Here's part 1 of the story : Path to the Summit
Here's part 2 of the story : The Lost World
The morning came, the rain dried up, and we packed our things. After saying our goodbyes to James' group, we hopscotched from rock to rock in the direction of the flattish rocks to find Tony and our group. The rocks were empty. Our group, missing. In our minds, there were three possibilities for their absence. The first, the group, knowing that they were slow hikers, decided to start hiking down the afternoon before. The second, the group, knowing that they were slow hikers, decided to leave very early that morning. These two theories were immediately laughed at and rejected. The third theory was that they had found a new, higher spot during the flood. We would certainly see them that night at the campsite.
So we started down the mountain in the midst of some heavy mist. It was going to be a long day of hiking, needing to cover the two days' hiking distance (luckily, downhill) and needing to cross two rivers. Pauline and I were two of the stronger hikers in the whole bunch...which included about one hundred hikers from Venezeula, Brazil, and some random Europeans. With the exception of on top of Roraima, all hundred hikers camped in the same place each night. By now, nearly every hiker knew Tony's name and face. Pauline and I generally arrived early, then mingled with the others...the questions eventually arose : "Who's your guide ?", "Where is he ?", and "Seriously, it's been hours, are they walking backwards ?"
We arrived in the early afternoon. James, the sunburned Englishman was just behind us. We ate lunch, went swimming in the river, cleaned our clothes, then like usual, we found other groups to talk to us. We were the orphans of the camp. No group, no guide, and now we didn't even have a tent. We were homeless orphans.
From the camp, you could see the hikers come down a hill before crossing the river at the base of the camp. So we watched them come down for several hours. Here come the Brazilians. Now, here comes the large woman who leaves every morning a five am. Oh, here come the neck-to-ankle spandex group. Wait a minute, is that Tony ? No, no, false alarm, just a pudgy Venezuelan. The sun went down as the last hikers reached the top of the hill. Every hiker had arrived by six o'clock. Our guys, carrying our tent, didn't. We slept without our tent in our sleeping bags with the ants under a thatch roof pavilion.
In the morning, on our last day of hiking, we returned to the National Park outpost, where we waited to be taken by our 4x4 driver, who we had already paid. He flatly refused to go without the group. Without getting paid extra. "Everything costs." We tried to explain that our group was perhaps a full day behind us, but he wouldn't budge. Other drivers offered to take us down for exhoribtant rates as well. We talked to everyone, pleaded even.
We stopped worrying about our own group started fretting about how to get home again. It was a long day's hot hike back down to San Francisco, and once there, we still had at least two or three days to cross the country and return to our little corner of Colombia. We continue pleading. Finally it paid off: the Brazilian group offered to leave us at San Francisco for no cost. Obrigado !
Once in San Francisco, our fretting continued, how were we going to get back North? The only busses headed North started on the Brazilian border and those busses were all full of the hundred hikers plus random travelers. What to do ? So we hitched. The first driver we met offered to take us the twelve hours in the back of his pickup truck along the scenic highway to Ciudad Guayana in the center of the country. He even had a niece studying at the colegio where we worked ! We stayed the night in the city, and were lucky enough to get the last available seats on a bus to Maracaibo, cartographically millimeters from our home. Seventy-two hours after finishing the hike, we had reached home again.
And we never saw Tony or the group again. (But a week later, we heard that they has survived !)
Here's part 2 of the story : The Lost World
So we started down the mountain in the midst of some heavy mist. It was going to be a long day of hiking, needing to cover the two days' hiking distance (luckily, downhill) and needing to cross two rivers. Pauline and I were two of the stronger hikers in the whole bunch...which included about one hundred hikers from Venezeula, Brazil, and some random Europeans. With the exception of on top of Roraima, all hundred hikers camped in the same place each night. By now, nearly every hiker knew Tony's name and face. Pauline and I generally arrived early, then mingled with the others...the questions eventually arose : "Who's your guide ?", "Where is he ?", and "Seriously, it's been hours, are they walking backwards ?"
We arrived in the early afternoon. James, the sunburned Englishman was just behind us. We ate lunch, went swimming in the river, cleaned our clothes, then like usual, we found other groups to talk to us. We were the orphans of the camp. No group, no guide, and now we didn't even have a tent. We were homeless orphans.
From the camp, you could see the hikers come down a hill before crossing the river at the base of the camp. So we watched them come down for several hours. Here come the Brazilians. Now, here comes the large woman who leaves every morning a five am. Oh, here come the neck-to-ankle spandex group. Wait a minute, is that Tony ? No, no, false alarm, just a pudgy Venezuelan. The sun went down as the last hikers reached the top of the hill. Every hiker had arrived by six o'clock. Our guys, carrying our tent, didn't. We slept without our tent in our sleeping bags with the ants under a thatch roof pavilion.
In the morning, on our last day of hiking, we returned to the National Park outpost, where we waited to be taken by our 4x4 driver, who we had already paid. He flatly refused to go without the group. Without getting paid extra. "Everything costs." We tried to explain that our group was perhaps a full day behind us, but he wouldn't budge. Other drivers offered to take us down for exhoribtant rates as well. We talked to everyone, pleaded even.
We stopped worrying about our own group started fretting about how to get home again. It was a long day's hot hike back down to San Francisco, and once there, we still had at least two or three days to cross the country and return to our little corner of Colombia. We continue pleading. Finally it paid off: the Brazilian group offered to leave us at San Francisco for no cost. Obrigado !
Once in San Francisco, our fretting continued, how were we going to get back North? The only busses headed North started on the Brazilian border and those busses were all full of the hundred hikers plus random travelers. What to do ? So we hitched. The first driver we met offered to take us the twelve hours in the back of his pickup truck along the scenic highway to Ciudad Guayana in the center of the country. He even had a niece studying at the colegio where we worked ! We stayed the night in the city, and were lucky enough to get the last available seats on a bus to Maracaibo, cartographically millimeters from our home. Seventy-two hours after finishing the hike, we had reached home again.
And we never saw Tony or the group again. (But a week later, we heard that they has survived !)
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