The south east region of Venezuela is defined by the Guayana Highlands, named after the neighboring country to the east. Though many people have never heard of the area, this is the home of Angel Falls - the world's most vertiginous waterfall with an overall height of 979 m (3,212 ft) and a clear drop of 807 m (2,647 ft). The falls, however, are just one feature of the area, which also hosts the Orinoco river and Tepuis, huge sandstone mesas that rise thousands of feet above the Gran Sabana, a vast grassland.
One September morning, Anne of Freya of Clyde asked on the Chaguaramas Ch. 68 net if any other cruisers would be interested in visiting Angel Falls. We replied yes, and the group eventually expanded to 6 couples from as many boats with 3 from Great Britain, 1 from Austria & Germany and 1 each from Canada and the USA. Evidently, no one had done the trip from here before - especially with our objective budget of $1000 US per head. Anne did all the legwork, coordinating with Branco and Betty in Maracaibo, Venezuela. Each week for four weeks we met to discuss preparations, logistics and the itinerary. Baggage limit was one back pack per person, and we anticipated rudimentary facilities at the two camps.
From Chaguaramas it is only about 330 miles to Angel Falls as the crow flies - but they don't have crows here. We had to follow an alternate route, one that involved 24 hours of travel by sea, road, air, curiara and foot.
First, we were off on Jesse James maxi-taxi to Pier One at 6:45 AM (7 AM check-in) to catch the 9AM Wednesday departure of the ferry to Guiria, the Venezuelan entry port on the Gulf of Paria. After 3 ½ hours, mostly passing the picturesque mountains of the Paria Peninsula we pulled into the harbour at Guiria, only to float around in the harbour for 1 1/2 hours waiting for the medical officer to come on board to check us for swine flu. When we finally pulled up to the dock, Anne was delighted to see Branco and Betty waiting for us.
Branco is Venezuelan and speaks passable English while Betty (from Czechoslovakia) is fluent in five languages including English and Spanish. They would accompany us for the duration of our visit. On our side, Connie from Tashtego had pretty good Spanish, while Jochen and Traudl from Blue Song had toured South America for four months and could get along fairly well in Spanish.
We celebrated our arrival in Guiria with local beer (3.5 Bf per bottle) and Cacique rum (35 Bf for a 750 ml bottle) and later dined on excellent Shawarma (18 Bf) while sitting at a table on the street wedged between the gutter and the traffic. To put prices in perspective, you can buy 5 Bolivar Fuerte (Bf) for ONE US dollar.
After our overnight stay at the Hotel Plaza (sounds grand -don't be misled) in Guiria we took a 12 hour bus ride to Ciudad Bolivar, founded in 1764 as Angostura. The bus, ably piloted by Carlos, was basically an extended air-conditioned van with little leg room and fixed seats. The occasional stops were greatly appreciated! Filling up the diesel van was an eye opener - the price was equivalent to one cent per liter! Gasoline is twice as expensive.
The trip took us through a surprising variety of topography from mountains to plains and then across the Orinoco River on one of only two bridges across the river in Venezuela. The Orinoco is the worlds 3rd largest river by volume and is 2140 km long. We stayed at the Da Gino hotel (a cut above the Plaza) beside the airport and dined on pizza and beer at the hotel restaurant.
Friday morning we went to the airport and divided into 3 groups for the 1 ¼ hour flight to Canaima in the Canaima National Park. The planes are 6 seaters (including the pilot) so everyone has a window seat. Maximum flying altitude was 6500 feet on the 119 mile trip so we had great views of the tepuys and waterfalls as we approached Canaima. Canaima sits on one side of Canaima Lagoon which is fed by four spectacular waterfalls on the Rio Carrao. After landing, we walked a short way and were then transported by canoe to Camp Bernal (www.bernaltours.com) on Isla Anatoliy which is situated in the lagoon between two of the waterfalls. On arrival we were given refreshments and presented with bead bracelets and necklaces. Native people here are the Pemon and guides must be native. We met our river guide Danielle at the camp. Danielle spoke English like a first language - it turns out all of the guides here must speak English, and a couple I spoke to were from British Guiana. The Bernal family who founded the business were originally from Peru.
