Venezuela - Lightning of Catatumbo

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Dear family and friends,

There is a natural phenomenon that is found in Venezuela and nowhere else in the world - the 'Lightning of Catatumbo' (Relampagos de Catatumbo). This lightning (without thunder) occurs in the remote Catatumbo area, next to the enormous Lake Maracaibo in western Venezuela, and can be seen almost every night of the year. The flashes are frequent (up to 100 per minute) and are so strong that they can be seen for 100 km. This phenomenon is said to be an important source of ozone in the northern hemisphere.

For some years we have wanted to see the Lightning of Catatumbo and on this trip we had our chance.


Curious school kids in Venezuela


As we were leaving Colombia to enter Venezuela, the we saw many plastic containers of fuel for sale beside the road. In fact, there is so much fuel in plastic containers in the Colombian border town of Cucuta that locals (half-jokingly) say the whole town is flammable. This is all illegal fuel brought across the border from oil-rich Venezuela, where fuel costs less than 3 cents per litre! One litre of fuel is about the cheapest thing you can buy in Venezuela - cheaper than a banana (and bananas are cheap in tropical Venezuela). It costs about 50 cents to fill the bike, and about 2 dollars to fill a 4WD. On the bike we can travel the entire length of Venezuela on about 3 dollars!


The small boat we took to see the Lightning of Catatumbo


Because fuel is so cheap there is a booming illegal market for selling it in neighbouring Colombia. To try to counteract this illegal market, Venezuela has introduced a system whereby only local vehicles with a special microchip can buy fuel within 200 km of the border. We didn't know about this recent initiative and found ourselves stranded in the 200 km 'chip' zone with no fuel and because the bike doesn't have the special chip, we couldn't buy fuel from service stations. Fortunately we found someone who helped us by transferring a few litres of fuel from their vehicle to our bike - enough to get us out of the 'chip' zone.


One of the rivers that leads to Lake Maracaibo


To see the Lightning of Catatumbo we rode to the southern end of Lake Maracaibo and then took a small boat along a river to the lake, we then crossed the lake to a small village on stilts over the water. It was the stilt houses of the indigenous people of Lake Maracaibo that prompted early explorers to give the country the name Venezuela (Little Venice). We spent the night on the veranda of a stilt house viewing the Lightning of Catatumbo. The excitement wore off in the early hours of the morning as we discovered it was difficult to sleep with the constant lightning flashes.



Navigating the river was made difficult by (native) water hyacinth



The outboard motor was frequently clogged by water hyacinth. The green bananas in the boat are plantains (platano). Fried plantain is one of our favourite dinners.



Red Howler Monkey lounging in a tree over the river


Lake Maracaibo


 Stilt house in the water village of 'Congo'



 Stilt houses in the village of Congo








Volleyball court



You don't need a back-yard to have a garden







 Our hammock beds for the night


Lightning of Catatumbo - this nightly phenomenon is apparently caused by freezing air coming down from the nearby Andes mountains (with 3500 m peaks) clashing with the warm humid air of tropical Lake Maracaibo. This photo was taken early in the evening, just before the camera's battery went flat. The lightning show gets closer and larger as the night progresses.