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Published: June 15th 2009
Tim Version:
* Climbed Roraima, the incredible Tepui near the border of Brazil and Venezuela.
* Experienced its random weather patterns, bleak but colourful and beautiful landscape, and had a good hike getting there and back.
The swirling, churning, constantly changing version:
The drive from Caracas to Santa Elena is 24 hours by bus with few stops but its an easy ride. Once out of the city and more into the country it is also quite a beautiful ride. While I slept for a lot of it, what I saw out of the window was mostly dense bush/jungle all around us, making it difficult to tell how far or for how long we had been travelling. Overnight, nothing special, then the next morning in the last town before the long stretch to Santa Elena, some basic breakfast and a scary sight just beyond! A bus 4 days before us on the same route as us that fell off the side of the road into a rather steep ditch! Windows broken, the bus pretty smashed up, apparently no-one was killed thankfully but it was a good reminder to our slightly crazy fast driver to be a little more
careful! Which he did for about an hour afterward... then back to light speed =)
Emerging into the Gan Sabana area, wow, beautiful =) You drive steeply up from the jungle, the lushious green jungle giving way to more sparse flora, trees trimming down in weight, leaves turning a bit more yellow and less numerous, until you emerge at the top, with flat rolling plains and much more sparse plantlife. Time and time again I've found that this is me. This is where I feel comfortable. Combined with the beach of course, otherwise this often unchanging landscape can tend to numb the mind a bit. In combination though with the ever changing dynamic ocean, the two create a beautiful contrast. Unfotuntely here I am very VERY far from the coast heh... ah well.
At this height you start seeing more tepui style mountains, with steep high sides and flattened out tops, often with their heads in the clouds, the beds of giants. Still not quite the picture perfect style of Roraima but you can see the landscape changing, working towards that point. At 12, much earlier than expected, we arrived at Santa Elena. Heh I was still sitting
on the bus watching the movie "Australia" when a guy I'd been talking to gave me a tap on the shoulder. "We're here! Unless you wanna ride the bus to the depot". A 2km or so nice walk into town, I found Mystic Tours, the group I wanted to climb Roraima with. Noone else lined up at the moment =( and no-one really around to sign up! One Japanese guy, who might of got sick of waiting, and one guy who might be up for going Sunday. Asking another tourist agency, nothing till the 28th. I went off gringo hunting to find more hikers, but after thinking "Jackpot" when I found 5 dudes changing money (often a sign they have just arrived in the country), it turned out they were brazilian and had just finished the hike and were just changing a bit more money to use for Angel Falls. Doh.
Got my trek the next day with Backpacker Tours. Run by a German guy (Eirc I think? He's been living in Venezuela for aaages so my as well be Venezuelan), a group had already left so I signed up to catch them up - walking the first 2
days in one hit, about 22km, which sounded perfect to me, a good long start! Eric drove me to his place to collect all the gear (normally porters carry your tent and stuff but as I was catching up I was carrying all mine the first day), and once kitted out, back for a few beers then early sleep - leaving at 6am.
6am came far too quickly, but it needn't have... after getting breakfast and going through the driver's village visiting a few people he needed to, it was 9:30 by the time my guide and I started walking (it was meant to be 8am sharp!). All in Spanish as my guide spoke no English it was again a god jumpstart on me getting back into speaking Spanish, though it kept the conversation very basic!! A beautiful easy walk through a few streams, the first half of 4 hours was nice and easy walking through fairly flat terrain with a few hills at the beginning. It ended where my group had camped the day before, a nice open clearing with a stream below. Because of the late start the same guide couldn't continue with me, but a guy
that lived just next to where we had stopped said he could guide me. Heh a few warm beers later we headed off ( you can try and so no to a Venezuelan offering beer but it just doesn't work...), him stumbling more than a little... interesting for the 2 bare foot slippery rock river crossings! He did indeed guide me a little when I would occasionaly ask for directions, but mostly there is only one path. It was however hilarious listening to him walking behind me as you would hear the crunch of a few steps on gravel, then a few steps as he wandered off balance into the scrub, then a grunt noise, then he'd be back on the gravel again. I swear the amount he was wandering he must have walked twice what I did in that drunken hike! The second half of the day was all good for a while, but with solid sun and my knees giving me hell, the last hour was a real bugger. The last 3 hours are about 80% uphill which takes its toll on the legs! I was still loving it though and was totally amped as the whole time
you are wandering directly towards Roraima and it's twin to it's left so the view and thoughts of reaching the top are well and truly enough to give you that extra bit of energy you need to keep pace! Slept like a baby that night, so knackered... so lazy too. The porters set up all the tents, gave us hot drinks and a wicked cooked dinner, and we did... nothing!