We had the balance of the day at the camp so we wandered off on our own to see Salto Hacha (Axe Falls) - which featured a lengthy path under a rock overhang directly under the falls. It's slippery so socks are better than shoes or bare feet. Also, we're walking through serious downpours here - ladies hang onto the top of your bathing suits!
Later Danielle took us to a lovely sand beach (Playita) just below the Salto El Sapo (Frog Falls sounds less exciting) where we had a swim. Then we crossed through a path behind the falls - quite slippery with water dripping everywhere and very tunnel like with water on one side and rock on the other three sides - impossible to hear anything due to the roar of the water a couple of feet away! At the other side of the falls we climbed up and walked back across the top of the falls. Despite the torrents going over the falls, we could walk across the top with dry feet because most of the water flowed through channels cut into and under the rock.
We had opted for cabins (4 to a room) with private baths, but the rooms were very hot so Leona and I used the cabin for luggage and slept in hammocks under mosquito nets in the main lodge - basically a roof with no walls.
Saturday morning we divided our luggage in half, caught the canoe to Canaima and walked for ½ hour to the main curiara landing (Port Ucaima) above the falls at Canaima.
A word about the curiara - it held our party of 17, including the boat driver, guide and bowman with the other 14 of us seated 2 abreast and our luggage stored in tarpaulins between us and the driver. This presented a full load - especially since river depths were dropping as the rainy season comes to an end. The curiara is powered by a 48HP Yamaha (what else?) and probably draws about 6 inches. The boats are massively built of wood with pitch caulking - which is a good thing considering the number of rocks we bounced off or over on the river. They change the propeller and put on the rock prop when they leave the main river. In the rapids, the stern man is continuously tilting the motor up and down up and down and side to side to balance propulsion, direction and draft while the bow man calls the course and wields a large paddle of the Warao pattern to steer the boat. Any cross wind and the bow wave is in your face, and water often slops over the side in the rapids. Getting wet is guaranteed - even if it doesn't rain - which it did for an hour or so.
The curiara trip took us 24 miles up Rio Carrao and then 20 miles up Rio Churun to Refugio Rustico on Isla Raton, base camp for the hike to Angel Falls. We had to get out and walk for a half hour across Savannah of Mayupa about 10 miles up the Rio Carrao while the curiara ran the Mayupa rapids. One highlight of the trip upriver was the stop for a box lunch at a waterfall and bathing pool about 15 miles up the Rio Carrao where we spent an hour enjoying the rock pool and the natural shower. From there we entered the spectacular land of the Tepuys with steep mountains, forested lowlands and waterfalls around every corner.
Up till now, I thought the Gander River boats and their operators were the epitome of rapids runners - the Venezuelans have replaced them. While there are only a couple of rapids on the Rio Carrao, the run up the Rio Churun in particular involves 20 miles of mostly rapids and shallow spots and the water levels change rapidly with the weather. Elevation at the base camp was around 1300 feet, and at Refugio Rustico was 1600 feet or so. Allowing for the falls at Canaima that we walked around still left us climbing 200 feet in the rivers!
A couple of times a few of us had to walk around some of the rapids and once on the way up Devil's Gorge we all had to fend the boat off a humungous rock in mid-channel - on the first attempt we drifted backwards down river.
Over all, the upriver trip took seven hours including stops, and we arrived at Isla Raton around 5 PM. Refugio Rustico is an appropriate name - hammocks enclosed in mosquito nets slung over a dirt floor under a thatched roof with benches for dining and relaxing. No running water or electricity, but the food was excellent with large servings - especially the wood fired BBQ chicken!
Sunday morning we crossed the river and hiked for an hour toward Auyun Tepui (Evil Mountain) the home of Angel Falls. The trail is well marked by heavy usage with easy going for the first half but the second half is quite steep up to the Mirador Laime viewpoint elevation at 2300 feet. The view of the falls is spectacular - we lucked into a perfectly clear and sunny day. After lounging on the rocks at the viewpoint we descended a very steep trail to the pool at the bottom of the falls. Here we enjoyed a long swim washing off the trail grime and sweat.
