Venezuela: A Surprising Gem of a Country

An unconventional destination

Since booking my tour in Venezuela about a year ago, I’ve been met by exclamations of “why there?” and “isn’t it dangerous?” almost every single time that I’ve mentioned my travel plans in conversation. I guess that the honest answer to that question is the terribly clichéd “why not?” but to flesh that out a bit, Venezuela, and all other unconventional travel destinations for that matter, have always held a special sort of allure for me. Undiscovered frontiers excite me; the idea of arriving in the airport of a country where I don’t have any preconceptions about the people, landscape, and society beyond a smattering of current events that have been sufficiently significant to be reported by the international news media, fills me with wonder.

My itinerary for my “mature aged gap year” has included a few destinations in this vein: Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, and Venezuela. I have, without exception, loved all of these countries, with Sierra Leone and Venezuela being my stand out favourites of my trip thus far (honourable mentions go to Indonesia and Turkey).

Having fairly fixed dates and not an iota of Spanish language skills, planning a trip to Venezuela was no mean feat. Fortunately, I had a particularly painful lecture on the diabetic foot that provided me with the perfect opportunity to dedicate 2 hours to scouring the internet to find an English-language tour that matched my price-range and dates. What I found was a G-Adventures “active” tour that combined a 6-day hike up a mountain that I’d never heard of and a trip to Angel Falls (the one attraction in Venezuela that I was adamant I would visit). Without second thought about the fact that I’d just been diagnosed with severe glandular fever and post-viral chronic fatigue syndrome I booked onto this trip and decided to worry about my physical fitness at a later stage.

As the trip approached, it became impossible for me to push my doubts out of my mind: in March Venezuela made news headlines due to anti-government protests; my waistline, but not my fitness, increased after months of travel through countries where opportunities to eat vegetables and go to the gym are sparse. All the while the months flew by and suddenly the time arrived for me to say goodbye to my mother in Buenos Aires and step into the unknown.

My goal

Arrival and a long overland journey to the Gran Sabana

On the morning of 14 June I left the comfort of the pleasant, but all too brief, trip interlude of travelling with my mother. As soon as we’d said our good byes and I’d passed through immigration at Buenos Aires airport things started to go wrong for me with a bout of sudden and dramatic food poisoning. Upon landing in Caracas this food poisoning was joined by a migraine and I was pretty miserable. I met my group that afternoon and they seemed nice, but I was in too much pain and too miserable to really get much of an impression of them. I had an exciting dinner of French fries (apparently the only thing that I can ever manage to eat when I have an upset tummy), took my last sumatriptan for the migraine, and then put myself to bed hoping to wake up in a better state the following morning.

The following morning our small group – myself, the other two youngsters Richard and Mads, and the mature contingent consisting of Steve and Barry – accompanied by our guides, Angel and Gibson, departed Caracas in a minivan destined for Ciudad Bolivar where we would catch a night-bus to Santa Elena, the departure town for our hike up Mount Roraima. After a rather stomach-churning high-speed exodus through the suburbs of Caracas we were travelling at 160 kph on a highway leading across the country. I took a 25mg phenergan tablet and quickly fell into a deep drug-induced sleep. The following 24 hours are somewhat of a blur in my memory, but included:

• -       Watching an angry man refusing to get off the bus at Ciudad Bolivar despite the fact that he did not have a valid ticket. When the bus conductors tried to coax him off the bus he responded by literally throwing his weight around;
• -       Trying to shield myself from the arctic winds blowing out of the air-conditioning vent that was missing a cover;
• -       Being searched at a customs checkpoint near the Brazilian border. This was of no particular consequence to me, however one of the passengers was a crazy looking Colombian man wearing giant angel wings that were decorated with chicken feathers. He was carrying about half a cubic meter of used soft drink cans that had been wrapped with cling film and labelled with a sticker saying “secure bag” (which was funny seeing as there was no bag involved in the entire can arrangement, which also didn’t look very secure for that matter). The guards at the customs checkpoint invited him to be checked in a little room in their guardhouse, and eventually we were all allowed back on to the bus that finally arrived in Santa Elena some 6 or so hours behind schedule.
• -       Being kindly helped by the 4 guys on my tour who could tell that I was in no fit state to do things like stand in the rain holding 30kgs of luggage.

