The landscape has turned into rolling savannah, palms and tepui table mountains, Hugo Chavez's smiling photo greets too as we cross the border into Venezuela. Santa Elena de Uairen is a pleasant sleepy border town, great to relax, eat and feel better after steamy Manaus. Its also a relief to be speaking Spanish again and being able to have conversations with locals. People come here to climb mount Roraima, the famous lost mountain from Arthur Conan Doyle's 'The Lost World' and Jurassic park was filmed here!
Many thanks to Julian & Val, and Max from Paris, Eli & Argenis Arriojas from Caracas and Renee and Ryan from Texas for supplying these photos after our camera was stolen.
Being Easter time there were joined by a group of students from Caracas as well as a couple from Switzerland, 2 French men and Patrick from Morden in London where we live, how odd is that! The Roraima trek is one of the best on the continent yet very few people have actually done it so far. The first recorded climb was only in 1884 due to both its remoteness and the sheer cliffs protecting access to the top.
These table mountains were formed in Gondwannaland and are some of the oldest on Earth, their sheer cliff faces mean that evolution has worked independently here for over 2 million years, many of the plants are unique to each mountain, there are several species of carnivorous plants and even a small black frog that doesn't jump, it just rolls on it's back when in danger.
The first 2 days you approach across the savannah, covered in long sleeves and trousers to protect from the biting flies called Puri Puri and gradually winding your way uphill, it is a hot slog. Apart from this we were cooled down by torrential rain on the first day and then had to wade across two rivers by the end of which we were all soaking wet and cold. The third day we climbed the cliff face via a natural fault going up under one of the waterfalls. At times we were crawling up steep muddy inclines through jungle roots but we took it slowly in order to pause and take in the lost world.
On top was glorious sunshine as we posed for pictures next to the precipice, you could see across to Kukenan where you can see one of the world's highest free fall waterfalls on the 2nd day. The landscape on top is a bit like being on another less hospitable planet, pink sand trails in between smooth labyrinths of rock, and weird and beautiful plants new to our eyes. We put up tents under an overhanging cliff and explored a little nearby.
Our day on top it rained for the most part, we hiked a circuit that went through a valley of quartz, where white quartz was so abundant that it crunched underfoot. In the mist it felt like you were walking about on some science fiction film set, the whole area was flooded and became slippery so we had to go slowly, but at the same time we could absorb the strange atmosphere of Roraima. Our trekking company was Mystic Tours because Roberto the owner believes in all sorts of supernatural stories associated with the mountain, including spirits and aliens. It certainly is a place to exercise your imagination as well as your legs. Many of the rock formations almost defy belief after the ages of weather erosion this water world has been subject too. We did have one blast of sunshine and several of us climbed up to the highest point to run about and look at the view, amazing.
The next day it was sunny again and we had mixed feelings about leaving, although we were all also worn down by the weather and living on camp food. The waterfalls had all grown with the rain and the decent down still involved a good soaking. We didn't stop at the previous camp and kept on going to cover two days in one and two river crossing right at the end, Exhausting, everyone was tired and I had twisted my ankle on the descent so we were all a bit worse for wear. We finished the hike back in the heat with a nice warm beer at the nearby village. From here they took us to cool off at nearby Jasper falls where you could stand in freezing cold water on the red rock riverbed.
Venezuela is a particularly fascinating country to travel in, still not very developed for tourism with some stunning unique natural places to visit. Hugo Chavez's personality is also something you can't avoid here, he likes to show his photo and explain the revolutions achievements. Politics is never dull here and people are either passionately for or against him. But no matter what your views on him, democracy should always be respected by both the people and the rest of the world, i.e. the USA.
The city of Cuidad Bolivar was renamed from Angostura in memory of Simon Bolivar's defeat of the Spanish. It's quite a good looking city on the sandy banks of the Orinoco river with its riverfront colonial saloon architecture. And wow is it hot, I will never find English summer days hot again. There is hardly a tourist in sight but from here Its here its a 2 hour flight by 6 seater plane, including the pilot to get to Angel falls, the world's highest waterfall.
