At Play in the Fields of the Warao

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The Jakera Lodge is a hostel of sorts (think hammocks instead of bunks), a Spanish school, a Salsa school, a Scuba school, a Climbing school, a Whatever school. The clientele are mostly European, although all nationalities breeze through at some point, and people stay for anywhere from a few days to six months. It’s about immersion in a culture, in a language. A few minutes away is Playa Colorado, a beach of red-hued sand, coconut trees, turquoise water. “We had a big night last night,” explains Chris’s partner Brendan, “the guys are a little hung-over.” This explains the tanned limbs poking out of hammocks wherever I look. Tanya from England has been here for two months, and leaves today.
“Everyone thought it would be dangerous to come to Venezuela,” she tells me. “But it’s been totally safe. The locals are friendly and encourage us with our Spanish. The people have been dynamic, there’s always fresh travellers arriving, it’s really a way of living.” I ask her how on earth she found this place.
“Google,” she tells me. “I typed in Spanish and Scuba.”
I speak to some other students - Dutch and Swedish girls. They typed in “Spanish Lessons in South America” and “Volunteer Travel”. I ask my travel partner Julia how on earth she found this place.
“I typed in Jungle Adventure in Google,” she answers.
I make a note to write a story about travelling through the power of Google.

After fiddling with the baby python and taking on the climbing wall before breakfast, Chris drops the D-Bomb. In all my adventures, I have yet to swim with dolphins. The weather turns sour (Honduras), the dolphins are migrating (Zanzibar) or have given birth (Colombia). It’s one of the few things left I have to do before I die, along with: snowmobiling, heliboarding, a cheap pint with the Queen, taste the perfect guacamole, sit next to Bono on a long-haul flight, watch Bush go to prison, see Jennifer and Angela dump Brad for each other, fly in a luxurious private jet, find a pen I can’t lose, a beach without sand flies, a government without pork fat, speak to an animal, slay an orc, master Time Crisis, win a ballroom dancing competition, be weightless, star in a Bollywood movie, master twelve languages (including Elfin), date a supermodel, dump a supermodel, play tennis at Wimbledon, win a bracelet at the World Series of Poker, see the world in peace for just one day, and cook a gourmet vegetarian meal for world leaders in Timbuktu. You know, the usual, but I digress.

Swimming with dolphins. Brendan organizes an old wooden speedboat from an old wooden pirate and we depart the beach, crowded with Sunday afternoon locals. There is a nigh a gringo in sight. The water has the sparkle of a paparazzi flash on the tooth of a movie star.
“Today’s your day,” says Chris enthusiastically, his thick brown curls an affront to balding 39 year-olds everywhere (the secret is aloe vera). And then we see the curved fin of a pilot whale, breaking the surf just a few metres away from us. “Mucho queso estente vista tacos boutros boutros ghali,” says the weathered pirate of the Caribbean. “He says it is a good omen for today, and the trip,” translates Chris. Sure enough, within minutes we encounter a pod of dolphins. Two of them leap in the air as if to welcome us. Chris grabs the knee-board. I’m ready for the ride of a lifetime.

But first, two bits of personal information for context:
1. I have a shark phobia since I saw Jaws on a beach holiday when I was six years old.
2. I have ear problems that prevent me from diving, and have prevented me from swimming in the past.

Thus with when it comes to water, I am a water baby.That’s when I find out that a tiger shark bit half the arse off a tourist just last week. And another attacked a fisherman the week before that. Right here at Playa Colorado. Hungry tiger sharks, cruising around looking for tasty tourist butt. But, screams Robert Plant, “now’s the time, the time is now,” so I ignore the cello in my head, and jump in. The water is as warm as the kiddies section in a public pool. “Go Gonzo!”
The boat pulls off, and I’m being towed behind like a piece of bait on the end of a fishing hook. I read somewhere that dolphins protect humans from sharks. I know that sharks….a dolphin pops up a few metres to my right. Then another. Then they vanish together. The boat swings left in an arc. I’m looking this way and that way, and then three more dolphins break, and two of them leap in the air in perfect unison. We swing around again, but they seem to have disappeared, until a minute later, just as I begin to wander if pilot whales are dangerous, two dolphins pop up on either side of me. For a fraction of a second, I stare into an eye looking right back at me, a playful eye, an eye with soul. I know I am safe, I know I am alive, I don’t know what I know, except, I just connected with something, something real, something transcendent, and every muscle tenses up and hair stands up and screams and tears well up and organs chime and it’s toccata and fugue on the strings of my soul and in a flash it’s over. They’re pulling me towards the boat.
“You just swam with dolphins, as people are meant to swim with dolphins,” says Chris. “In their space, at their welcome. ‘Something else,ey?”
I blubber something in response, to the camera that recorded it all, and after a few minutes, realize I’m wading on my knee board like a big fat turtle in shark infested waters. Moments after I pull myself aboard the boat, as unbalanced as the old, weathered pirate guiding the outboard engine, as Chris decides he would be a good sport and take me canyoneering off a 28m waterfall in the nearby jungle.

There’s really nothing to worry about so long as the ropes and harness do their job. And the people tying the ropes and harness do their job. I figured this out in Costa Rica, when I went off a 50m waterfall, dangling on a thread like a fly wrapped in dental floss. Plus, there’s nothing to be gained from anybody dying at this stage, although I was nearly pulled off the edge by accident before the safety rope was in place, the heavy rope tugging me forward resulting in a mad scramble and scream of panic, but hey, these things happen, so here goes nothing. We had driven about 15 minutes into the surrounding jungle, through a few villages, enthusiastically greeting the locals with shouts and waves.
“It’s really about day to day living here,” explains Brendan, a fellow Scot who joined Chris at Jakera about five years ago. “The locals trade or catch fish or do odd jobs and somehow make do. Girls get pregnant, families grow, another room is added to the shack, and that’s the way it’s always been. Simple.” I don’t ask about crime and social misery, because reggae music has a habit of making everything seem just wonderful, especially when you see a lot of people smiling under coconut trees. It’s wet season, and the water level was high, but it’s hard not to enjoy yourself bouncing off a solid wall of rock as fresh water crashes against your skin. Certainly better than hanging around waiting to abseil, as thousands of sand flies attack your shins with the hunger of starved wolves. Some local boys are at the bottom, laughing hysterically at the balls of this gringo, and I join them for a swim beneath the waterfall. The only language we can communicate with is laughter, and it works a hell of a lot better than violence.

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