Venezuela Part 3: Angel Falls and Ciudad Bolivar

I have not left here, but I am not imagining anything else really exciting happening. If it does I will edit this part of the blog to include it or add it to Brazil Part One.

We arrived in town and were immediately offered a cheaper tour. You need to be on the ground to get cheaper tours here, but again we declined because we had already promised someone else. I don't make a very good ruthless person, unless I hate someone. Starting to get a little tired now so this may deteriorate. Our tour guide was a mate of the guy who wrote that 'Travel writers go to Hell' book and apparently the guy is quite crazy so maybe its legitimate. He was middle aged but had a young local wife as his second wife. Normal down here sadly. We were a little uncomfortable handing over the money and being left with some unofficial looking plane ticket in the airport. Lots of things never quite look official here. Makes it difficult. We did eventually get handed over to a pilot of a small 5 seater CESSNA plane or however it is spelt. Hmm it was tiny. I no longer like flying and this did not fill me with confidence. We had met a Yankee guy in the airport beforehand. The pilot held the door shut with his arm as we taxied. Surely this was not right. He eventually shut the door and window as we accelerated and we were off. He handed out maps and proceeded to point stuff out to us. He looked sidewards, backwards. In fact anywhere but in front of him. He did not fill me with comfidence as he tilted the plabe ninety degrees left so Dom could see a iron mine. The plane bounced around as he jabbed at a map on the window. Who was this looney and how did he get his pilot's licence. Why was he up in the clouds anyway? All the other planes were much lower down. Ah there was some other thing he jabbed away at. Look, just get us to Canaima. I came here for one thing only. And it was not to die at the hands of a crazy man. My real time writing states "I wish the pilot would concentrate on flying the plane/banking for sites/ten minutes flying blind white in the clouds". Yes the idiot took us into a white fog. We flew blind for ten minutes. I did not think it was ever going to end. When you can't see, you want faith in your pilot. I had none. Sir Jabalot was too busy turning cogs. Idiot. He did get us out though and we eventually got to the approach to Canaima. We were a little to the left of the runway though. He must drift in then. Surely. Maybe not. Whats he doing? Ah fuck, he's going to land on the dirt. He narrowly missed a parked plane and landed us on the dirt. What was wrong with the runway like a normal pilot? I never want to fly with Sir Jabalot agian. He scares me. He grins like a maniac and looks like a crack addict on day release. We paid the local cartel their entrance fee and we were in Canaima. Our group was being assembled. The Yankee, us two and two couples. We were one short. Hopefully they would be young and fit. We weren't disappointed as the eighth member was a really good looking Brazilian girl. It seemed a good group. I managed to suss that the Yankee had spent time in Brazil and that his Portuguese was decent. This opened a door for the Brazilian girl to chat with him. Alex was his name, Juliana hers. I imagine the opportunities to speak your native Portuguese are as precious to her as the chances to speak Catalan are for Dom. So it was good for him that one of the guys was from Barcelona. The others were Venezuelan. We travelled for 4 hours by boat up river, with a brief hike in the middle. It pissed with rain all the time and Juliana and I were in t-shirts so we froze from the wind factor from the boat. We snapped the motor propellor on a rock on the way up. I got mainly chatting with Juliana and Alex. She is very cute and was travelling all around the north. Good energy and obviously a nice person. Very good company. Alex is a really cool and interesting guy. He hitchhiked with friends across Africa after university, had taken seven days of sailing lessons, bought a boat and sailed for six months across the Caribbean. I love American daring and positivity. The can do attitude is immensely powerful. Not many English would take thta risk. He now plans to sail for two years around the world. He's from Indiana originally and is another example of the superiority of the middle of the country. I also learnt he started the election campaing behind McCain and swung to Obama. Probably one of the group that put Indiana in the Obama box. He also became world famous when a photo of him eating an iguana in the Bahamas sparked an international search and court date where he was eventually ordered to pay a huge fine. Facebook can seemingly be as dengerous as it is useful. Still he was published in the metro for it and is still bombarded with hostile e-mails from environmentalists. The three of us stayed up latish talking about trust, travel and