Mr Angel wings and cans

Upon arrival in Santa Elena we checked into our hotel and then promptly left Venezuela in search of the superior food on the other side of the border. We entered Brazil without so much as a sighting of our passports and satiated our hunger with a phenomenal churrasco (I’m not much of a carnivore, so the fact that I enjoyed it is really saying something). The rest of our day was spent organising, packing, sleeping, and eating as much good food as we could manage before heading off on our hike the following morning.

Trekking Roraima

Prior to travelling to Venezuela, my attempts at hiking had not been successful. In 2006 I attempted to climb Mount Kinabalu in Malaysia with my family. Not only were my mother and I afflicted with terrible altitude sickness (likely caused by our 8-hour ascent from sea level to almost 4000m above sea level), but we ended up stuck in a typhoon, which meant that we were unable to summit the mountain the following morning and had to struggle to climb down a path that closely resembled a waterfall. Six months after this unsuccessful hiking attempt I decided to go trekking in Nepal, which was a disaster as I contracted severe food poisoning the night before the trek and ended up being evacuated after just one day of trekking (which was pretty unpleasant seeing as I was so sick I could barely walk).

So, in the lead up to this hike I was not feeling all that optimistic, and was even being so melodramatic as to compare the upcoming trek to The Hunger Games. Contrary to my fears, the trek turned out to be one of the absolute highlights of my trip so far. I think that there were probably several reasons why I enjoyed the trek so much:

• -       Once I had recovered from my food poisoning, migraine, and drugged up haze I discovered that my group consisted of 4 super nice, wicked funny, and all round good people (plus me);
• -       We had a superb guide, Frank, who was an absolute expert on Mount Roraima. Under his guidance our hike was safe, pleasurable and inspired in us the same love of the mountain that Frank consistently demonstrated;
• -       The natural beauty of the area was absolutely breathtaking;
• -       I successfully Summited the mountain. This may not sound like such a big deal, but my success really surprised me. Discovering that I could actually make it up and down this mountain really challenged how I think about myself; it has given me the courage to confront more of my fears and set ambitious goals to further challenge myself (shortly after this trek I also confronted my fear of snorkelling and found that I really enjoyed that too once I stopped panicking).

Just before departing for the hike. Looking pretty fresh, me looking scared (photo courtesy of Barry)

Day one: The Gran Sabana

The first day of the trek consisted of a pleasant walk through the undulating hills of the Gran Sabana, but first step was to actually get to the starting point of the trek, which was more than 40km from where we were staying in Santa Elena. We all loaded into a 4x4, which was definitely a tight fit. Richard and I were in the front, me with no leg room as the gear stick was where my legs were supposed to be and was not keen on the notion of having the driver stick his hand between my legs every time that he needed to change gear. In the end I settled for massively invading Richard’s personal space and being whacked in the head by multiple objects during the drive (the driver’s mobile phone twice, a walkie-talkie poorly attached to the ceiling once, and a whole carton of eggs that was sitting on the dashboard and then on Richard’s lap). Eventually we arrived at the small town where the trek began and before long we had arranged porters (to carry our tents, food, toilet tent, and some of our luggage) and were off.

The walk was fantastic: great weather, great vibe, a small collection of other travellers (most from South America but one group from Korea, who I managed to offend by immediately saying "Oppan Gangnam Style!" like they hadn't heard that one enough in the past 2 years!) all loving life, and stunning views. Here are some photos from this day:

Up-down, up-down, nice and easy

Great view of Roraima

More great views of Roraima

At the end of the day’s walking we needed to cross two small rivers, the second substantially larger than the first. Most of us changed into sandals or crossed bare-foot. When we arrived at the campsite Steve started to look confused, then concerned, and then finally said “where are my boots?!” It didn’t take too long for the penny to drop that he’d left them across the other side of the river. Richard kindly fetched the boots and then we all settled into the campsite, which was a lovely place to camp, save for the plague of hungry sand flies. We had a great dinner that had an optional ant sauce, which is a spicy sauce containing large ants. Mads tried this, I did not.

