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Published: October 20th 2007
The Gran Sabana - 12th to 15th May
We're up relatively early feeling very tired after such a long journey the night before. We wouldn't have made the early morning bus but we do manage to catch a taxi from this Brazilian out post to across the border to Venezuela.
Its a 3 hour journey and our taxi driver stops at the border to drop off some packages. We're really glad we can be of help seeing as we are paying for this. This time we manage to get the border crossing correct as we are stamped out of Brazil into Venezuela!
We're dropped off at our hostel in the next town (Santa Elena de Uairen). For our final leg of the trip we've organised the full 3 weeks with a company called Osprey Expeditions. It's quite lazy of us but we have a friend joining us for a couple of weeks so it was easier to get it all sorted beforehand.
In fact the organisation isn't that good as we arrive at the hostel with no record of our booking but we get checked into a room anyhow. Its slightly confusing as there
are 2 hostels next to each other both called Hotel Michelle, except one is the original one! We check with the hostel next door and realise we should be staying there as they have our booking, which is fine as its nicer.
We go for a wander around and soon realise that its pretty much the arse end of nowhere! Santa Elena is a true border town and there's not much too it. There are only 2 cash points, one won't work for us and the other doesn't have any cash. Ah not a great start, but luckily we have some Brazilian money left over so manage to get this changed up. At least we can buy dinner now! In fact we have a Chinese, rather strange to find one here.
We are picked up the next morning by our guide for the Gran Sabana. We soon realise that Ricardo is full of sh*t! I have never met someone who has done so many jobs from being a fully trained dentist to owning and managing a factory to name but a few. Anything you have done he has done better!
Its only the 2 of us on
the tour. We pile into his jeep and then get a guided tour of the town as he has to go and buy the food for the day and get some petrol. The queue for the petrol is huge as the town had run out over the weekend and some had only just been delivered. The line is kept in order by the local army. We are lucky to by-pass the queue as Ricardo lies to the army that we have a bus to catch.
After that we stop at Ricardo's house to pick up the fish cakes he has made, not sure why he didn't do that when he left to get us the first time.
Ricardo is worried about the weather as it has rained heavily so its difficult to go and visit some of the rivers and waterfalls as they could be dangerous. So first off we pop back across the border into Brazil. There are several shops set up and we decide we need to buy some new flip-flops. Actually we buy a couple of pairs each, I'm now carrying the ridiculous number of 5 sets in total.
Finally we head out into
the Gran Sabana.
It's a beautiful landscape of rolling hills and grassland as far as the eye can see. It's a cloudy day so we can't see the whole vista. We stop to admire the view, at the same time listening to Ricardo's constant drivel. This is going to be a long few days.
We head deeper into the Sabana. This area inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to write the lost world. The landscape is criscrossed by countless rivers and we're here to see some of the waterfalls. The park has several mountains called tepuys. There are seven in the region that we visit. They are flat topped mountains that have been formed as the land around them has been eroded. Today we can't see the top of them as it is a cloudy day and the clouds just sit on top of the mountains. They are a bizarre shape as they seem to rise out of the ground, with near vertical cliffs. The tops of them have a unique ecosystem as they have developed their own over millions of years without any external influence.
Our first stop is at a place called Jasper Creek. we're lucky
as the rain has stopped falling and the sun has come out. We climb down to Jasper Creek, so called because of the Jasper bedrock that the river runs over. The jasper has been polished by the river into an incredible array of colours. We have to put socks on to walk through the water as the jasper is very slippery. We explore the river and jasper, one piece of it is known as the tiger as the streaks and colours in the jasper look like a tiger skin. With the sun reflecting on the jasper, the colours are beautifully highlighted. We head to a small waterfall and climb to the top to admire the views.
Eventually we stop for lunch and to listen to more of Ricardo's drivel. Agh! It starts raining again so we cancel our plans to visit another waterfall for the afternoon, but head off road instead. Ricardo lets me drive the jeep in 4 wheel drive. I'm sure Kate feels very safe.
We stop further on and sit under a canopy. There are shed like canopies set up around the Sabana for people to camp under. We sit under this one as the
rain falls around us and get slowly tipsy on cubre libres. The rum is very strong.
We leave to drive back to town. Its dark now and we stop en route back to town to look at all the firefly's around us. There are millions of them, with their glistening neon green tails. Its like looking at the suburbs of a city as they communicate to each other with their blinking tails. Its a magnificent sight.