relationships. Mainly about those while travelling. Alex had been travelling with a yoga instructor on his boat and had a complicated situation, while Juliana had met a Swiss guy in Australia. I assume that's why she is now off to work in Zurich for a year. Meanwhile I was stewed on some of mine and teased by Juliana as to my attacheness. Truth be told I have no real attachments and the ones I like the most are those with whom nothing happened. She pointed out that i still think of some of them. Two more than any of the others and I randomly had contact with both of them today. Ah the ironies and twists of fate. I think I was quite taken with the Brazilian but I never quite got the one to one time I wanted to get to know her properly. Hmm I just realised I got to the end of the night and I did not mention Angel Falls. Its not even in my diary. Wow thats awful. We hiked to see it and got to about one and half kilometres away. Juliana said you could see it but you could not feel it and it looked ok from a distance, but it felt like you could tick it off rather than experience it. Alex asked the guide if there was a trail to the falls and he said yes. We decided to go at 4am the next day. We asked our guide if we could have the boat at 4am. He said no, so I said we would have to swim it then. He laughed. I think he thought I was joking. We had bathed in the river that night as well. Juliana has a good figure. Alex and I tried to wade out to deeper water but there was not any. This fooled us into thinking we could wade it the next day. The Venezuelan couple wanted to escape Chavez and move to London. That seems to be the wish of everyone in this country. We crashed in for an awful night of hammock sleeping.

I woke up around 3am with full moonlight, That would help us with the hike. Eventually the alarm went off and Alex tapped me awake. Juliana and surprisingly Dom declined to join us. So we snuck off to the river. I was in my tracksuit. We tried to wade across but the river ripped us off our feet and my tracksuit filled with air so I got lifted like a sailboat. Shit. We paced up and down the edge looking for a way to cross. It looked to swift. I figured we were stuffed and then Alex leapt in and just went for it. He made the swim across relatively ok. I had fallen on my shoulder on the rocks and bruised it. I decided to strip off the tracksuit and swim it in my shoes. I abandoned the clothes and plunged in. My front crawl is awful. I manfully powered to the middle and whizzed down river. Bollocks I was not going to make it and get sucked down the river and drown going to Angel Falls. Luckily this was only the problem of crossing the middle fierce current. I struck my shoulder on a boulder and was then in the shallows and across the river. Alex had lost one of his shoes and would have to hike barefoot. It was a pair of crocs, so now you can say they really do have crocs in the water around Angel Falls. At least one anyway. We had the flashlight along with the moonlight and set off. The hike to the viewing point was easy and beyond the trail was fine. Obviously the trail had not been used much as we had to clear some of the stuff away. It eventually opens up onto a grassy hill that you traverse towards some boulders. We could now see our goal and we wanted to get underneath it. We remembered the boulders for the entrance back. The rest of the trail had seemed easy. We had to take it easy as we skirted the wet boulders as an injury would be dangerous. There were bits of a microlite and planes amongst the rocks. I imagined Sir Jabalot will end up in this debris at some point. Probably with his finger still pointing at Angel Falls as his plane had hit the rock face he was not looking at. You could feel the spray from 300m out. The water was dispersing from high. Alex put a video on. We entered and scrambled over the boulders and crags, right into the heart of the waterfall. We traversed the very beginnings of the river when it was a trickle, we slid and fell over wet boulders and the closer we got the heavier the water became. From mist, to a drizzle, to an English shower, to heavy storm, to monsoon, to heavy monsoon, to so heavy you can't breath easily. We were under the middle and the water was battering us. The dispersal over almost 1km of dropping meant that it did not crush us though. This was the best shower ever. Juliana was right when she said you can't feel it from a distance. You can feel it when you are under it. When it is all around you. When you look up into a mist of cascading white. When all around you run rivers of water in your sight. You are standing under the highest waterfall in the World. This made the tour money worth it. This was pioneering. This was why we travel. You felt the power if it. You felt its majesty. It was too risky to climb further, but we were engulfed. Alex reckoned it was the perfect birthday present. It was awesome. Its just a shame we had