There you have it - four days to get to the falls!
We returned to Isla Raton, had lunch and embarked on the down river trip. The water level had dropped so there were a couple more portages. At one point the boat was doing 21.7 MPH down the rapids. The trip was slower than the guides had planned so we made the Mayupa portage in twilight and the last 10 miles on the river in the dark - a tad unnerving, but we were past all the rapids. We docked at the upper end of Isla Anatoly between Salto Hacha and Salto El Sapo and then hiked down to Camp Bernal in the dark, thankful for our Petzl headlamps and Danielles knowledge of the trails. The trip downriver was faster by two hours, but 12 hours over two days sitting on a wooden plank screams for something soft on which to sit.
Monday morning we walked back to Salto Hacha, crossed under the lengthy waterfall overhang and climbed across a headland to swim in the forbidden pool under the adjacent falls, Salto Wadaima. We had a lot of fun getting pushed around by the downpour and resulting current.
Then, it was back to camp to pack up and have lunch. We were entertained by the village children's choir in native costume singing in spanish and pemon. Afterwards we rushed to the airport to catch the plane to Ciudad Bolivar.
Ciudad Bolivar was the headquarters of the revolution against the Spanish, and the Plaza Bolivar acknowledges the 5 countries liberated by Bolivar. We wandered around the town square looking at the restored buildings, but everything was closed due to a holiday. We then walked along the Paseo Orinoco to the Orinoco viewpoint for a beer and a photo and then back to the Casino near our hotel for dinner since the hotel dining room was closed for the holiday.
On the bus Tuesday, we enjoyed a daylight view of the 3 year old Orinoquia Bridge across the 3 km wide Orinoco River and stopped again at to see what trade goods the Warao had on offer at the bridge across Rio Morichal Largo. They would sell a small monkey for 500 Bf and also had a couple of agouti in cages for sale as well as the usual baskets. Along the way, we passed another person with an armadillo for sale!
We said goodbye to Betty and Branco in Carapano and arrived back in Guiria around 9 PM - yet another 12 hour bus trip.
Wednesday we found the shipping agency where we had to pay our 80 Bf departure tax and get our names on the manifest. (If you show up for the ferry without your ticket stamped to show the tax was paid you can't board!) We found a wonderful bakery for breakfast, then went back to the hotel for a round of Mexican Train dominoes to kill time before the ferry.
Venezuela is larger and far more varied than we had realized, and we found the people very friendly and concerned for our safety - don't walk there, etc. Many had far better English than our Spanish - we need to work on this. Certainly there is a lot more to see in Venezuela than our small sampling. All in all, a wonderful week.
PS: Ferry check in time was 2PM and we were back in Chaguaramas at 7:30 PM. The trip cost us $1969.63 Canadian over and above our normal living expenses - ON BUDGET!
PS: (Nov 1/09)
We have posted pictures in a separate album - Angel Falls.
These pictures were taken by everybody in the group - thanks to everyone for permission to use them.
|
Comments [0]
First, an apology to Phil on Beothuk for plagiarizing his T shirt with the wonderful Nfld saying - but it just seems right. I'm kneeling at the chart table, can't sit because the space is occupied by our trusty Yanmar 3JH4E, which, akin to a horse, has two broken port legs - I mean motor mounts.
Therefore it has been extracted from its stable in the engine room whilst we replace the cutless bearing and have the shaft straightened - the shaft is bent 8 thou where it passes through the log. Both port motor mounts sheared (1/2" bolts) just below the lower nut on the motor flanges - thankfully the engine continued to rest on the broken studs for God knows how long, and we never needed to go full astern in an emergency. The soft coupling (now broken) probably saved the day - play in it and the PSS meant both the transmission seals and the log are still in good shape. We are on the hard at Peakes in Trini as of Sep 28th - dirt people once again, while repairs are made.
