wood. The thirteen
rustic rooms each have a bathroom (though
there's no hot water) and guests eat together
on trestle tables in the dining room - expect
simple dishes, such as pumpkin soup and grilled
chicken. Conservation and cowboys is an unlikely
partnership. Come here to see how it works.

Cowboys farming Nelore cattle
at Hato Pinero, Los Llanos

Need to know From the town of Santa Marta, take
a bus to Don Diego (1hr) or arrange transport from
your posada. Life jackets are provided, though you
should have at least basic swimming ability. White-
water rafting on the Don Diego River costs about
COP57,000 (US$25) per person. A night at one
of the twenty posadas costs about COP157,500
(US$70) including breakfast, for a double room.
E [e-mail]; T [phone]
790 (ask for Pilar Ruiz).

Need to know Hato Piñero is in the central region
of Cojedes, 350km southwest from Caracas
(5-6hr by car). For prices and reservations see
W www.branger.com; T [phone]. Last
Frontiers ( W www.lastfrontiers.com; T +44 (0) 1296
653 000) organizes tailormade tours to Venezuela,
including a 17-day tour of the Llanos (with 3 nights
at Hato Piñero), Choroni, Quito and Galapagos
Islands.