Blogs from La Gran Sabana, Guayana, Venezuela, South America

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 ... read more

Thursday 5th March Apologies for the lack of photos in the last blog, ´had difficulty uploading them, but hopefully will have better luck with this server. When I left Roy´s I made my way for the night coach to Ciudad Bolivar, the first stop on the route to Angel Falls. My main rucksack went into the luggage compartment. Fortunately I kept my sleeping bag in my day bag, as the air conditioning was turned full on and I would not have got to sleep otherwise. It was a nine hour trip but I slept through my stop and ended up in Puerto Ordaz. I had to get a collectivo ( a private car which goes when it is full) back to C. Bolivar. When there I immediately scouted for a company who does tours to the ... read more

For 17 days throughout October and November, we joined the Holcomb crew on a trip to explore Mt Roraima. Images say a thousand words so I will let the photos tell the story.... read more

So we are back from Roraima and what a trip. It was fantastic, although a few days after getting back we still can´t walk properly, due to aching legs and blisters. It brings back memories of how I felt after the Marathon - taking ages to get out of a chair and shuffling along in flip flops. So this is how it was....... Day 1 - After driving for a while reached the village where the trek started. The walk took 4 hours and was steep in parts but not too bad. Managed to get my first blister on my heel. When we got to River Tek Camp Gideon (our guide) explained the toilet procedure. Basically if you want a wee go in the bushes, for anything else there was a grey tent set up with ... read more

Well we spent a few days relaxing at Posada Calista just outside of Cuidad Bolivar. They did great breakfasts and dinners and there was a pool to cool off in. Had a very relaxing time there. A woman that works there called the Posada we are in now (Posada Backpacker) in Santa Elena to arrange rooms for us. She also got one of the staff to get our bus tickets for us. So on the 11th we got on the night bus for Santa Elena. It left at 8pm and we were asleep quite quickly. At about 10.45pm we were woken by a soldier with a gun asking for our passports. The rest of the bus was empty - everybody else had got off. We got off the bus and had to have our bags checked ... read more