On the extensive grasslands of The Plains of Venezuela,
small patches of jungle provide oases for the local fauna.
These jungles are mere specks on the vast open plains, but during the dry season,
when the heat turns the grasslands into an inferno, they are the only the shade,
the only refuge for many of the animals of this forgotten corner of the world.
In the shelter of the forest, the animals find food and protection.
While out on the plains the abundance which follows the rains is soon replaced by the scarcity of the long dry season,
here, among the trees, it is always possible to find food, in the form of fruits, leaves and seeds.
And with so many vegetarians around, hunters, naturally, are also drawn here.
The "matas", as these small Venezuelan forests are called, also contain dangers.
The shadows of the enormous trees provide relief from the burning sun,
but may also at times conceal death.
Our story begins here, in the heart of the forest.
In the shade of the impressive ceibas and mangos our heroine, a morrocoy tortoise,
is enjoying the abundance and the cool of the mata,
little suspecting her luck is about to change.
Though it is a species in danger of extinction, the morrocoys are a sought-after delicacy on the plains.
From time to time, people enter the forest in search of a change from their usual diet of rice and beans,
and the tortoises are both tasty and easy to catch.
Unaware that her life hangs by a thread, our heroine now begins an extraordinary journey.
The plains-dwellers cook them in their shells as soon as they get back to the village.
But luck is on her side.
In her white prison, in a world she is incapable of understanding,
the morrocoy tortoise does not know she is about to discover the different worlds of the Plains of Venezuela.
It will be a long, dangerous journey to get back home.
This is her story, the adventure of a voyage in search of paradise in hell.
During the hot months night comes as a great relief out on the open plains.
For the plains dwellers, this is the time to sit around the fire and exchange their experiences of the day.
Alcohol is passed round, relaxing both mind and body, and making them less alert.
For the captured tortoise, their relaxed mood offers a chance to make a dash for freedom.
With slow steps, she leaves behind certain death and escapes into the night.
But her odyssey has just begun.
Because far away from the forest, the plains are a constant survival test.
At dawn, life, until then hidden, again stirs on the vast open expanses.
Three hundred thousand square kilometres of apparently deserted horizons fill with living shadows.
The animals take advantage of the hours before the heat sets in to eat and gather together.
The entire plain comes to life with the constant movement of thousands of living beings.
The capybaras scare great flocks of red-billed whistling ducks,
whose wing beats sound out over the swamps every day at dawn.
They are just one part of the incredible community of birds on the plains,
where there are more different species than in the United States and England put together.
The forest also comes to life at dawn,
and it does so with the cries of the howler monkeys.
This noisy communication between groups, marking out their territories,
shows that no predator can reach them up in the treetops.
But down below, on the ground, things are very different.
The peccaries are permanently on the alert.
They also take advantage of the cool hours around dawn to make short trips beyond the limits of the forest.
It is a less frequented area, so it is easier to find fruits which have fallen from nearby trees;
a trophy which is often the cause of disputes.
Beyond, stretches the sea of grass, a world open to the sun,
the natural habitat of animals adapted to these conditions, but an unknown world for a tortoise
who has spent her entire life in the shade of the jungle.
Thinking only of returning home,
the morrocoy tortoise sets out across the landscape of parched grasses,
unaware that attentive, yellow eyes are closely observing her.
A burrowing owl sees her approach his nest, and is not prepared to tolerate intruders.
Under the ground, in a pleasant, cool tunnel, his chick is hidden,
and the owl plucks up his courage and tries to scare off the armoured stranger.
The tortoise does not know what is happening.
No bird in the forest in which she lived had ever attacked her.
There, they all know that the morrocoys are inoffensive.
But this is the open plain, and here any animal is a potential enemy.
Confused, the tortoise changes his course, away from the little owl's nest.
This has been her first contact with this new, harsh and hostile world to which she does not belong,
a world she will have to cross if she wants to again reach the safety of the forest.