Boat trip down the Amazon!!! plus Angel Falls

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Boat trip down the Amazon!!! plus Angel Falls

Last Thursday afternoon, all hot and sweaty, I jumped into a natural pool deep in the Venezuelan jungle and took a swim. The air was full of mist and a deep rumble echoed off the rocks around. From three hundred stories above a thick ribbon of water poured off a rock wall and pounded into the stones below. These were Angel Falls, the absolute highest in the world, and it was a long trip to get there. First was the trip down the Amazon in a cargo boat, then the busses north across the equator into Venezuela, then a small charter plane to the village of Canaima, and lastly a four hour ride in a motorized canoe and a short hike. And also I stopped just north of the Brazilian border for six days to climb Mt. Roraima.

Trip down the Amazon River

The Amazon River is a huge river. If you took the next ten largest rivers in the world and combined them together the Amazon would still be bigger. One fifth of all freshwater going into the world's oceans is from the Amazon. When rainy season comes the river usualy rises twelve metres or so, no bridge crosses the Amazon at any point in it's nearly seven thousand kilometer length. The point where I got on the river is more than halfway across the continent and large freighter boats still arrive from the ocean to deliver goods.

After sorting out my visa for Brazil I walked across the border from Colombia and asked around for the next boat leaving. It turned out it would be leaving the next day so it was good that I only had a day to kill because the town was seriously hot. So I picked up some supplies for the trip like bug spray, a new hammock with some rope, and a massive watermellon the size of a small garbage can. As soon as you buy your ticket you're allowed to string up your hammock and sleep on the boat at night but I didn't bother because the hostel I was staying in was only seven bucks a night and the owner had alot of good stories about the area. So the next day with my small backpack on my back and huge watermellon on my shoulder I walked accross the border to Brazil and jumped on the boat which was scheduled to leave at noon. At four o'clock the captain blew the horn and we steamed off.

I had heard some bad stories about these boats before; rediculous overcrowding, toilets that don't flush, drunk captains hitting sand bars at night, and probably the worst one where a boat sank and three hundred poor souls where eaten by piranhas. But this one was pretty good and well run. We would stop a few times a day at small towns to load and unload supplies and pick up more people. As people got on they would string their hammocks above yours, then below, and then diagonaly across, there was one night that whenever you shifted you seemed to be kicking someone in the head or something. The first meal was pretty good I thought, rice and beans with chicken with some spice on it and banana juice to drink, then they brought out the same thing for dinner that night, and the same thing for lunch the next day and so on for the next four days. By the last day I couldn't even get the food down it was so monotonous, luckily that watermellon was so big!

So after four days and a serious amount of time spent sleeping and swinging in the hammock, watching the jungle pass by, trying to talk Portuguese with the locals, and eating watermellon, we pulled into the large city of Manaus. I was happy to walk off the boat and give the legs a good stretch. I hadn't gotten sick even though I'm sure the water comes right out of the river and even my stomach was starting to rumble a bit by the end. The police searches didn't turn up anything or cause delays. And best of all no one took any of my stuff, actualy the locals were pretty darn friendly, probably the biggest problem was the guy who insisted on buying me beer after beer each night.

Climbing Mt. Roraima

The sixteen hour bus ride from the Amazonian city of Manaus north into Venezuela has just pulled up to the border. I open the window curtain and see the sun coming up on the horizon over the grassland savanah and a dozen soldiers standing around. I yawn and look at my watch, it's 6am and not a bad sleep I think considering my watch is saying the bus is a chilly nine degrees, another night in the icebox. I start unburrying myself from the heap of stuff I've piled over me in desperation to stay warm; spare clothes, a sleep sheet, even my hammock from the boat trip is there. After stumbling off the bus and into the humid morning heat I have my passport stamped and wander over to the food counter. It's time for another one of many hearty bus stop meals, a big deep fried empanada with meat, cheese, eggs, and many other things I'm not to sure of inside. Bottle of hotsauce in one hand, empanada in the other, bite, squirt, bite, squirt, until only the napkin remains.

