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National Geographic : 1947 May
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Cruising Colombia's "01' Man River" desires service, he sig nals the pilot by spread ing a sheet on the ground. The flat llanos are one big airfield." "The Indian has jumped from dugout to airplane," one pilot in terposed. "However, I always carry a screw driver. Some naked aborigine is always ask ing me to tinker with his Singer sewing ma chine." "The llanos are a sportsman's paradise," the agent continued. "We can set a party down in the lanos one hour from Bogota, give them a good duck hunt and a chance at game ranging from a rabbit to a jaguar, with fish ing thrown in, and re turn them the next day. Many of the ducks shot here were banded in Canada." Strange, too, are the tales told in Villavicen cio about the country south of the Guaviare River. Here the llanos merge with the unbro ken Amazonian rain forests. Jungle Ants and Caymans Amos Burg An Indian Harvest Hand Enjoys a Bowl of Luncheon Gruel Descendants of the Indians of the Bogota plateau, he and his fellows raise wheat, potatoes, and corn. When the Spaniards came to Colombia, they put In a little clearing hibcha farmers to wo In a little clearing irni L flanked by impenetrable jungle, Colombia's most southerly settlement, tiny Leticia, squats forlornly on the banks of the Amazon nearly 2,000 miles from the At lantic. Carnivorous ants travel in vast armies and devour everything in their path. Along the river, natives with the aid of gas lanterns spear caymans at night for their hides. Travel is confined to rivers or to trails tunneled through the forests. Here, too, the airplane flies in and out of jungle clearings loaded with chicle, rubber, and other products for the coast. Returning from the llanos, twilight overtook us outside Villavicencio. As we drove along, strange shouts came from the swamps and rk as series on their esLates pages UI6, O24). hills like hoarse-voiced herders calling to one another. We stopped in wonderment. Down the road I queried a llanero. "Sefior," he said, "the sound you hear comes from a very small frog who talks only at night." At the hotel I requested a bath. "But, Sefior," the attendant explained, "our tanks are dry; you must wait for rain." That night the warm rains fell heavily and I took my shower in the open patio. Returning to Bogota, I flew in an Avianca plane to Cali over the Central Range by the shaggy, snow-dusted dome of Tolima. The journey by rail and auto requires 12 hours; in less than an hour my plane was over the 627
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