Shortly after dinner Steve returned from a toilet trip looking bashful and announcing that he’d broken the toilet and the toilet tent. He was the first person to try to use it and the entire seat collapsed as soon as he sat down, and then the tent collapsed with it. We all had a good laugh and christened Steve “Steve the destroyer”. From then onwards finding a private place to go to the bathroom was a constant struggle for me, culminating in an amusing incident on the summit of the mountain.

Our campsite for the first night (photo courtesy of Barry)

Day two: Up to base camp

We woke to a beautiful morning and I took some photos down at the river before we departed. As I was walking down to the river I accidentally kicked a rock, which really hurt as I was wearing slippers instead of my hiking boots, so there was nothing to protect my foot. It turns out that I hit my foot so hard that I killed one of my toenails and potentially even broke my little toe as it’s been quite swollen and sore ever since (it didn’t even occur to me that it might be broken until I showed my doctor and he said that he thought that it was broken but would heal itself without any dramas). Here are the photos from by the river:

View from the river

View from a nice and private toilet spot that I found

After we left our camp we started to ascend fairly quickly and after about 4-5 hours we were at base camp. I took far fewer photos this day because the terrain was more difficult and also I was too busy having a nice time chatting to people in the group to worry too much about photos. When we reached base camp we set up our tents and then chilled out. I had a great chat with Steve and Richard about the issue of whether a jaffle cake is a cake or a biscuit, the tax implications for this in the UK, and the jurisprudence on the matter. All in all a great day.

The small amount of shelter at base camp and the cliffs up to the summit

The view from base camp down to the valley where we had spent the past 2 days walking

Day three: Summit day

Day three was the day that we summited (MS Word insists that I cannot use this word as a verb, but I insist that I can so I will keep using doing so) Roraima. My basic description of this day is: hard bit – easy bit – even harder bit.

The "even harder" bit

We had been lucky with the weather for the previous two days. We were less fortunate this day, as there was a constant light drizzle and before long we were soaked. I became very envious of the GoreTex jackets that were worn by everybody except for me. I had a disposable plastic poncho that I’d picked up for free at Iguassu Falls the previous week. Luckily I had 2 of these disposable ponchos, as these things are not at all durable and by the time we’d reached the summit the first poncho had several large holes in it and I basically just felt wet and ridiculous.

The first bit of the climb was quite difficult. There were some fairly steep clay paths leading out of base camp that we needed to climb before scrambling through the jungle to the base of “the staircase”, a diagonal waterfall leading onto the top of the tepui. I am quite tall, 172cm, but I really struggled with these cliffs because the foot indentations were about the same height as my hip, and as soon as a step is hip height or higher you’re at a massive mechanical disadvantage when you try to lift yourself onto it. I had a bit of a moment, but then just pushed through and walked by myself for a while so that I wouldn’t have to watch on in envy as taller people climbed these trails with relative ease.

Eventually, I was joined by a Venezuelan guy who was doing the hike with his mother. We had a polite conversation that quickly turned quite weird, giving me the motivation to walk a bit faster and catch up with Richard, Mads and Barry (the tipping point was when this guy tried to flex his biceps at me whilst announcing that he was stronger than my friend Steve who he’d just passed on the trek).

Eventually we reached the final path to the summit and at that point I decided to stick with our guide Frank because I’m a bit scared of heights and also falling rocks so wanted the added safety of being right behind him. Here is a picture of the path that we climbed up to get on to the top of the tepui:

Upon reaching the summit we waited for Steve and Angel to arrive and then took some photos. Here’s a group photo from when we had all just arrived:

Looking a bit rugged. (photo courtesy of Barry)

Next, we hiked across the top of the tepui to our campsite for the next 2 nights, a cave known as “Hotel San Francisco” (or, in my mind “Hotel California”, cue music by The Eagles). Upon reaching the cave we were greeted by our porters who’d walked ahead to start preparing a hot lunch for us, including a hot chocolate, which, because of the circumstances, was about the most satisfying hot chocolate of my life.