The plane goes across a massive lake in the middle of nowhere and then across the rainforest scattered with tepui mountains and silver rivers. At this height the jungle looks like broccoli, the density of trees is astounding and amongst it all you see the occasional tree in full pink blossom.
We transferred straight away to motorized canoe and went upstream on hard seats for 4 hours crashing through shallow rapids, getting soaked again. I spotted 3 turtles on the way and way passed through tall jungle on either side and towering lost worlds appearing between sun and mist. With sore bums and cold bodies we arrived at camp opposite Angel falls and were soon warmed up with roast chicken before sleeping in our hammocks and mosquito nets in the jungle.
But the sleeping didn't last long, we were up before dawn for breakfast then were hiking up through the forest to reach the lookout over Angel Falls. A 1km sheer cliff drop and rainbow through the mist, while flocks of green parrots skwark by, this place still retains a wild beauty often lost in the modern world. If that wasn't enough we descended back down the rapids to Caniama village and spent the afternoon walking behind huge waterfalls and swimming in pools.
Seeing the Caribbean coast once more at Santa Fe was a significant step for us, meaning we'd gone up and down the length of South America. The fishing village itself was run down and suffered from drunks but the beach is part of Parque Nacional Mochima with beautiful arid islands and clear coral reefs for snorkeling.
We made a big mistake staying at the Cafe del Mar hotel as our room was broken into one night while were out, almost everything from us was stolen except our worn clothes. Cameras, Palm computer and all our backed up photos from since Belem. We even had to carry our remaining things by sack as our backpacks were gone too. One of the staff had just been sacked that day and the other staff said it was certainly him. I first found him talking to a policeman on the beach when I went to report the crime. We got a report for the insurance but the both the police and the hotel staff were completely useless in helping us and we felt nothing would be done about the crime nor the suspect's home would be searched.
Instead we were helped enormously by our friends at the Pousada 'Le Petit Jardin', Audrey helped us in communicating with the police, treated us well at their hotel and even gave us 2 backpacks for free to continue our journey as we had the weekly ferry to catch in 2 days time. And also many thanks to Julian & Valerie from Paris and Kim and Lynn from Gothenburg who were great friends during our time there.
We were a little depressed after this incident but it was important to move on, we took a shared taxi for 7 hours to the port town of Guiria. No seat belts as usual along the coastal mountain road, but we were kept entertained by the driver shouting at names at any cute lady we passed. After sorting tickets and money by the afternoon we were on a comfortable friendly ferry to Trinidad.
Trinidad was a completely different world after South America, English speaking Afro-Indian Caribbean with cricket, curried herring roti for breakfast, cups of tea, shepherds pie, red snapper & chips and jerk chicken, we felt we were almost home, like in a decompression zone before returning to Blighty and the rain.
Port of Spain was not a bad place at all, I would love to come back here for the hottest carnival in the world, but with just a week left we flew to it's sister island Tobago. Here we went straight to the fishing village paradise of Charlotteville, and remained there at the Top River Pearl guesthouse. Maudlyn, Mary and Clive were the friendliest of hosts there and showed us our to cook their local coconut shell smoked fish with Trinidad's Angostura bitters. (Originally from that same town in Venezuela I mentioned).
It's easy to fall in love with and in Charlotteville. There is an easygoing Afro Caribbean atmosphere, old men greeting each other with Hey Maan and ladies wearing their best dresses to gospel church. The beach lined bay is backed my steep rainforest hills and nearby Pirate Bay was close to perfection, in fact we spend almost every day there. We did venture out diving on 2 mornings in nearby Speyside, Tobago is known for its drift diving and were treated to some quite fast currents, and besides this a giant sting ray, some of the biggest brain coral in the world and stunning forests of coral.
We flew directly back to Gatwick overnight and were back in Warwickshire the next day, the spring sunshine came out and we returned to being normal again, or did we? |