Back in town Ricardo stops to buy some gin, luckily we don't want anymore. After another Chinese for dinner, Kate and I are definitely ready for bed.
The next morning Ricardo is late and has lots of chores to do. We spend a long time hanging around as there are 2 people that want to join the trip but have only just arrived on the overnight bus. We visit a local house full of crystals whilst we wait for them. Eventually they are ready and although we are fed up at waiting they are in fact a god send as Ricardo talks to them the whole time. Thank god!
On the way out of time we have to stop for
petrol again, what a surprise! They is another huge queue.
We drive further out into the Gran Sabana and stop in a local Indian village to drop off our luggage as we will stay the night here.
We visit a a waterfall which is raging due the overnight rain. Normally we'd be able to go behind it but its too dangerous today. We also visit a local farm where the Indians work. We're sure this is under the guise of Ricardo doing more chores as he picks up a load of stuff from the farm.
We head back to the village for lunch. The locals shows us their delicacy of big bum ants. They eat the ants lightly fried ans supposedly they taste like peanuts. We're offered some but politely refuse!
After lunch we're taken to see the highest waterfall in the region where Kate and I buy a jasper necklace.
Then we head to another set of waterfalls where we go swimming. Here we also climb behind the waterfall. Its a cool experience and slightly scary as you have to squezze through a very small gap on your belly with the water thundering down
on your head. We play about here for awhile, enjoying the power of the waterfalls. Its like having a massage. There is a high ledge that Ricardo jumps off from - it doesn't look very safe to me.
When we leave, Kate and I decide its time to start on the cubre libres. Ricardo is still doing our head in!! We have dinner back at the village and then drive out to see the fire flies again and have some more drinks. Ricardo is a very strange person who likes to play loud music. I have images of him in my head, stood on the top of his jeep playing an air guitar to loud rock music!
The next day we head off to another river where we put our socks on and wander through the river. Its all jasper bedrock and is beautiful. We walk for about 30 mins following the shallow river. I must admit that I'm not convinced this is entirely safe and I keep thinking we must be careful of flash floods. We get to a set of pools and shallow waterfalls, which we can slide down getting a few bruises as we go
but its great fun. And we manage to ignore Ricardo for as he walks ahead most of the time! On the way back we jump off a ledge into a pool and swim under another waterfall.
For lunch we head back to the village. The food is a bit bland so Kate adds some chili sauce to hers. Its not until she's eaten quite a bit of it that we realise the crunchy vegetables bits she is munching on are actually half crushed big bottom ants. the spanish couple with us took great pleaseure in pulling one of them out of the sauce and waving it's antennae at her. Nice!
In the afternoon we drive off road deeper into the Sabana to admire the views. We are lucky as the clouds lift slightly to show us the full beauty of the flat top tepuys. We sit for awhile on top of a hummock looking at the landscape. it was an amazing view & was only slightly ruined by ricardo wittering on about having seen a UFO from the same spot the year before (hmmmmm). As we leave ricardo tells us that he doesn't get on with the other
tour guides in the area & that he was even dragged to a meeting a few months before & officially warned not to take tourists behind some of the waterfalls as it was too dangerous & if someone died it would be bad for business! When we asked him which waterfalls were too dangerous he happily told us that these were the same ones we'd been crawling behind & sliding down but that he thinks that tourists should be able to make their own minds up about whether it was safe enough for them ....errrr it would have been nice to know how dangerous these trips were BEFORE he took us on them! We had reached the end of our tether with Ricardo but luckily for us the spanish man was sitting in the front passenger seat & so Ricardo wittered on to him in spanish the whole way back allowing us to switch of our minds & escape into our own thoughts.
Finally the trip is over and we are driven back to Santa Elena to catch our overnight bus to Ciudad Bolivar. Thank god we get to leave Ricardo. I don't think I have ever met anyone
so annoying in my entire life. As much as beautiful & strange as the Gran Sabana is we were pleased to get away. We are not at all impressed with him and I wouldn't recommend his tours to anyone, not even my worst enemy but now we were on the bus north to meet his brother .........
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windiburrow
Kate & Andrea
yay wheezus
thanks for doing this, while I'm stuck at work there's a chance we ight finish this yet! k x