Orinoco Basin. Venezuela

Venezuela is the land of the tepuis and of exotic beaches. But inland there is another treasure of nature, still largely undiscovered – the basin of the Orinoco, lying between the Andes to the west, the coastal mountain range to the north and the Guyana massif to the south-east. It is so completely flat that it has been named the ‘Region of the Plains’.

Almost all the rains fall in a single season, and so the ecosystem of the plains alternates between extremes of flood and drought. It is a land of contrasts, a little-visited paradise of surprisingly rich and varied fauna and flora.