to disobey our tour guide to go. The hostel puppy has just paid me a visit. Now we had to get back. We scrambled over the rocks again. Alex managed to salvage some stuff for his boat from the wreckage of the microlite. It was worth many more times the value of his shoes so it was a good trade off. I rolled a huge stone into my ankle. That would cause me problems. We almost got lost coming off the grassy hill (which was a precursor of sorts) and then we went past the boulder overhang. Be careful on the way back as we got lost here. We slid down a granite boulder we did not remember and followed an unfamiliar trail for twenty minutes. Shit it was wrong. We tracked back and could not find the trail we had come by. Arse. We were lost in the jungle. We crossed across and found a dry stream. Maybe this was the way we came. We scrambled down moss covered rocks. It did not look right and we had some big drops and hard scrambles. Hell at least Alex reckoned it would go to the river. It didn't. It led to a huge drop off that he almost plummeted off. We were now very lost on two wrong trails. We had no water and food. Also if the guides passed us before we found the trail again then we could get back and they would still be missing. Crap. I joked at least Alex could find us some iguana to eat. We'd been too busy discussing politics, America and travel, that we had got ourselves very lost. I now understand thats why they say stick to trails in the jungle. Alex wanted to cut west to find the trail. I thought it was risky as we may be too low down. Doubling back was the better option. We seemed to compliment the other well. He was reckless enough to push me that little bit further and I was just cautious enough to hone the more serious recklessness. We doubled back but the climb was steep and we were losing energy. A moss wall was hard so I opted to go round and ended up having to punch through a rotten tree and force my way through. We now looked like we had been on a rough hike. We were earning this. At this point, this blog entry was looking decidedly dicey, because we could not retrace properly, could not find any way out but sheer drops and no concept of the trail. We got back up to the big boulder and found a path like trail on the left. It had boot prints. It was the trail. Thank fuck for that. Now how late were we. Alex reckoned they would set off around 7.30am or 8am to find us as that was when they had planned to leave. We were both limping back slightly injured. Then we came across the guide past the lookout. He was very pissed. He stormed off after finding us and we made it back at 9am, after embarassingly getting lost briefly off the main trail. Not sure how we did that. The timing must have been right as we met the guide half an hour from the end. We boated across and gathered my clothes and breakfast. The others had had to wait and the guides were pissed we had gone off. I did not care as I am always disobeying the guides and it was worth it. I just hoped the group was not pissed off and Juliana assured me they were not. We took the long four hour boat ride back to camp without the hike on the way down and Alex and the Venezuelans left. In the afternoon we headed out for the other waterfalls with a new group (Polish honeymooners, Canadian couple and a Romanian). Juliana did not join us which was disappointing.

We got to the lake and took a boat over. We went walking behind two waterfalls (one was impressively strong) and over the top of another one. Someone found more plane wreckage (it is the world's most accident prone flight). They were cool, but all a bit meh after the morning hike. It seems that the best parts of tours are always when you disobey the guides and go off on your own. I need to just start getting random topographical maps and shooting off to random places and seeing what I can find. I got so wet this day my feet resembled those of an 85 year old man. Very wrinkly and my shoes were fucked as well. I had received a fake $10 from the Ecuadorean cash machines. I hate that country even more. How fucked up is somewhere if the cash machines are giving you fraudulent notes. We had some cool conversations and chats at the dinner table that night, but noone wanted to come for drinks. The village of Canaima is not that impressive though. We found a sweet girl who served us in a shop and an indiot who had to make three phone calls, one walk and two consultations to find out that we could have a hot dog if we wanted. Bare in mind that we had asked for chocolate so it was not quite what we were looking for. This was Ecuadorean levels of incompetence. The room fan made sure that my shoes destroyed the air in the room. Bit like Rome on inter railing. Dom and I chatted for a bit and he reckoned I was enamoured with Juliana. Quite possibly. He claimed I am just a 'tramp with money'. Thats probably the best and most accurate description of myself I have ever heard.

