The decent, Roraima

Right up and away by 730 everything is water proofed except for me and it should all be safe if it rains or the waterfalls are heavy. Today we should be able to hit the base camp for lunch and then the first camp for dinner, I thought this was a big aim considering it was two days to get up. However there has still been no rain since we started trekking so the waterfalls and the rivers should not be heavy or high but Alex our guide says these things can change quickly.

This time I have been preparing and have my camera ready to give you some idea of the climb. Rose and Beatrice, hired a personal porter as they didn't want to have to carry a bag on the decent. I won't say it was easy, but slow and steady made it down in one piece. After a brief lunch we started out for the first camp, hoping again our luck holds and there is no rain. The hardest aspect of the next part was the sun, we started out just after 12, I had covered up as I didn't want to get burnt but this meant I was even hotter and by 2, I was out of water, and my shirt and trousers were almost dripping wet (yes I felt disgusting).

Our luck held and the rivers were even lower meant the second one could be crossed without getting wet. Now I'm at the first camp only a short walk and a car ride tomorrow and I'll be back at the hostel, let's hope they have water this time, as last week they didn't have any in Santa Elena. Grrrr.

So the group left the camp just before 8 in the morning, and my legs were killing me, walking back was hard work after the hard decent the day before but well worth it, the weather held off raining till we were back at the camp. Once back we learnt that the boiliver had strengthened against the dollar as the president said he was going to buy more forgiven currency so last week we got 70 boiliver for a dollar today 45 was the best we could get and only if changing a huge amount of currency. Therefore me and Johannes decided to just run back to Brazil, given that we only had 200 riels between it us it was going to be tight to get back to boa vista. We managed with a little bit of luck and some hard bargaining. That evening trying to get money out of the banks was hard we tried banco Brazil, 2 different Santander branches and finally a little service station let us take out some money. Nice to sleep in a bed for the first time in a week and not be super cold.

Got some dollars the next day and I headed back to Manaus by bus to get a flight to Lima. This turned into a huge mess, I had looked at flight timed on the net and assumed that 3:41 was in the afternoon naively. So now I'm here and I have a second problem, my debit card has been cloned and someone in america has been with drawing money from my account, the money will come back but the card is now useless and I only have 100 riels left, not enough to get a taxi to town and back. All my money is in dollars or Peruvian Pecos, so stuck in the airport for 15 hours with luggage and everything. I had downloaded a little app to learn some Spanish so I have been going over and over it on my phone. But later tonight I head to Lima and maybe a beach day or two before moving on.

Mount Roraima the climb

So starting off from Santa Elena the group to headed to the mountain. The group consists of myself, Johannes, a German architect, Rose a girl from Taiwan and Beatrice a girl from Hong Kong, they meet each other online and are travelling for a year together. After driving for 90 mins we are at the point where we sign in with the park rangers and start the trek. Only a half day today, 12-14km till the first camp. Nice rolling hills and our first look at mount Roraima, it is quite impressive from a distance and it seemed that over each hill it was looking more impressive, especially in the lovely sunshine. The ground was really hard to sleep on but the tents were really good at keeping out the wind. Only issue is that we are supposed to keep the bags inside with us but the tents aren't all that roomy for 2 grown men plus two large bags, so we are just going to keep them outside but heavily wrapped in plastic.

Day 2 again this is just over half a day but starting the uphill climb with 2 rivers crossings which took some time to navigate. If there has been a lot rain on the top of the mountain then the rivers can be too dangerous to cross as the water is too fast and too high. Luck was with us and there had only been very light rain overnight. Second base camp had a great view and we can see the clouds coming over the mountain from where we are. There are a lot of small waterfalls that line the mountain, across from Roraima there is another table top mountain called kookinan and this has a 610 metre waterfall that you can see from the base camp, this water fall is not permanent and so does not count into the highest waterfalls, as sometimes its dry.

Day 3 the climb.

This started very steep and only got steeper, its not really fair to call it a hike but more scrambling or mountaineering, I really don't know how getting down is going to go. We had some luck in the fact it was not raining but I still got soaked because we have to go under 4 waterfalls, that seemed so lovely the day before from the base camp. Again if it had been raining we would have to wait for them to subside before being able to continue the climb. As we reached the top thick cloud came over the mountain and we cannot see a whole lot. We are now camped at a hotel on top of the mountain, which is just a rocky outcrop which should provide some shelter from the wind. However we cannot peg the tents in meaning mine and Johannes tent went flying off down the path, queue some choices words from the guide Alex :). Unfortunately because of the waterfalls and general cloud I didn't get my camera out on the climb but now I know what to expect I can get some much better photos on the way down, just after falling in the Amazon and somehow the camera surviving I didn't want to risk it with water again.