Jericoacoara

It was a bit of a challenge to get to Jericoacoara from Barreirinhas. Jericoacoara is a small, isolated town on the coast, and it has no road access from the west, which means that the journey involves driving along a dirt track, over sand dunes, and even directly on the beach. If you've got an arm and a leg to spare, i.e. R$300 (£110), you can pay an agency in Barreirinhas to transfer you directly to Jericoacoara in a single day, but otherwise the journey takes two days, and involves changing vehicle no fewer than four times.

And that's what I did. From Barreirinhas I took a 4x4 vehicle to Paulino Neves, then another 4x4 to Tutóia, followed by a bus to Parnaíba. I stayed the night in Parnaíba, then the next morning I caught a bus to Camocim, and finally I took another 4x4 vehicle to Jericoacoara. Altogether, including the hotel room in Parnaíba, the trip cost roughly R$120 (£45), which wasn't a bad saving on the agency price. It was quite an interesting journey, although not particularly difficult because most of the modes of transport joined up fairly well. At one point our vehicle had to be punted across a small river, and below you can see the view as we approached Jericoacoara along mile after mile of deserted beach.

Jericoacoara is quite unlike anywhere I've been before. It has a permanent population of only around two thousand, yet there are over a hundred hotels and pousadas (guesthouses), so things are very much oriented towards tourism. The place has a very peaceful and relaxed feel, although it's also known for its nightlife, which I'm told doesn't get going until well after midnight. All of the streets are paved with sand, as you can see here and here - this makes life difficult for ordinary vehicles, so the kind of buggy you can see in this photo is the preferred mode of transport.

Jericoacoara is Brazil's top location for windsurfing, and it's also a big kitesurfing destination. When I arrived here I had plans to try out one or both of these sports, but I guess I got infected by the peacefulness of the place, because I ended up being very lazy and not doing very much at all. I think I needed a rest anyway, and it also didn't help that the pousada at which I'm staying serves the biggest and best breakfasts I've had in a long while (bread, ham, cheese, fruit, coffee, fruit juice and cake) - I didn't really feel like doing anything very active after eating that much food first thing in the morning.

However, I didn't laze around the entire time. On Saturday evening I climbed to the top of Sunset Dune to watch the sun set over the sea. There were hundreds of people there, and the Caipirinha seller was doing a roaring trade from his wheelbarrow. The sunset wasn't bad, but probably not worth me uploading a photo, although it did get a round of applause from the assembled crowd. I thought the sunset I saw from the beach on Monday evening was better.

On Sunday afternoon I went to see the Pedra Furada (Rock Arch), which is a natural arch formed by wind and sea erosion, and is the symbol of Jericoacoara. It's about an hour's walk north-east of Jericoacoara, partly along the beach and partly over a hill. Here and here you can see a couple of views of the coastline from the hill, and below is a photo of the Rock Arch.

On the way back I walked right up to the top of Serrote hill, where there's a lighthouse, which isn't particularly attractive but does have a 360° view across Jericoacoara.

On Monday afternoon I went for my one and only swim in the sea off Jericoacoara beach. I stayed for a short while afterwards to watch the capoeira class that was taking place on the beach (it looked pretty weird to me), but I didn't hang around much after that. To be honest I don't particularly enjoy sitting on beaches, which probably means I'm travelling in the wrong country, because this part of Brazil has some of South America's best beaches, and I don't think I'm likely to be going to any of them.

This afternoon I leave for Fortaleza, so I'll soon be back in civilisation, together with, of course, more beaches.

São Luís & Lençóis Maranhenses National Park

I only had a short stay in São Luís, so I'm combining it with a post about Lençóis Maranhenses National Park, which is where I went the day after I was in São Luís.

After a 12-hour bus journey that seemed to take me hardly any distance at all across Brazil, I arrived in São Luís on Wednesday morning. I travelled with Armando and Lucía, the Argentinian couple that I first met on the boat in Manaus, after we bumped into each other again at the hostel in Belém. Once we'd arrived in São Luís, we had quite an unpleasant time trying to find a hostel; our first choice was full, which meant that we spent the best part of an hour walking around in the blazing sun with our backpacks on, looking for somewhere else. Eventually we settled for Pousada Internacional, which was a cheap hostel in a good location, but was probably the most run-down place I've stayed at in my whole trip. Anyway I put up with it because I only planned to spend one night in São Luís.

I spent most of the day wandering around the historic centre of São Luís, which is one of the best preserved colonial cities in the whole of Brazil, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It has several grand civic buildings, including the Court of Justice and the Palácio dos Leões (Palace of the Lions), as well as a 17th century cathedral, below.

Here is a photo of one of the streets in the historic centre, and this is a typical house, with the Portuguese exterior tiling that you see throughout the centre. A lot of the colonial-era buildings are in a fairly crumbling state, for example here and here, but there's an ongoing restoration project in the city that means that these buildings will most likely be rescued.