We grabbed breakfast and said our goodbyes. We shipped off to the airport and I finally got some one to one time with Juliana. I did this at the expense of conversation for Dom and it was a little shitty of me. She is very cute, has a great positive energy (which all Brazilians seem to possess), is clearly a good person, shares some interests and I think I was a little taken with her. Oh well. She's off to Switzerland. Maybe we'll meet at another time. I hope so. The plane was late. As usual. Who would be our pilot? Ah fuck it. Its Sir Jabalot. Anyone but this madman. At least if I die, I will die in good company. I had managed to worry Juliana with my assessment of his flying last time. Crap. He ended up bouncing the plabe all over the place. At no point with him did I think I might not die. He will be the death of someone. His plane should be decommisioned, but I imagine that will only happen when he plows it into something. Maybe he could jab the ground and cushion the crash. We bounced all over the place, even after he kept his theatrics to a minimum. His unique way of landing was to switch of the engine, glide in, barely clear the fence and land on the tail. I am never flying with him again. Though we survived the worst safety record. Next week I fly down the Amazon (the second worst safety record) and I would not be surprised if Sir Jabalot turns up again as my pilot. I forgot to pay for my lunch in the aiport as we left so if anyone says 'there is no such thing as a free lunch', you can inform them they are wrong. Juliana's tour agency was not there so she used my phone to get a taxi. Private planes and private taxis. I suspect she is secretly someone very important in Brazil. She left with a great parting line. 'I enjoyed metting you. Not all of the time, but most of it.' Thats cracking honesty. I can appreciate that. Its probably true for most people around me. I hope I catch her again somewhere and can iron out the 'some of the times'. Dom was pissy I made him wait until her taxi came and we checked into Posada Don Carlos. I am currently sitting here typing, sweating and listening to Guns N Roses. Was supposed to meet someone but it did not work out so I stayed in and typed. This place is good though they change the dollar for a shit rate. I believe its 5.5:1. Awful. We took a long walk in the incinerating heat (and I like heat) to the bus station and were given tickets by some shifty looking man. He did not seem legitimate. i don't know why we gave him money. But apparently he is legitimate and Dom seemingly took his bus today. We found a restaurant in town that was open (but padlocked. An interesting concept of open). Dom hated the food and we got chatting with an English girl before we ended up drinking in the hostel bar (where you serve yourself) with a Russian/Polish fisherman and a Hungarian. Both of them and the two Italians later thought I was from Chile or Argentina. We bantered about in Spanish, the Italians showed us their Cuba photos and the Polish guy explained how he runs fishing trips in the interior. 10 days work earns him enough to live for 6 months in Isla Margarita. Working for yourself id the only sure fire way to make decent money and not hate your boss most of the time. He got smashed on a bottle of rum and showed us a fishing site in Polish. We drank for a while. Dom turfed in early and I followed eventually.

So little happened today that I have accidentally combined it with yesterday in my diary. We got up and grabbed breakfast with the English girl. We sorted out stuff online, wandered down to the river and chilled there. We had two lots of schwarma (though its not real schwarma and not picante enough) and chilled in some hammocks while we chatted away for the final time. I went with Dom to the bus station and saw him and the Canadians off. The bus tickets look legitimate. I walked back thruough the dark, shady streets and settled down here for a long time of typing up Venezuela. I wrote to a few people today on various things and it should be interesting to see the responses if I get any. Ah well that wraps up Venezuela, unless something amazing happends tomorrow. Its been fun if frustrating. Roll on Brazil. I head for the mighty Amazon.