Colombia’s llanos orientales, or eastern plains, are a vast area of tropical grasslands lying to the east of the Andes mountains and to the north of the Amazon rainforest. Comprising wetlands, savannah and gallery forests the llanos (pronounced ya-nos) span a cross border region between Colombia and Venezuela, covering over 350,000 square kilometres of the Orinoco river basin.

During the wet season (May to September) vast areas of the grasslands flood, producing one of the continent’s most important breeding grounds for water birds. The effect of the huge body of water at this time of year is so impressive that legend has it that a group of early European explorers believed they had arrived at the Pacific Ocean (in fact still some 500km to the west).