The following morning Armando, Lucía and I left São Luís and travelled to Barreirinhas, which is the usual starting point for trips into Lençóis Maranhenses National Park. We arrived around lunchtime, and I'd planned to spend the rest of the day in Barreirinhas and then go on a 4x4 tour of the national park the following morning. However, as soon as I got off the bus I was accosted by an employee of a tour agency who told me that there were places available on a tour that afternoon, leaving in less than an hour's time. Since my first impressions of Barreirinhas weren't too good, I made a snap decision to change my plans and join the tour that afternoon, which meant that I'd be free to leave Barreirinhas the following morning. Armando and Lucía were organising a three-day hike into the park, and I would have liked to have joined them, but I decided that I didn't have enough time to do that. So once again we said our goodbyes, and I rushed off to get ready for the tour.

A short time later I was picked up from my hostel by a 4x4 vehicle, and there I met the other nine people in the group, all of whom were Brazilian. They were all chatting to each other so enthusiastically that I thought at first that everyone knew each other, but I worked out eventually that that wasn't the case - I guess they were just being typical friendly Brazilian people. After driving a short distance we had to wait our turn to cross a river on a car ferry, which was pushed across the river by a small motor boat. We then had an unbelievably bumpy ride to the edge of the park, which was as far as we could go in the 4x4, because motor vehicles aren't allowed to enter the park.

We then left our shoes in the vehicle and set off on (bare)foot for a four-hour walk around the national park. At first glance Lençóis Maranhenses looks like a desert, but officially it isn't (although I'd say it looks a lot more deserty than that desert I went to in Colombia). The reason it's not considered a desert is that it has a relatively high level of rainfall, and during the rainy season (March to September), which is obviously when I was there, the water collects in the valleys between the sand dunes, forming dozens of lakes, for example here, here and below.

We'd been told to wear swimming gear, so we were able to go for a swim in each of the lakes that we visited. None of the lakes was more than waist-deep, but some of them contained fish, which is pretty amazing when you consider that the lakes dry up almost completely during the dry season (apparently the explanation is that the fish eggs are brought by birds from the sea).

Unfortunately the only photo of me in Lençóis Maranhenses is a bit rubbish and out of focus, but here it is anyway. There are a few more photos of the national park in my August 2010 album. Our guide told us that the whole park has roughly the same area as the city of São Paulo, i.e. it's huge, so we were only able to see a tiny fraction of it in our half-day tour. We stayed until sunset, after which we got back in our vehicle and had another bumpy ride back to the river, where we found ourselves at the back of a long queue to use the car ferry. Fortunately there was a long row of shops and stalls there, all keen to sell us stuff.

After I returned to my hostel I was finally able to spend some time looking around Barreirinhas, and in fact it wasn't too bad after all. Just one street along from the main street there was a row of riverfront restaurants and bars, which was actually quite pleasant. But by that time I'd made my decision, and the following morning I left for Jericoacoara, which I'll tell you about next time.

Belém

I've got a bit of catching up to do with my blog, due to a lack of wi-fi again. I thought Brazil was meant to be the most developed country in South America, but so far the internet access has been worse than in Bolivia. Anyway, here's my report from Belém.

Belém was my second destination in Brazil, and it's another big city, almost the same size as Manaus and with a similar feel. I spent Sunday afternoon recovering from the boat journey, and on Monday I saw most of Belém's main sights, including, in no particular order, Praça Dom Pedro II, the Cathedral, the Theatro da Paz, and the 17th century Presépio Fort (below).

I also went to the Mercado Ver-o-Peso (the 'See-the-Weight' Market), both the fish area and the Amazonian herbal remedy area. I had lunch in the modern extension of the market, which houses dozens of stands selling cheap set lunches and fruit juices (and here it is as seen from above). I also went for a look around the Estação das Docas, which is a row of converted waterside warehouses, mainly occupied now by expensive restaurants. Surprise, surprise, I didn't eat there.

I bought some brazil nuts from a street stall nearby, which seemed the obvious thing to do since I'm in Brazil. When I tried them for the first time they tasted unlike any brazil nuts I'd ever eaten - they were more like coconut than brazil nuts. But strangely when I ate some more only the following day they'd developed a really unpleasant aftertaste, and were inedible.

On Monday afternoon I went for a walk around Belém's commercial district, and I noticed a couple of things. Firstly, C&A is still going strong in Brazil, ten years after it went out of business in the UK (I saw several stores in Belém alone). Also, it was good to see a British landmark being celebrated over here - this is Belém's biggest chain of chemists, with a branch seemingly every few blocks. In the evening I went to the cinema to see Inception (in Portuguese it's called 'A Origem'), and what a great film. I wonder how they shot those zero-gravity scenes - I'm sure the internet will tell me.