Hotel San Francisco (photo courtesy of Barry)

Day Four: Exploring the summit

We had a whole day on the summit, which was great because there is plenty to see and do there. I didn’t realise it at the time, but Mt Roraima was the inspiration for the setting of the Disney/Pixar film “Up”. I don’t generally watch children’s films nowadays, as I am no longer a child, but I was persuaded by my cousin to watch this after the hike and it’s actually a pretty accurate depiction of the summit of Roraima. The summit is otherworldly, its wonder increased by its rapidly changing weather.

In the morning, the weather was overcast and we walked around to see attractions known as “the Jacuzzis”, “the window” and some other things that I’ve since forgotten the names of. Here are some pictures:

These frogs are endemic to the top of Roraima

The misty top of the mountain

The top of the mountain used to be covered in quartz crystal, but bad tourists kept taking it as souvenirs so now there's hardly any

Lovely waterfall on the top of the mountain

Faffing around near the sheer drop at the edge of the mountain

A place called "the window". It's hard to see from this picture but basically you can see a massive drop down to the base camp level through this gap in the rocks (which was horrifying, as it was definitely large enough for me to slip through!)

A rock shaped like a turtle (courtesy of Barry)

A carnivorous plant. Roraima has lots of interesting endemic fauna on its plateau but I didn't have my camera out very much when we were walking around (as it was very wet and my camera does not like the wet) so again this photo is courtesy of Barry

Mads in one of the jacuzzis. There was no way that I was taking my clothes off in that temperature

Around lunchtime the complicated logistics of not having a decent toilet tent really came to the fore for me. I honestly don’t mind just finding a bush and going in the bush, however this method of bush toileting depends on the availability of suitable bushes, and there are not many suitable bushes on the top of Roraima. Eventually, I settled for walking out on to the plateau and looking for a rock to squat behind. I was doing this and was midway through getting down into a squat when I heard Barry suddenly shout “WOWEE LOOK AT THAT VIEW!” (referring to the fact that the weather had somewhat cleared, but still highly alarming when your bare bottom is potentially part of that view). In response I tried to simultaneously jump up and pull up my pants, resulting in my falling forwards into a waist-deep ditch. My one pair of trousers and my hiking boots were covered in pond scum and absolutely rank. Both clothing items were donated to the porters at the end of the following day and I did the final day of the hike in sandals.

That afternoon we hiked to the highest point on the summit and then had extraordinary luck as the weather suddenly cleared and we were met with fantastic views including, at one point, a double rainbow! I’ve had a few moments this year that I would describe as wanderlust moments; moments that have filled me with awe at how lucky I am to be able to experience the places and people of the countries that I’ve visited. This was one of these moments. These photos speak for themselves:

Amazing! (wearing shorts and sandals as my trousers and boots were by this stage covered in slimy pond scum)

Double rainbow OMG!!!

The clouds rolling back in

Day five: The big descent day

Day five involved retracing our steps from days 2 and 3, taking us back to near the first camp site (we walked slightly further because our guide wanted us to cross the rivers that day).

To be honest, this was by far the hardest day in terms of walking. It was pouring rain for the entire morning, and by this stage I felt like an absolute Wally for not bringing proper wet weather gear. To make matters worse, there was a point about halfway down to base camp where my body started signalling to me that I’d pushed it too far: my legs started collapsing, my knees were shaking and several times I fell onto my bum in the middle of the trek. When I was trying to climb down those steep little clay sections in fell straight onto my bottom and just slid down, which wasn’t very dignified and left me covered in mud, but was basically all that I could manage. This would have been pretty unpleasant were it not for the company of Richard who charitably walked with me all of the way from the summit to base camp, despite the fact that he’s a far better hiker than me and probably could have gone a lot faster and arrived at the small amount of shelter at base camp much quicker if he’d left me to my own devices.