No, we did not hit anything or pick up a stray net or line in our prop. The hypothesis is that when we were repowered the Yanmar documentation indicated that the new 3JH4E had the same mount footprint as our old 3HM35F. Yanmar later corrected their drawings to reflect that the footprint is actually an additional 4mm each side of center line. As a result the mounts were under stress from misalignment (think bow-legged!) and finally sheared after 4 years and 2300 hours. While repairs are underway, we are redoing our Cetol - it only lasts a year down here; and we also will have the bottom paint refreshed, the hull polished and the water line raised 3 inches. (We stayed at Crews Inn Marina for about five weeks when we arrived and found we were the only one of four IPs there that still pretended to have the original water line.)
Bad luck does come in threes - we also lost our autopilot (corroded control head circuit board) and the freezer system began loosing refrigerant and would fail one month after recharging. (This was due to a slow refrigerant leak into the water cooling condenser). The second time we paid for repairs, the freezer appears to be fixed.
We have also replaced the canvas panel between dodger and bimini and the side panels to make our house more water proof when it rains and more durable when it blows. In addition, the EPIRB battery had to be replaced, anchor chain replaced (rusting out) and the house batteries were nearing end of life. Trini offers very reasonable prices for both material and labor, but who says cruising is cheap? They say the average boat spends about $8K (US) here in Trini - we'd prefer not to add it up.
On the brighter side, there are a lot of great folk here, but not as many cruisers as a year ago. More are hanging in Grenada or heading home while their boat waits for them on the hard. We have been to a couple of great pan yard shows - the one on Republic Day featured SIX bands including the National Steel Symphony that plays the new and more mellow G pans. Early on we had a wonderful hike to Maracas Falls with the folks on Sunborne. Leona is known far and wide (on VHF Channel 68 at least) as the domino Queen for her skill at Sunday Mexican Train dominoes. As the pictures show, there is always time for a little party, like when Strider went back to Canada for two months.
The hurricane season has been a non event - so far. But it is very hot - daytime temps are always in the high 80s and low 90s - it has been 101 degrees in the cockpit some days. Down below, the temp reaches 94 in the daytime, dropping to 85 when we go to bed and around 80 when we wake up. Here on the hard we finally rented an air conditioner - we froze last night when it dropped to 67!
We are looking forward to getting back on the water and cruising again, but first we are taking a sea, land, air and river trip to Angel Falls, Venezuela with five other cruising couples. We have renewed our yellow fever vaccinations, started our anti- malarial tablets, stocked up on DEET and are packing light for our jungle adventure. Angel Falls, the tallest waterfall in the world, is not accessible by road, We depart on Oct. 7th and will return to Trinidad Oct. 14th
We'll tell you all about it once we are back and Voyageur C has splashed.
|
It's been a busy month since last we wrote. Back on July 28th we left Grenada (the Island) for Carriacou (Tyrell Bay) to enjoy the Carriacou Regatta. (Carriacou is part of Grenada like Newfoundland is part of Canada.) We were there for six days and were busy throughout.
The first day we took the bus around to Windward to watch them build traditional boats like the Carriacou sloops. Then we hiked back around the north-west corner of the island.
One of the nicest aspects of the Regatta is the Carriacou Children's Education Fund (CCEF). These cruisers organize potlucks, dominoes, auctions, raffles, treasure of the bilge sales etc. and all the proceeds including nominal admission charges go to local schools for school lunches, computers and computer labs, etc. This year they were delighted to top their cumulative $100,000 EC target by $6,000. Quite an achievement over their 9 years of activity! (http://tbyh.kyak106.com/index.html )
The major aspect is the racing - both a yacht program for the cruiser / racers and a workboat program for the local boats. (Local in the sense that they are traditional designs - they came from as far away as Bequia for the races.) These boats have lots of sail, removable ballast and no keels to speak of. The races start from the beach and are exciting to watch - especially the start and whenever they take the wind! We watched races at both Paradise Beach and in town at Hillsborough.
