Our Series on Oddities takes us to South America, at the junction between the watersheds of the Orinoco and Amazon Rivers.
The Casiquiare Canal is a bifurcation of the Orinoco which meanders for about 300km before joining the waters of the Rio Negro, a tributary to the Amazon River. Thus, the waters that take this canal rather than the main canal of the Orinoco end up into the Atlantic Ocean 1500km away from the Orinoco Delta.
While bifurcations are common, they usually leave relatively small river islands or happen in deltas, close to the mouth of the river. In that respect, Casiquiare is a real oddity, joining two of the largest continental river systems in South America.
The Casiquiare
