On March of 1995 six trucks left Caracas (the capital) on a fishing expedition to the Cinaruco river, on the Venezuelan-Colombian border region; two FJ70's with trailers in tow and 4 FJ60's with the boats on top (we use 12' aluminum boats that are carried on custom racks). Most of the people were members of our club, "old salts" who considered the 9 day expedition almost a vacation. However, two guys, fairly new to off roading in general, and complete "newbies" on the outback, joined the trip, something that we always encouraged (on easy trips). These two guys (names withheld for obvious reasons) insisted on driving "caboose", a position on the caravan that requires some experience. Unfortunately, we thought nothing would happen....
Seventeen hours into the trip, on a winding track between small hills and with a thick cloud of "outback flour" (dust) looming over us, we lost the new guys. Just like that, one moment we're doing the routine radio check, the next moment they're out of range. The convoy stopped, although I must confess that we were anxious to reach the campsite before sundown (about a half hour away). We tried to radio them, but after a long wait we realized that they must had taken a wrong turn somewhere (I dind't understand, but they were obviously not around!!). Finally, the group decided to reach the campsite, drop off all the heavy equipment, trailers and boats to improve range, and then organize a search party. I had done this once before, and it involved a long and tedious search along grid patterns, with rigs keeping close radio contact with one another. We were all running low on gas, and there were only a couple of hours before sundown... On the way to our designated route, my friend and I saw a large troop of howler monkeys, and stopped to listen to their powerful growls. Their voices are often mistaken my inexperienced campers for the growl of the more rare, and certainly more dangerous Venezuelan outback tiger (it's really a jaguar, but the locals call it tiger). We searched for about two hours, often stopping to blow an air horn (every rig in our expedition is equipped with one, because the noise carries far on the flat outback). Finally, we saw the lights of the missing truck, and as we zigzaged around mud bogs and sand pits, we saw another of the search vehicles converging on the spot. We had expected to find the two missing people to be a little upset, or even angry, but when we reached the spot and shone the lights on their faces, we thought something worse had happened. Both of them were very pale, and one of them was hyperventilating heavily. As soon as we got off the truck, they told us about their encounter with a jaguar in the thickets behind them. Later that night, after returning to camp and settling down, we finally got some details. It appears that they never saw the jaguar, but had heard its growls repeatedly....
The two guys took a lot of good-natured heat over the next week from the rest of the group, and their only defense was that their story of courage in the face of danger. I never had the heart to tell them that it was a troop of howler monkeys, which I saw at the same thicket two days later, that had given them the scare of their life.....!
People: This story wasn't all about off-roading, and some of you might not find it as funny; I just wanted to paint an accurate picture of how serious off roading expeditions are in Venezuela, and this story seems like the right one. I hope you enjoy it, and if not, please have some patience, I'm putting together a report of an expedition into the Valley of the Lost in 1993.
Yours Truly,
'90 FJ62 Land Cruiser
CARBURATED & MANUAL !!