On the yacht racing side, Leona had a chance to crew on Spirited Lady of Fowey (a one year old 57' traditional sloop) for the last yacht race. Leona ground the port sheet in a crew of four plus captain Susie - including one token guy! After three days of racing Spirited Lady came in second overall.
Carriacou is a beautiful island with lovely people and a slower pace than many of the other islands. On August 4th we returned to Hog Island, Grenada to rest up for the Grenada Carnival. The trip was a bit more strenuous than planned since the autopilot would not engage so we opted for the leeward side of Grenada to get out of the beam swells.
For Carnival, the new Port Louis marina offered one day free for every two days paid and a free bucket of beer (5 Carib) per day. Since Port Louis is right in St. George's it was an ideal location without the complications of transportation. We moved in for six days along with a bunch of other boats. Water was free but no power since we were using the megayacht docks -however the pool was a welcome attraction.
Carnival is a four day long weekend that ran from August 8th to the 11th this year.The first night a group of us attended Panarama - a competition between six of Grenada's pan bands at the National Stadium. Despite frequent rain delays, they completed the program and our favorite - the third entry, was the winner.
Sunday, as always in many of the islands, was a day of rest!
For the next few days, beer, rum and food tents line the parade route in St. George's. Sound trucks with megawatt speakers playing the same beat shake everything within a two block radius. All the parades are competitive with judging stations set up along the way.
The first event is Jour Overt (pronounced Jouvay) which is a parade that starts around 3AM Monday with all manner of costumes, props and political messages, all overlaid by flying paint in every shade along with motor oil resulting in the slickest technicolored group you ever did see. (Wear old clothes!) By the time we showed up around 6 AM the street was so slick people were sliding down the slight grade in front of us. From time to time the folk in the parade would select one of the spectators and bring him onto the street for a paint or oil treatment. (You could decline!)
Late that day (around 7PM) the Mas (Masquerade) parade took place. We bought parade costumes and joined the Caribe camp, while many of our friends were with the Lime (Cable & Wireless) camp. Basically, we and thousands of others chip along the parade route swilling booze from the beer/rum truck that is an integral part of each camp's section. It is nearly impossible to stay still - the music is annoyingly repetitive yet curiously infectious. I've never seen so much back field in motion - clothing is barely a barrier between the revelers! Fortunately we were in one of the first parade sections, so we actually made it to the end of the route in the Carenage around midnight. Our friends in Lime barely made it half way.
The final parade on Tuesday is intended to highlight the costumes of the King and Queen of each participating camp, and show the enthusiasm of their entourage. The costumes are truly amazing and the pictures don't do them justice! Once again, each camp includes all manner of different costumes at different price levels - although the ladies don't seem to get much material for their money.
Unfortunately, the heavens opened up on Tuesday of the parade so it was postponed to the following Saturday, August 15th. Since a number of the participants were tourists who wouldn't be on the island next Saturday, a couple of sound trucks and the all important booze support trucks did the parade route fueling a happy contingent of primarily off islanders. The rain stopped and a good time was had by all.
We left Port Louis and moved around to Clarke's Court Bay to have our freezer system tested and repaired preparatory to heading out for Trini.
On Saturday, we took the bus into town to watch the deferred parade in St, George's.
As the announcer said: "All de colors hea!" As you can see from the pix, size doesn't matter! Everything is in motion and the refreshment stands do a roaring trade.
The Grenadians put on a great spectacle, even more impressive when you consider the country's population is only about 110,000 and St. George's is less than 40,000. This shortage is offset by the fact that 50% are under 30 years of age!
We arrived here in Trinidad on August 19th after an overnight passage from Grenada. We have a list of things to do here that we missed last time (Maracas Beach, Pitch Lake, Trini turtles, Nariva Swamp, etc.) and another list of stuff to repair or improve on the boat. There are lots of the folk we've met along the way hanging about so the social scene will be lively. We haven't decided whether to haul out here or delay that until we get up island - likely St. Martin. If the hurricane season is as benign as expected, we hope to leave here in early October and visit Tobago before returning to Grenada.
|
