Below is a day by day account of the adventure, with pictures interspersed. If you'd rather just look at the photos, view them as a slideshow. There are 40 photos.

Day 1

We flew via Miami to Caracas, arriving in the afternoon. After various issues with money (primarily carrying it since they don't give you denominations greater than the equivalent of $1), we got to our small hotel near the beach. We ate and drank at a restaurant along the road and beach, and just watched the cars and people go by. First two observations. Venezuelans love big American cars from the 70s (gas was 12 cents a gallon there), and they love to play their music incredibly loud as they drive by.

Day 2

We got up at 3:30 AM to get to the airport, as we had an early flight, and had no idea what to expect at the airport. Since our Spanish was not good, and we were clearly not from there, people cut in front of us at will, and there was nothing we could do about it. But we did manage to get on the flight, which took us to about 1/2 way to Puerto Ordaz. Brian made an interesting observation about the air hostesses, in that they all looked like they came from a Robert Palmer video. 6 feet tall, short skirts, knee high boots, and lots of makeup.

At Puerto Ordaz, we boarded a DC-3. We were told that these planes were used in World War II. This plane would take us to Santa Elena, our final destination, via Canaima (the stopping point if you want to go see Angel Falls). The plane was crazy. It sat 20 people, you could see our luggage in the front of the plane, and there was no door to the cockpit. If you looked outside the window, you could see the rivets and bolts on the wing popping in and out of their sockets. The flight was awesome as you could see endless Amazon rainforest below, and saw the table mountains rising out of the mist. Unfortunately, Angel Falls was clouded over.

We landed in the very small Santa Elena "airport". There was just a hut and a runway. Luggage was transported from the plane to the hut in the open trunk of a Toyota Corolla. Interestingly, you HAD to show your luggage tag in order to get your bag.

At this point, we still didn't really have a clue about what to do. We just knew we wanted to climb Roraima, and figured we could find a guide in town. We took a cab to the Hotel Luz, and splurged on a room for $8 a night.

As if he was waiting just for us, moments after checking in, a young local came to the hotel and asked us if we were of need of a guide. He spoke excellent English, and his name was Fernando. He said that he had been up to Roraima 33 times and would take us. He took us to lunch, told us about the trip, and we were ready for it. No need to look any further.

Fernando told us that every Wednesday night(it was Wednesday), the whole town gathered at the main square to either play soccer or watch it being played, and that we were welcome to come and watch or particpate with his team. For this, I felt the need to purchase a $10 pair of shoes, as I would never be able to wow them with my soccer skills in hiking boots. Brian, however, felt that he could.

We proceeded to buy groceries for the trip. We originally thought that Fernando might be ripping us off with the amount of food he was buying, but we were later proved wrong. Lucky for us we were taking a porter along with us to carry it. Later, while Brian napped, I took a walk around Santa Elena. We were definitely far from anything else. But luckily, not far from Chinese Food.

At 5:30, Fernando picked us up, and we walked 30 minutes to the main soccer square. The game is actually "futbalita", played on a small, baskeball court sized field with a small ball and small goals. Its 5 on 5, and VERY fast. The whole town seemed to be there for it. There were stands, even a play by play announcer. And of course, really loud music that the amplifiers could not handle. As soon as we saw the level of play, we realized that we were in over our heads. This was serious soccer, and it was taken seriously. We got jerseys, but probably only played about 5 minutes each, as we were definitely a liability. Liability we may have been, but definitely a crowd favorite. We could hear "gringo" come from the announcer periodically, and any time we even touched the ball, the crowd went crazy. After the exhaustion of futbalita, we spent the rest of the evening drinking beers with Fernando's friends and watching the rest of the games.

Day 3

We were off in the morning for a crazy drive to starting point for the hike. Carlos, who was to be our porter joined us. The name of the town we were headed to was Paratepui, which was a small native village 80km from Santa Elena. Even more in the middle of nowhere. We were told not to take pictures.

The drive there was an adventure itself. We couldn't go more than 20km an hour because of the condition of the road. We crossed what looked like deep rivers along the way. The vehicle we were in was falling apart. Since the handles were missing, you had to open the windows using a wrench. Very entertaining.

We had our lunch and met three Americans that had just returned from the hike. Not many Americans we were told. Actually, not many people hike to Roraima at all. At most about 10-12 a day, and there were no others that were hiking when we were. We figured that maybe 50,000 had ever hiked up there ever. Our packs were about 28-30 pounds. Carlos, who was carrying the food, had a crazy pack on, tied together in all sorts of weird ways. It weighed around 50 pounds.

After lunch, we were off. Things started out quite nicely, with a gradual downhill through tall grasses. We could see Roraima off in the distance, 24km away, shrouded in clouds. We went through some patches of rainforest, and then started uphill. Brian and Fernando seemingly had no problems with this, but it almost killed me. I had said before the trip that I had wanted to face adversity and overcome, but I really didn't want it to come so quickly. It was steeply uphill, 30 lbs on my back, and sun beating down. Honestly, I thought I would not make it. But I did, and got 15 minutes of rest at the top of the hill...and time to think that this was certainly not the worst of what was to come. The next few hours were relatively flat, and we could see Kukanen mountain off to the left, which has the 4th tallest waterfall in the world coming off its right side. At this point, looking at Roraima, it seemed there was no way to the top.

Eventually, we reached our first camp site, just before a nice river in which we could bathe and get water for purification to drink. There are small biting bugs there called puri puri which are very small and hard to see. Yet they bite A LOT, and drive you crazy. According to Fernando, mosquito repellent is useless, but lathering up in baby oil will do the trick. After returning from the river, we learned that we had a major problem. One of the food bags, the one with all the major food items, had been left behind somewhere. It even had the candles and lighter. We were completely screwed. At that point, the plan was for Fernando to walk back the next day, return with the food, and we would wait, essnetially losing a day. But luck soon turned our way. Two porters, seemingly returning to Parapetui, walked past our camp. We learned that there was another group of campers about 1/2 hour up the way, and we could go there and borrow a lighter from them to make tonight's food. They had to deliver food to that campiste, because those hiker's original porter was too drunk to do so. They would return early the next morning with our food. It was dark, and there were two rivers to cross in order to get to the next camp. Carlos, our porter, went, barefoot with a penlight, and returned 1 hour later.

We had a dinner of spaghetti, and retired around 8:30 to our tents right before the rain started. After a short rain, the moon was full. We walked 12km today.

Days 4 - 6

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