The Gran Sabana

We returned to Lobo's after our trip to the Orinoco Delta and decided to spend another night there. I was still feeling pretty ill so I was looking forward to a good night's rest.

When we arrived there were some more people who had just turned up. We met 2 Kiwi girls and 2 German guys. Later on another 2 German guys arrived too - all of a sudden it was very busy at Lobo's place. It was nice to meet some more new faces so we sat on the veranda and chatted for a while in the evening. Lobo didn't have enough room for everyone so the 2 girls went to stay with one of his friends and one German guys slept in the hammock on the veranda while the other slept downstairs on the couch. The guy who used the hammock regretted not being a bit more thorough with the mozzie spray when he woke up - he'd been eaten alive during the night.

Whilst chatting to the others that evening we were told they were heading for a tour of the Gran Sabana which would involve heading south towards Santa Elena de Uairen. Santa Elena was our next port of call en route to Brazil so we decided to join the group and see some more of Venezuela on the way. We would get up the next morning, load Lobo's Land Cruiser and trailer and head off. There was me, Jimmy, Rolfe and Marco (two of the German guys), Rachel and Melanie (the two Kiwi girls), Lobo, his wife Rosa and young daughter Suzie. Lobo would be our guide and driver for the next few days.

Off we went the next morning. I still wasn't feeling right but was in good spirits and looking forward to the trip. One advantage of doing the journey this way was that the bus we would have caught travels during the night and takes about 9 hours. There are also 2 military checkpoints on the way and buses always get stopped and searched. This means being woken up in the middle of the night and having to unpack your luggage at the roadside. Quite time consuming when there's a bus full of people.

First of all Lobo took us to one of the many gold mines in the region. Gold mining here is very hard work and yields very little gold. Alot of the miners use the small amounts of gold they find to buy food. The process entails mining quartz which is then ground down and mixed with mercury to try and extract the gold. We watched some young men working at one of the machines in the baking heat. Safety is obviously not a big concern to these guys - we saw one of them having his lunch with a can of beer.

After this we went to another mine where the quartz is extracted. We donned our hard hats and stooped through the low entrance into the mine. There wasn't much to see apart from a few bats and the tunnels which had been dug to follow the quartz. It did make you think about how hard life must be for the people who depend on it to make a living.

We also stopped along the way to watch some local people baking manioc bread which is baked using flour ground from the roots of the manioc plant. The manioc root itself is poisonous so part of the process involves leeching all the poison out before use. Apparently it's good for your stomach so we took some and I had a little piece (my first food for a couple of days!). It's very filling as it expands when you drink water and it's a big staple food here.

That afternoon we headed for San Isidro which is a mining town on the road south. It's one of only a couple of towns in the region and apparently it's a bit like the wild west there. Not the safest place to spend and evening but Lobo knew a good place to stay which was safe and clean. We arrived, unloaded the trailer and went to our rooms. I would spend the night in the room again nursing my bad stomach while the others went out for something to eat. Just to illustrate how things are in this town the others went out in the Land Cruiser for the short distance and only got out when they were at the restaurant. Meanwhile the manager sat in his office near the gate of the hotel with a shotgun.

The next morning after a brief stop for breakfast at a little stall in the town we set off towards La Escalera (literally meaning ¨The staircase¨). This is the road that winds up through dense cloud forest towards the plateau of the Gran Sabana. The first stop along the way was Piedra de la Virgin or ¨Virgin Rock¨ which is a huge boulder at the side of the road where there stands a little shrine to the Virgin Mary.

The two Kiwi girls who were with us were very excited by the prospect of travelling along La Escalera as both were keen bird watchers and were in Venezuela on a work related project involving cataloguing the species they came across.

Further along the road we got out of the truck and walked a couple of Kms up the road to try and spot some birds. I think perhaps it was a bit late in the morning as we didn't see many (you have to be there around 7am when it's said you can see 15 or more different species). All the same it was a nice walk and the climate felt so different here - alot cooler and there was even a slight misty rain in the air.

Further along the road we would see the first of many waterfalls (Salto Kawi) in this area. We were told it was perfect for swimming so we would head there and relax for a while.

After that we stopped off at Salto Catedral for a quick look and some snaps.

We stopped for a lunch by a river where some of the guys went for a swim whilst the food was being prepared. Me and Jimmy sat in the shade and relaxed for a while then went to eat. I had my first meal in 4 days and it felt great! We had chicken with rice and fried banana with some other fries which could have been yucca. Here I discovered kumache sauce which is a spicy sauce made with chilli and often one of the ingredients is ants or termites although this particular one didn't contain either.

After lunch we set off for the final leg of the journey towards Santa Elena. We stopped at yet another waterfall called Quebrada de Jaspe, situated about 20 minutes walk from the road. This is by no means the most impressive in terms of size but is famous for the unusual red jasper rock from which it is formed. The pictures don't really illustrate the depth of the colour and the strangeness of the place but hopefully will give you some idea. The red rock is also very slippery as we found out when we walked across to take a closer look and some snaps.

We arrived in Santa Elena later in the afternoon and booked into our rooms at the Posada Michelle which is a cool little place with a small bar and a couple of tables outside under a palm thatched roof. Later that evening we had pizza at a place across the street (more or less the best tasting pizza I can remember eating). I hadn't had any alcohol for a good few days and after being mistakenly ordered a beer later that evening I thought it would be rude not to drink it. So I had a couple more and then off for another early night.

The next morning the Kiwi girls would be leaving to trek Roraima, a huge table mountain to the east which takes 6 days to complete. We thought about joining them but the expenses were mounting up after the last couple of excursions so we decided against it. Rolfe and Marco were staying with Lobo to head west along the road to Ikabaru which runs parallell with the Brazilian border so we thought we may as well head that way with them before coming back to Santa Elena and on to Brazil.