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By Josh Roberts, SmarterTravel.com
Seven miles off the coast of Venezuela, on the tiny
Caribbean island of Trinidad, I'm about to come face to face with two
dozen swirling, shrieking guardians of the dead. Likened to devils by
the ancient Amerindians of South America, these sentinels of the
afterlife are actually rare cave-dwelling birds that nest like bats and
look like ravens with fiery red eyes. The souls of the departed were
said to dwell in the recesses of their subterranean lair.
I've hiked through a sweltering rainforest to find these
devil birds, and I can hear them before I see them. They scream and
flutter just out of sight, flapping their wings and circling the
interior of this place called Aripo Cave as if to warn me—keep out.
It's taken me the better part of a day to reach the cave, though, and
I'm not about to stop now.
My guide, a brawny local from the Trinidad-based
eco-outfitter The Pathmaster, urges me forward, down the slick, jaw-like
rocks of the cave mouth. Soon I'm on my hands and knees, and then I'm
crawling on my stomach across a narrow underground ledge for a better
look. As my eyes adjust to the darkness, I see them, and I understand
why the Amerindians both feared and revered them. They are hideous and
loud, but compelling in their strangeness.
"Time to go," urges my guide, who leads me
back toward sunlight and then on to a tiny stream, where I scrub guano
from my hands and feet. The return trip to Port-of-Spain, Trinidad's
capital city and my home base for this eco adventure, will be a long and
tiring one, but my spirits are buoyed. I've seen nature at its most
unusual, and gained an insight into the belief system of a culture long
since forgotten by most of the world....
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Photo Gallery: Trinidad
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