I rotate my camera left a bit, then right. The landscape is playing a visual trick on me. This is the end of the dry period here in the Colombian, Western Guiana Shield. Parts of the savannah have burnt, generating irregular dark lines on the landscape which create a weird visual effect. I take many pictures and look at the camera preview screen. The straight images look crooked, slanted to the left.
As I stand there, looking at the large inselbergs in the distance, I wonder how mind blowing this area must have been to Alexander von Humboldt, 222 years ago. I also start thinking; if I was a fleeing colonist trying to hide his gold or a pirate trying to burry a treasure, which of those inselbergs would I have chosen. I eeny, meeny, miny, moe, and pick the second one from left to right. That is the one I will visit after exploring the morichal.
I head towards the morichal. It looks like a green oasis in the middle of the scorched savannah. The Moriche Palm Trees (Mauritia flexuosa) are so tall you can see them from very far away. The wind is blowing strong and consistent making it very pleasant to be walking directly under the sun. I can see where the morichal starts but not where it ends, its path gets lost in the distance. I put my heavy backpack down and take out the drone. I want to get nice images showing the starting point of a morichal, where it is born. The sun is so bright it is hard to see the screen. I pull my shirt collar over my head and look down, creating a small sunshade tent, put the monitor under my shirt, and even then, it is hard to see the screen.