Stunning biotopes at the mountains of Mavicure
The rainforest of the entire region around Puerto Inrida up to the Venezuelan border and beyond is flat. This means the rivers also flood the surrounding land far into the country during the rainy season. If you travel upstream along the Rio Inirida towards Mavicure, you will be amazed to see the three high mountains of Mavicure suddenly rising out of the lowland rainforest.
The highest (Pajarito) is 712 m high! You can climb the flattest mountain at 170 m and enjoy an incredibly beautiful view over the jungle. But you have to start your tour before sunrise, otherwise it gets too hot to climb!
Around the mountains are various biotopes, each of which was worth a visit.
The murky river that turned into paradise
While the 11-member Team 1 climbed the Mavicure Mountains, expedition leader Heiko Blessin tested a river course that lay between the camp and the mountain. Here his report:
"When we were here in February, there was so much dead wood in the river that snorkelling in the first part was impossible. It was even impossible to get into the small river! Now, at high tide, things looked different. I took an underwater camera and an ActionCam and started snorkelling upstream.
The water was naturally cloudy, because the main river Rio Inirida flowed into the small river and thus determined the "water quality". But at some point the water would have to clear up, because the river came from a mountainous region behind the main mountain Mavicure. To test the visibility, I kept stretching out my arm to see if the visibility was still limited to arm's length.
The most difficult part was to follow the course of the river! I was at the height of the bush and tree tops and it was sometimes unclear whether I was in the actual course of the river or already in the middle of the forest. I snorkelled along for over an hour, always waiting for a change in the water. After about 1.5 hours, I reached two huge boulders in the river that formed a barrier. And lo and behold: right behind the boulders, the water became crystal clear, albeit with a brownish tinge! It really was as if someone was operating the windscreen wiper in the car for the first time in heavy rain. An unforgettable experience!
About 20 minutes later, the river, whose water contained less and less black water (water coloured brown by humic substances from the forest floor), ended in a small lake bordered by the edge of the forest and stones or huge boulders.
This was every aquarist's dream: In front of the sunken edge, overgrown with mosses and ferns, huge shoals of redeye tetras (a characin species) swam around. Sucking catfish (Ancistrus spec.) nibbled at the wooden roots while various cichlids looked on, also watching me curiously. They included Cichla temensis, Mesonauta insignis, Heros, Geophagus, Biotodoma and a few more! In the shallows, there were also cardinal tetras in small schools, but no altum angelfish and no rays.
Above the rocks, I was able to follow the course of the stream a little upstream through some deepenings. It was now only one metre wide. In each deepening I lay down in the water and marvelled with interest at the fish fauna I found. The fish encountered were apparently not used to humans and eyed me curiously for a short time. These seconds resulted in some beautiful photos. Afterwards, the fish retreated between dead wood and stones for safety's sake.
In a mini pond and later in some other places too, I discovered beautiful shrimps, about 4 cm long, which looked like large rhinoceros shrimps with their long rostrum. Once your eyes were used to the smaller animals, you also discovered small bottom characins scurrying around on the branches.
A glance at the clock showed that I should start slowly on my way back, because it was long and my team were due to be back from the mountain climb in about 1-2 hours. Wistfully I left my hotspot, but was sure to return here with the team.
Mini ponds in a sand savannah
From the mountain, the team had spotted small lakes in a sandy landscape. So on the last day at Mavicure, we set out on foot to reach the ponds and see what lived in them. It was an arduous hike over rocks, through dense bush, through swampy morass and finally through a savannah-like sandy landscape. The first team member who carefully let himself slide into one of the ponds even spotted altum angelfish, but unfortunately they quickly retreated into the plant-covered depths of the pond. In the shallow water we saw some more Cichla temensis and characins. There were killifish swimming close to the surface, but unfortunately we weren’t able to identify their species.
Some very special flora
Our participant Andreas was a plant specialist and informed us that the flora on the rocks around Mount Mavicure was very special. Many plant species were rare and some were even probably endemic. For us aquarists, it is always a pleasure to have someone with us who knows a different area (thanks to Andi!).
A stream with mini aquariums
Opposite Mount Mavicure, in other words next to Mount Mono, ran a river which, a few hundred metres on, changed into several streams, some of which contained clear water instead of blackwater. Immediately the fish fauna changed. We saw splash tetras (Copella) and smiling acaras (Laetacara) there for the first time! The ponds were very small and it was quite challenging carefully lying down side by side in one of them to observe the fascinating fish species and to offer them the new JBL PRONOVO food. It was exciting to see that the fish fauna in the ponds differed. There were some characin species in all the pools, but the splash tetras and bigeye cichlids (Acaronia nassa) were only found in one of the “waterholes," for reasons that were not clear. The ponds were all connected by a stream without waterfalls. We won’t forget the bright colours of the smiling acaras for a long time!
On the meadow
No, not a normal meadow, but a gigantic flooded deserted meadow landscape, where our team were the only people to be found. The biotope began fairly unspectacularly with a stream, which then, however, expanded more and more and finally turned into a gigantic flooded area, the bottom of which consisted of grass-like plants and tree stumps.
Here we were able to do some great underwater feeding trials with the cardinal tetras and the other fish species there. It was fascinating to watch how the cardinal tetras snatched this food from the open water. Although it was a completely unfamiliar food, they did not spit it out, but ate it greedily! Here we also finally found "jumbo neons" with a length of 3 cm, along with flag cichlids. The latter made no effort whatsoever to eat the characins. The picture was completely different when a Cichla or a large trahira approached. The cardinal tetras twitched abruptly under cover, into the grass, when the large predators approached. Judging by this behaviour the Apistogramma, Aequidens and Mesonauta weren’t much of a threat to the tetras!
The ascent of Mount Mavecure
Physically strenuous activities always start at the crack of dawn in hot countries. This is to avoid being out in the hot midday heat, which would be unbearable for many. Mavecure can be ascended from 5:00 am. The first stage is steep and requires us to be secured with ropes, in case it rains and the surface of the rock turns into a slide.
But in the second stage, we go up ladders and steep climbs to the summit. The reward is a truly unbelievably beautiful view over the other two mountains and, in the far distance, even more mountains rising out of the rainforest like foreign bodies. Only from the top do you realise how "endlessly" the expanse of the forest stretches. In the forest itself, you only ever see the next tree. The ascent and the descent each take about an hour and are absolutely worthwhile. A complete ascent is only not worth it when it’s very cloudy. In that case, it is enough to walk below the clouds to the first plateau. From there there is already a beautiful view, although not as fantastic as from the summit.