A half hour later we pull into the town of Santa Elena from where guided trips up Mt. Roraima are organized and depart. I ask around town and am told that a group is going tomorrow that I can join, perfect, then I go and check into a hot stuffy room. Inside the room I reach deep down into the frame of my back pack and pull out a bunch of American currency wrapped in tinfoil. I wander down to the main plaza where all the black market money changers hang around with fanny packs and big bricks of Venezuelan bolivars and the shopping begins. 2.5 for one dollar I say to the fifth guy? But my friends in Caracas got 4.2 yesterday. My friend's in Caracas were'nt really getting 4.2, I don't even have friends in Caracas, but they don't know that and after some bargaining I end up selling them for 3.5. This is allot better than the official rate of 2.15 and it means that I'll pay two hundred and twenty dollars for a trip that other tourists who use bank and credit cards will pay three hundred and fifty for.

The next day we're huffing and puffing our way down the trail under the blazing hot sun. With me is Leo, a British traveller who is nearing the end of a three month, six thousand kilometer trip up the Brazilian coast. We have alot in common and he tells me all about Brazil, from the huge cities, to the white powder beaches, to the women, and I listen with interest about this land that has enchanted travellers for more than five hundred years. Behind us is a Polish couple and our guide and cook. Ahead are Frank and Cindy, a Venezuelan father daughter pair. Frank climbed this same mountain with his brother exactly eight years ago and he has returned to climb it with his daughter using the same guide. Twenty two kilometers ahead, looming two thousand metres above us, is the mountain we are going to ascend, Roraima. But this is not a mountain that you are used to seeing, with a pointy top and stuff. It's a ''tepui'', which is an indian word for flat topped mountain. The top is sixty four square kilometers and there's alot more to do than just plant a flag and snap a photo.

We reach our first camp as the heat dies off and go for a swim in the river and eat some spaghetti. Then it's in the tents early for some sleep, but not before I see a big snake in the long grass while walking back from the river. The indians run around through the grass hunting it because they hate the snakes, there is about seventy bites per year and sometimes they can't get the anti-venom in time. They don't find it though and will probably burn the grass the next day which is what they do when it gets too long.

The next day is another long hike with alot of uphill. Leo and I lug our heavy packs up and up because we were to manly to hire porters like the others, but there's a hot dinner and refreshing stream when we arrive at base camp. Roger, our Guayanese guide, tells us some scary stories before bed about hikers who have disappeared without a trace and a strange indian tribe that lives in the area that no one can see. In Colombia the guides always told bedtime stories about kidnappings and stuff but now I'm not so sure which is scarrier.

After a good sleep we begin the third and most difficult day of the climb, the push to the top. The trail gets steeper and we use our feet and hands to pull ourselves upwards. We pass over a rock ledge and under a set of waterfalls known as the teardrops and after four hours we are standing on top of Roraima gazing at the area known as the Grand Sabana. It's another thirty minutes to reach our ''hotel'', a large overhanging rock that we pitch the tents under. After that we set out to explore a bit. The top is made of black and grey rocks, sculpted like the moon and dotted with patches of pink sand and clear pòols of rainwater. There's strange plants that don't grow anywhere else in the world and rocks that look like creatures.

The next day Leo and I want to walk across the mountain, so our cook, Adrian, who is also a guide on other trips, takes us for a walk. After a few hours we pass by a massive hole with a stream flowing into it. I'm not to sure how he knows the way because everything looks the same but after nine kilometers we arrive at a white monument that marks the triple border of Guayana, Brazil, and Venezuela. Adrian goes and sits down and Leo asks him if he remembered the passport stamp as we amuse ourselves by walking around the monument, in and out of the countries, for ten minutes or so. Adrian then leads us another twenty minutes to a very strange place, the valley of crystals. A ravine that has walls and floor that are covered in crystals of all sizes, some of them pink, some clear. We poke around here for a bit and enjoy the beauty then begin the long walk back to camp.

The next two days are pretty uneventfull, just alot of walking and stuff to get off the mountain and back to town. The trek was so enjoyable and rewarding but also very challenging; some had blisters, my nose was sunburnt, the Polish couple stopped talking to eachother sometime between the fourth and fifth days. That night, back in town, Frank and Cindy invite me and Leo out for pizza. We talk about travelling, baseball, Venezuelan politics and the economy. When I find out at the end of the night that Frank has payed the bill and he won't accept any money I offer to buy him a tank of gas or something before they head out of town in their SUV. He laughs because he knows a tank of fuel in Venezuela would only cost me three dollars, a fraction of the price of the pizza.

