The Llanos is an extensive system of grasslands, seasonally-flooded plains, and forests shared by Venezuela and Colombia. It is located to the north and west of the Río Orinoco and borders the Amazonia wilderness along its entire southern edge. In all, it covers 451,474 square kilometers (about 174,000 square miles), an area somewhat larger than the State of California.
In Colombia, it accounts for 17.0% of that country's land area.
For the most part, the Llanos have poor acidic soils, and are mostly covered by grasses of low nutritional value. However, some areas with deeper and richer soils have relatively large patches of dry forest. The new forests regenerating themselves spontaneously under the pine plantations at Las Gaviotas, get their seeds in part from these nearby forest patches, mostly through dispersal by birds and mammals.
The entire region is subjected to two strong and contrasting seasons, a wet season with torrential rains that often cause rivers to overflow and flood most of the savanna, and a dry season with prolonged drought that fosters intense and destructive fires, mostly induced by humans.
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The fauna in the Llanos is both abundant and diverse. Particularly spectacular are the birds that gather in large numbers during the dry season to feed in the drying wetlands.
There are 11 indigenous groups in the Colombian Llanos, the vast majority of which belong to the Sikuani tribe. The Llanos are a very sparsely populated region. In Colombia, the average rural population of the Llanos is 351,265, for a population density of 2.0 people/square kilometer, roughly equivalent to the population density of Wyoming (second least densely populated state in the U.S.). Near Gaviotas, the population density is even lower than the average of the Colombian Llanos. Commercial human activity outside of Las Gaviotas consists primarily of cattle ranching, crude oil extraction, and some farming.
Source: this text has been copied or adapted from
http://pages.progidy.net/anaconda/llanos.htm
We highly recommend this article as reading for 8th grade through adult readers! 
 Video scenes from the Llanos
From a film by Carlo Ferraro. Obtain his spectacular nature films at http://www.ferrarofilms.net
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