At base camp we tried to dry off as best we could (ie not much) and then we had a quick lunch before continuing our descent. The second half of this descent was much easier terrain, but the mood was a bit sour after we came across somebody who could tell us the results from the group stage of the World Cup (we’d had no contact with the outside world for 5 days at this point) and we discovered that both England and Australia would not be progressing. To be honest, I would have been amazed if Australia had been successful in the group stage and I actually barrack for the Netherlands anyway, so I wasn’t too upset, but the others seemed pretty miffed.

Just before reaching camp we had to cross those rivers again, and both were now substantially higher due to the rains. Frank ended up taking us across the larger river one by one in a canoe like so:

Frank was such a great guy

That night at camp we were greeted by a porter who’d hiked to the campsite with a backpack full of beer and nothing else (a local piss-weak beer called Polar Light). At this stage I was still drinking beer because I’d only just stopped eating wheat in the previous couple of months (resulting in a substantial improvement of the pretty bad digestive problems that I’d had throughout the trip so far), and hadn’t yet realised that there is also gluten in beer despite the fact that it’s made of barley not wheat. So, I drank beer, and regretted it the next morning.

Overnight that night our campsite was disrupted by an ultramarathon that was being run from a nearby town to the basecamp of Roraima and back. In the early hours of the morning all of the stray dogs around the campsite started barking as runners passed through the camp. This went on for quite some time, much to my frustration as I was, at this stage, dehydrated, tired, restless and suffering from a headache and lots of beer regret.

Day six: return to civilisation

On day six we retraced our steps of the first day.

I arrived at the starting point town shortly after Mads, Richard and Barry and was greeted with popcorn and coke, which I practically inhaled.

When then returned to the main road by 4x4 (I refused to sit in the front this time unless I was provided with a helmet), where we had lunch and did a small spot of souvenir shopping before returning to Santa Elena for some much-awaited showers.

That evening we went out to a pizza restaurant where there was nothing that I could eat and creepy-bicep guy from the summiting day sat two tables behind us and stared at the back of my head for hours.

The rest of the trip: Ciudad Bolivar and Cainama National Park

The following day we drove up to Ciudad Bolivar, which was a surprisingly fun day. I was in a car with chauffeur-and-Venezuela-expert Terry, bartender Gibson, and DJ Richard (I was the only completely useless person in the car – Angel, Steve, Mads and Barry were all travelling in a second car). I learned a lot about Venezuela that day (courtesy of Terry), listened to great music (courtesy of Richard), and was kept with a drink in my hand the whole time (courtesy of Gibson). That evening we had dinner at the restaurant at our hotel and continued the drinking with a bottle of wine that we thought was local (it wasn’t, it was Chilean) and cheap (it definitely wasn’t cheap).

A full tank of fuel for about $0.17

The next day we began our 2-day excursion to Cainama National Park, best known for Angel falls. This is actually very close to where we climbed Roraima (Angel falls is in the Western (Occidental) part of the park and Roraima is in the Eastern (Oriental) part of the park), however there is no road access to the falls area so the only way to get there is by flight from either Caracas or Ciudad Bolivar, hence the reason for the great car trip the previous day. There are two options for flying to the park: a small commercial airliner or even smaller Cesna planes. I was desperately hoping for the larger planes, as I am scared of flying and my level of fear is inversely proportional to the size of the plane that I am travelling in. I was in luck.

Upon arrival at the park we got changed into clothes suitable for swimming under waterfalls (again, I wasn’t very sensible with my clothing so I was wearing just a bikini and shorts) and we headed off on a boat trip up river. Early in the journey we had to get off the boat and hike across a small island as boats are no longer allowed to carry passengers up this stretch of river as one person died a few years ago (in contrast to Bolivia where 3 people cycled off the side of Death Road in the space of one fortnight, yet multiple tour companies are allowed to take hundreds of tourists on this road every single day). On this island we came across a termite nest where Mads, Angel and Richard all ate some of the termites (a local delicacy). I was content with just watching these weird insect eating antics and wasn’t particularly hungry anyway. 

Not exactly the most enticing meal

We stopped for lunch at a small waterfall which was quite fun to swim and take photos under:

Having fun at the falls

Barry! 