Salto de Angel (Angel Falls)

The one hour charter flight to the village of Canaima was probably the smallest aircraft I had been in; a six seater cesna that bounced around in the clear skies on our way there. On the aproach to Canaima's small airstrip we could see the lagoon that the village sat on and the four low but impressively powerfull waterfalls that dumped into it, as well as the hyrdo electric station that supplied power to the village. I found my motel and checked into the same type of room I had had so many times this trip, hotter than an oven, stuffy, one bed to sleep in and one to put my stuff on. Then after meeting two cool Swiss guys that would also be coming to the falls the next day I wandered around town and down to the white sand beach with palm trees.

The next morning we met the others that would be coming to see the falls as well, a funny Italian couple and a friendly retired Venezuelan couple. The guide and boat driver piled our stuff in the motorized canoe and we began the four hour boat ride up through rocks and rappids. The whole time we were surrounded by large flat top mountains with dozens of waterfalls dripping out of them. The sky was sunny but I was getting a bit worried because one tourist I met said he hadn't seen the falls when he went because clouds completely covered them, which is quite common.

When the canoe finally pulled up on shore at two o'clock everyone was ready to get out and stretch after four hours on the hard wooden benches. The guide explained that we would be walking for an hour and twenty minutes through the forest to get to the falls. I was starting to get a bit anxious though because it felt like clouds could move in at any moment, I was eager to get going.

So we set off on our way, with the guide in the back and the Venezuelan couple in front, this is their second trip to the falls and they don't seem to be in any big hurry. After strolling along for five or ten minutes at a leisurely pace the group comes to a sudden stop. The couple in front has spotted a spider in it's web five feet off the trail and they think it would be good to stop and look at it for a bit. I start to get a bit annoyed, we've got to get moving, we're on our way to see the world's highest waterfalls, not some stupid spider. We get moving again and I start to relax a bit when the group stops again, there's a section of muddy trail in front of us and no one's sure how to procceed. I'll tell you how to procceed, straight through the friggin thing, there's a nine hundred and eighty metre set of waterfalls a few km's up the trail and and you're worried about getting muddy shoes and pants? Sorry guys I don't have the patience for this. I bolt off the trail and into the jungle and before you know it I'm running full speed ahead through the bush. There's a thicket of brush ahead of me that I don't slow down for and sticks and branches crack loudly as I explode through the bush. I rejoin the trail ahead of the group and am too excited to look back for the expressions on people's faces.

I'm now free, running up the trail, jumping from rock to rock, over tree roots, through streams and mud. My hearts really pumping now, I can feel it getting humid out and a few raindrops on my arms. I've been waiting so long for this and to be met with clouds over the falls would be unacceptable. I continue running and running over rocks and stumps as if the falls will be gone any minute. With sweat pouring off me and my lungs gasping for air I reach a sign that says ''mirador de salto angel'' in the distance, lookout of angel falls. It points through the bush to a large rock that sits over the valley, I walk out onto it with my eyes to the ground, almost too afraid to look up. I stand there and say a prayer in my head, there's alot to be thankful for in the last five months that has brought me to this point and with the tension becoming a bit unbearable I raise my head.

Across the valley and three hundred stories high a ribbon of water is pouring of a rock face so large that the scale is impossible to comprehend. The beauty takes what's left of my breath away and I sit down and stare at the jawdropping sight. After a half hour the rest of the group starts to arrive, they snap a few pictures and the guide leads us another five minutes down the trail to a swimming area beneath the falls. Jumping in the cold water, swimming though the currents, sliding off the slippery rocks, it is all so refreshing. The sweat and mud that has accumulated on the trail is rinsed off my body and swept away. As well it feels as though the dirt and grime from five months worth of travelling, as well as any uncertanties or second thoughts as to weather now is the right time to come home, are washed away in that pool, by the waters of Salto de Angel




Thanks for reading my blogs

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