Roraima Part 1 : Path to the Summit

Between Christmas Eve and the second of January, we spent all but one night camping on some tropical beach along the Venezuelan coast or on a nearby island.  We had had our fill of R & R and were ready for some adventure.

We had previously been in contact with Selene, a friend of a friend, who lived in Maracay.  She was organizing a 6-day trek up and down Mount Roraima, way down on the Venezuelan border with Brazil and Guyana.  The mountain is a tepui (also spelled tepuy), which is how the local table mountains slash mesas slash plateaus are called.  These tables are so large and tall that several of the world's tallest waterfalls are found in this little corner of Venezuela.

And this little corner is full of tepuis, all of them of Sagan proportions in age, which makes them some of the oldest rocks on Earth.  And as the land between them eroded away, they formed little islands of rock within the savannah jungle.  And like on Hawaii or Madagascar, life on each rock island evolved in its own unique way...

So back to the story : We spent two days crossing Venezuela in buses, but most of the time we were standing in lines.  You see, in every bus station that we've entered in Venezuela, they tell us that tickets can't be purchased the day before your trip.  So if you want to catch the night bus from Ciudad Guayana to the Gran Sabana, you'd have to get in line in the morning.  So we lined up at 7h30, half an hour before the ticket vendors opened for the day.  At least two or three dozen others had arrived before us.  It was going to be close.  So we split up.  Venezuela, which has nationalized most industries, has for some reason left the chaotic bus industry to its own devices.  So you have nine bus companies all plying the same routes.  So I went off searching for another line with a high bus capacity/line length ratio.  But all the lines were long and sinuous.  And you never knew if the guy in front of you was traveling alone or bringing his brood of nine kids.  We crossed our fingers and waited.  When I was one place away from the window, Pauline came running over with a big smile, "Don't buy the tickets !  I got 'em."

And with tranquil minds, we spent the day in the city knowing we had a spot.  That night, we returned and hopped on the refrigerated bus that would finally deliver us to San Francisco, a small village 12 hours away, near the start of the trek.  Stepping off the bus, we met Tony, our Pemon guide, that Selene had independently contacted and contracted.  Most trekkers hire their guides and porters through expensive agencies and pay several times the price we did, so we were quite happy that Selene had found Tony.  We spent the day packing our sacks, awaiting the rest of the group, and visiting the village.

San Francisco is one hundred percent Pemon (the local indigenous group) and one hundred percent Seventh Day Adventist, at least in this village.  I had always thought that the SDAs were non-smoking, non-drinking vegetarian Protestants (I have since read that this is more of a recommendation than a requirement).  My first impressions included lots of meat and cigarettes and murals of Pemon gods and legends.  Recommendation : considered and rejected !  But everyone had nice matching colorful houses, provided for by the SDA church.  It seemed to me that the missionaries here are trading houses for an underwhelming acceptance of their beliefs.  Yucca Christianity.

Later that day, we met the others in the group : Selene, Angelo, Ricardo, Carlos, Maru, and Luis, all friendly and young-ish and seemingly fit. Seemingly. The next morning, we were off in a 4x4 to the start of the trek, a National Park office far from the highway.


The first day's views were great, the hike unextraordinary; there were maybe one or two short inclines during the day.  Pauline and I reached the top of the biggest hill first.  Within 20 minutes, all but one or two of the group had reached that local summit.  Tony, the guide, had still not arrived and was probably helping Selene who must have been having difficulty.  But after another 20 minutes, we realized that Tony was no fitter than Selene, who was indeed struggling.  Tony, dragging his feet and hanging his head, looked near death.  Seconds after reaching the top, Tony lit a cigarette and filled his oxygen-starved lungs with smoke.  This was going to be a long hike.  For him.

After waiting on the tops of other small hills, we decided to stop waiting for our stragglers.  We walked straight to the campsite and set up our tent.  There we waited and waited.

It was here at the first camp that we learned what the other trekkers had paid for.  Porters were everywhere, busy as the local leaf-cutter ants, unloading the leaning towers of supplies on their backs....setting up tents, cooking food, and creating exclusive toilet tents.  And one by one, the other (not out group) trekkers moseyed into camp carrying a daypack full of water and snacks and a camera and found the tents assembled, the food cooked, and the shithole dug.

Our group arrived last of all, but I shouldn't blame them; they actually had to carry their own gear. So, logically enough, they then decided that they would all get an early start in the morning.  Good idea !  We (Pauline and I) were up by six with the sun, ready to go at seven.  Most of the group was still sleeping, and those that were awake were groggy, pajama-ed and far from ready.  So we waited.  By eight o'clock, we left impatiently.  The reason for our impatience was twofold.  The Southern Venezuelan sun is brutal at midday, and we wanted to get most of hiking done before then.  Also, the campsites were generally too small for all of the tents of all of the hikers.  A late arrival meant camping far from camp or next to the toilets or worse.

As we departed, we saw Tony's head just emerging from his tent, weak as a newborn baby.  The second day's hike was much much tougher ( = better), involved two river crossing, and the views only got better.  We made good time and arrived at the new campsite below the tepui's cliffs in the early afternoon.  Most of the other groups had left by seven or earlier, and many arrived before us.  There we waited another five to six hours before we recognized any of our gang.  The good part of it all was that we met lots of other groups in those six hours.  In a sense of hiker solidarity, all the other hikers also seemed to be waiting and rooting for Tony and the others, faithfully guiding us from the rear.

This time, they said, they're going to start early in the morning.  For real.  Carlos was the only who wasn't kidding.  He was ready by seven, and the three of us began the third day of hiking, which was the shortest but toughest, 100% ascent, often requiring the hands, passing under waterfalls, across shaky bridges, and within a shoe width of a vertical cliff shrouded in fog.

But before midday, we had made it.  We were on top with James, the sunburned Englishman, eating lunch with the sun shining on our faces.  For a few minutes we were the only four to have arrived.  And the sights were all ours.

Here's part 2 of the story : The Lost World