After lunch we continued up the river and the weather suddenly and dramatically turned. Before long I was regretting my ridiculous outfit and again wishing that I owned a GoreTex jacket (this was the first thing that I bought when I returned to Australia). Luckily Steve took pity on me (perhaps realising that I was so cold that I was getting distressed) and kindly let me wear his jacket. Eventually we reached our campsite for that night, which was just opposite Angel Falls. We put on some dry clothes and then had a sun-downer by the river with a view of Angel Falls in the background:

What a view!

That night we slept in hammocks, which is not nearly as comfortable as I’d expected. The campsite we’d been allocated was back from the river, yet the one where we had our sun-downers was empty, so Richard and I moved our hammocks to the empty site so that we would wake up to a view of the falls, which was an excellent idea:

Pretty incredible view to wake up to

The following morning we crossed the river by boat and then hiked up to a viewpoint of the falls. Midway along the hike we came across a snake, which freaked out the British people and reminded me of home. Eventually we reached the viewpoint, which we had to ourselves for over half an hour:

Relaxing under the falls

That afternoon we returned to the central part of the national park. On the way back we visited a waterfall where we could walk behind the falls, which was a pretty intense experience. Unfortunately, we didn’t realise that Mads is practically blind without his glasses (which could not be worn behind the waterfall as they would get knocked off) and also terrified of heavy running water, such as waterfalls, so Richard and I accidentally abandoned him and Barry had to help him get along the path.  

After the falls we returned to the small town in the centre of the park where we got cleaned up, had dinner and went to a lovely little local bar overlooking some waterfalls. We had a fairly calm night, but when we got back to the hotel I stubbed my already-sore toe on my bed in the dark, which made me pretty unhappy.

Great location for a bar (photo courtesy of Barry)

The following morning we did a little boat trip near the falls before catching our flight back to Ciudad Bolivar. This time, I was unlucky, as we had been allocated a 5-seat Cesna. It was terrifying. First, the pilot did not close his door until we were on the runway because the plane was so small that he wanted it open for extra elbow-room. After take off there was a point where the engines cut out and we started losing altitude until the pilot pressed a few buttons. The navigation system of the plane was a Garmin GPS, exactly the same as what is used in cars. The fuel gauge was on empty and labelled “MAN FUEL”. Fortunately for me, I couldn’t see this as I was seated at the back of the plane. Unfortunately for me, they have to distribute you by weight in such a small plane, which meant that Mads and I, the two people who are scared of flying, were in the back together and basically making the whole thing worse for each other but exchanging panicked looks whenever there was the slightest hint of turbulence. Despite this, I managed to hold it together until the pilot banked really steeply before landing, meaning that I was thrown against my window, ground side. Then I basically had an anxiety attack, which was a bit embarrassing.

Argh!

We spent that afternoon and evening in Ciudad Bolivar. Late that afternoon we were taken on a city tour, the theme of which was “this is closed, you should’ve been here half an hour ago”, and then we dined at a restaurant with literally hundreds of numbered food options (with large swathes of the numbers skipped, uncertain of the logic there).

Ciudad Bolivar

Orinoco River

The following morning we flew back to Caracas (in a much larger plane this time), where we would spend the afternoon before departing the next day. We had planned to spend our afternoon in the centre of the town, however there was a massive power outage bringing traffic to a standstill and shutting down the subway, so our plans were foiled. Eventually the traffic cleared and we took some taxis into town and had a look around the central area, which was actually very pleasant. We went to a local bar where Richard and I made some nice friends, including a lawyer, a journalist, and an unusual man who writes teen fiction and makes small animals out of wire. He made me an elephant.

Departure

The following morning I departed Venezuela. I, stupidly, did not look closely at my e-ticket, and after over an hour of queuing at airport check in discovered that I was actually in business class instead of economy (it turns out that this fare was cheaper at the time of my booking) and I could have just swanned up to the front of the line and checked in without the wait (something I’ve always secretly wanted to do). I would never pay a large fare increase for business class, but it was a really lovely experience and came at a time where I really appreciated the break from cattle class.

Next stop

Ecuador!