Next morning, up early. Today we climb to the top =) It starts in normal bush, heads to kinda cloud forest, then further up near the top is bare scrub cloud covered landscape of the top of Roraima! Some parts are climbing almost straight up but it was awesome fun and a bit more challenging than the last bit! At least if you felt tired here you felt like it was legitimate! The group kinda split into two, the slow goers and the speedy ones. I got stuck behind the slow group so when I got the chance and made a break for it I ended up walking most of the walk by myself inbetween the two groups, very tranquil and beautiful! You pass a couple of waterfalls and
Of course we have cable!
It may be a mud hut, but of course it still has satellite TV!even under one near the top when it turns to scrub, a very slippery part with just loose rocks and water.
At the top, wow! When they describe it as a moonscape they aren't kidding! It consists of wind and water worn rocks in all sorts of formations, with pools of water, a misty cloudy swirling atmosphere, and lots of small plants that manage to survive on this fairly harsh climate in those pools of water and moss and mud. The photos will do muchmore justice than my words...
We walked to base camp, setup, and had a wander around. Its hard to get your head around how such a formation as these Tepuis occurs, the giant amounts of force needed to create such a place. Our base camp was a few tents hiding under the edge of one rock structure on top of Roraima, but it provided enough protection to make a pretty comfortable camp. The portable toilet setup had the best view of the whole camp though I gotta admit!
Over the next day and a bit we walked all round the tepui, checking out various formations, swimming in natural pools, and getting to peer
over the edge into oblivian! I've tried to capture this in photos but the sheer height and nothingness below you when you look over the edge just can't be captured. The weather while we were up there was also one of the most incredible things! Nice and hot in the day, freezing at night, the weather truly changes from minute to minute with no predictability. One minute it would be sunshine, then thick cloud would move over us in less than a minute, then it might rain either lightly or really heavily, then the cloud would roll off the tepui and it would be sunny again! Since it generates its own weather you don't see the cloud coming from the distance or anything, and instead it just appears or disappears at will. The other thing is the swirling wind patterns! You can watch the cloud move past you, then shoot upwards, then tumble forwards down to the ground again then disappear, all over ground that is same. Its phenomenal to watch! Being on the top is truly one of the greatest experiences of my life and is sure to be one of the most memorable! Not too much animal life
lives on top but we did come to appreciate the little black frogs tht it is famous for that can be found all about the place, and these birds that seemed to rather hop than fly. Its funny with the frogs as the first time one is found everyone is like "oooh!!" "ahhh!", but then you find that they've everywhere and instead its more difficult not to step on them. Like the bird, they dont move much like you'd expect, instead prefering to slowly crawl rather than hop.
The walk down was very cruisy, with a stop at the first and second camps. The first camp, the lowest, wow, I've never been so happy to be hot! By the end of our time on top of the Tepui I was sick of the cold, and up there it is hard to shake as shelter is hard to find, the changing wind patterns mean its hard to find a place out of the wind, and you just kinda stay cold until the sun is out and bright. The sunrise on the final morning was incredible, and I dont know why I woke up so early but I'm glad I did.
We were greeted back in the village we started in with good food, beer and coke, the beer a very welcome thing. We also got to see another small waterfall and natural phenomenon kinda thing with water traveling along what is like a rock highway for it (the photo will make that comment make sense), but as the water levels were low it was nothing spectacular. We partied that night for the birthday of one of the girls, and already tired we got nice and drunk in a little Santa Elena club and lived the night up.
Sore and hung over both from the climb and the club (my knees by now were sore to the touch like they were bruised, something I really gotta fix when I get back to Aus...) I hopped on a night bus to Ciudad Bolivar along with half the climbing crew, and yeh, I was so so happy... thats one of the biggest things on the trip ticked off and done, really satisfying climb I'd recommend to anyone and not too difficult for anyone but the most unfit. It all just depends what pace you wanna set =)
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