In his memoir, “There and Back Again”, Bilbo Baginns told of
his trip to the misty mountain. In the next few days I will tell you of my own
trip to the misty mountain of South America, Mount Roraima. Maybe not as
adventurous as Bilbo’s trip, but a good yarn nonetheless. In my mind all starts
and ends in Manaus, Brazil, where I spent the night.
I overslept, until 7 am, so by the time I took my brisk 1-km
walk to the airport to look for an ATM it was already hot and muggy. Once I got
there the first ATM I tried turned me down. %$#@ B of A. But I tried again and
this time was able to coax 600 reales (about US$ 150), which should be just
about enough to cover all my costs while I am in Brazil.
I did have a moment of panic because I did not see my flight
in the departure screens. Had it been cancelled? I had to go back to the hotel
(it was getting pretty toasty by then), to check for updates to my itinerary,
but there were none. So I picked up my backpack, and using my new found wealth
took a cab to the airport, where my flight was still unlisted but still
happened at the expected time. Just a little test of my mettle as world
traveler.
Thanks to my contact in Santa Elena, Venezuela, I had made
arrangements with a Brazilian driver, Macuxi, to pick me up at 1 pm at the exit
of the airport and take me all the way to Santa Elena. I think he is a kind of
Uber, so he had said he could not wait for me at the airport proper, so I
walked about on kilometer on the access street to the airport until I found a
traffic circle and stood there in plain view from about 12:45 to 1:30 pm. No
Macuxi. Rats!
What to do? I walked back to the airport and took a cab with
the idea of going to the bus station, but the friendly cabby informed me that
there were colectivos who regularly
did the run to the border with Venezuela. I jumped at the opportunity and
before 3 pm was happily crammed in the far back of a small SUV heading for the
border town of Pacaraima. I did notice that despite the heavy vegetation there
were outcrops of intrusive rocks along the way.
Once I got to Pacaraima (also known as La Línea) I had to figure out how to cover the remaining 20 km to
Santa Elena, and for that I was going to need money. When a kid came by
offering to change Brazilian Reales for Venezuelan Bolívares I jumped at the
opportunity and asked him to change me 100 Reales (about US$ 25). Imagine my
shock when he started shoving thick wads of money unto my hands, to the tune of
15,500,000 Bolívares. I was so unsettled by the sheer amount of bills that I
forgot I had left my Galapagos hat in the colectivo.
Sadness of the heart, for I was very fond of that hat. ☹
Now that I had a backpack full of cash, the tales of people
being murdered for a pittance made me a bit uneasy (but remember, we are just
talking of US$ 25, even if in bills they were a stack that could compete with a
Ken Follet recent novel). I was thus very happy to attach myself to a young man
who offered to show me where to take the colectivo
to Santa Elena, which went up from 300,000 to 400,000 Bolívares this week.
I had made arrangements with my future guide, Luis Vago, to
meet at the “Arepería de la Frontera” at 6 pm, and at about 5:45 pm the colectivo dropped me off at that very
place. Of course Luis didn’t know me, but I had mentioned white hair and beard,
so in a few minutes I heard my name called and turned around to see a smiling
young man in his mid-twenties. Like in the movies he picked up my backpack and
walked me to his (our?) expeditionary vehicle, and old Toyota Land Cruiser
jeep, which looked rugged enough for the muddy roads I kept seeing everywhere,
but also looked old enough to have been manufactured before Luis was a twinkle
in his parents eyes. By now dusk was on its way, I was hungry and tired, and
was ready to eat and crash. “Listen Horacio”, Luis said in his appealing
Venezuelan accent, “I had a falling apart with my woman Kenya, and am now
staying at the farm. I was planning to put you up at my house, but that is no
longer an option. But don’t worry, I have a place for you at the Eco Camp”. OK,
says he, not to worry, but I smell a rat. So we rattle through town in the old
Toyota, with Luis grinding the gears at every change (“The transmission is
misaligned, but I am fixing this next week”) heading for the outskirts of town,
just as a good equatorial evening rain gets started. Seems like power is out in
the town, which gives it a very gloomy aspect.
Eventually we get to a peripheral community of Pemón Indians
(this is Luis’ tribe), and he proudly parks at his parents’ house, which looks
reasonably nice. Ah, but from here we need to walk a few hundred meters to the
Eco Camp, which happens to be on a hill and far enough to have to services such
as power or running water. We trudge through very slippery mud all the way
there, and we get to the two-room structure that is his current abode. It is
not too bad, and I spy a thin cot which I hope will become mine for the night,
but there are no windows nor doors, and the gaping holes are covered by plastic
for the windows and two sheets of plywood for the doors. Luis beams with pride
at his creation, and proudly shows me his rain collection system (“This is
where you can take a ‘shower’ and get drinking water”) and the latrine (“It is
a dry Vietnamese system”, he boasts). “We will leave our boots here, just so we
don’t track mud instead the house.” Ha, good luck; we are in the middle of a
sea of mud.
I took the opportunity to pay my bill for his future
services (US$ 750), and after that had the unhappy idea of going to grab
something to eat. “Ok, let’s go back to town in the jeep.” Hmm … perhaps going
out was not such a great idea, but the die had been cast and I was going to
regret this decision in the days to come, for no soon had I taken ten steps in
the slick mud that my left foot slipped under me. Normally I would have fallen
flat on my butt, but a combination of trying to keep “clean” and saving face
made me try to keep my balance, and in the process I sprained my left ankle
something awful. For a moment there the pain was so intense that I thought I
had broken my ankle. “Are you OK?”, asked my gracious host. Of course I was not
OK (why do people always ask this silly question?), but I was not going to show
weakness this early on the game, and I smiled dismissively and assured him I
would be just fine.
The night ended in pizza and a couple of beers, which dented
my fortune by a mere 3 million Bolívares (US$ 5). I asked Luis if everything
was ready, and he assured me that everything was under control. “Tomorrow we
need to go buy a few things at La Línea
and then we will be ready to go.” We got back at the Eco Camp and I settled
down under my mosquito netting with a throbbing ankle, left to ponder what
tomorrow will bring.
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