On Tuesday I went to the Museo Emilio Goeldi, which is a zoo set in a city block-sized piece of rainforest in the centre of Belém. They had, among other things, a baby tapir, a jaguar, caimans and lots of turtles, but sadly no manatee, as you can see below.

And that's about all I have to say about Belém. The next blog post about São Luís should be coming along soon.

Manaus to Belém

I made it to Belém on Sunday after a four-day boat trip from Manaus. It was a day less than I was expecting (although it was quite long enough), so Lonely Planet was actually quite accurate with its 3½-day estimate. I began the trip with some companions, because three other people from my hostel were also taking the same boat, and we shared a lift down to the harbour. They were Lucía and Armando, a young couple from Buenos Aires, and Maria, from Spain. However, all three of them were planning to stop for a couple of days in Santarém, which is roughly halfway between Manaus and Belém, so they'd only be with me for the first half of the journey.

We arrived at Manaus harbour on Wednesday afternoon about three hours before departure, to find our boat moored at a different pier to the one we'd be taken to. The ticket seller, who was with us, assured us that the boat would soon come over to where we were waiting, which sure enough it did, and below you can see the N/M Santarém on its way to meet us. Lucía, Armando and Maria had been a bit more organised than me, and they'd arranged for their hammocks to be hung up in advance, guaranteeing a good spot on the boat. We found their hammocks on the upper deck near the front of the boat, which was the ideal location, because it was away from both the boat's engine and the toilets. Fortunately there was a spare spot next to their hammocks, so I was able to hang my hammock there.

The hammock area was a bit cosy, as you can see here and here (in the first photo my hammock is the mainly blue one in the centre, and in the second photo it's the one on the right). I didn't bring my tape measure with me, but I reckoned that the hammocks were spaced about 70cm apart, which isn't much wider than a regular-sized person, so you can imagine that once everyone was in their hammock there wasn't a lot of room to move.

We had a few hours to wait until we were due to set off, so I spent a bit of time exploring the boat, although that didn't take very long. The boat had three levels, plus a cargo hold below. The lower level contained hammock space, toilets and showers, as well as the kitchen and a dining room; the middle level had more hammock space, toilets and showers, another dining room, and about ten cabins for those who wanted to travel in a bit of comfort; and the upper level had more cabins and a bar, which blasted out non-stop loud music.

We set off from Manaus about an hour late, and I settled in for the long journey. For security reasons I didn't think it was a good idea to get my laptop out during the journey, so really the only things I had with me to pass the time were a couple of books to read (I'd been running a bit low on books, but luckily I'd managed to find a good book lying on a shelf in the hostel the previous day, and swapped it for one I'd already read). I also soon discovered that the food service wouldn't be starting until the following day, so for dinner it was tuna and biscuits, which I'd brought with me just in case this happened.

I got an early night, and I quickly discovered how difficult it was to sleep in a hammock in those cramped conditions. I really couldn't find a comfortable position to lie in. An added problem was that I'd hung my hammock directly below a light, which had been handy earlier in the evening because it had allowed me to read, but it wasn't so great when I was trying to sleep. As well as shining in my eyes, the light was also attracting insects, and they weren't just little bugs - these were massive winged Amazonian insects, which I could feel landing on my body and face every few minutes. Usually I'm not particularly squeamish about this sort of thing, but these were pretty horrendous creatures, and there was no way I could sleep under that kind of bombardment. My neighbour to my left, a Brazilian man, had the same problem, and at about 2am he managed to find a way to block out the light using torn-up pieces of a political pamphlet that had been handed out earlier in the day. That solved the insect problem, and I did manage to get at least a few hours' sleep that night.

I was pretty tired on Thursday morning, but that was OK because there wasn't a lot to do other than lounge around in my hammock either dozing or reading my book. If I was feeling energetic I could walk up to the top deck to sit in a chair and read my book, but that was pretty much it. There wasn't a lot to see either, because we were sailing straight down the middle of a very wide river, and this was a typical view of the shore.

I tried the food for the first time that day, and it was mostly pretty good. I had fried eggs, ham, bread and coffee for breakfast, and for lunch they served a typical Brazilian 'prato feito' (set meal), which consisted of chicken, pasta, rice and black beans. However, I did have a very long wait for my lunch, because when the food arrived after an initial half-hour wait, everyone else rushed up to help themselves, whereas I sat in my seat and waited, deciding I didn't want to take part in such an undignified scrum. Stupid me, because of course some of the people were greedy gits and piled the food onto their plates, and about ten of us were left with no chicken, so I then had another half-hour wait while more chicken was prepared. Fortunately dinner (pretty similar to lunch, but with beef instead of chicken) was a bit more civilised.

I slept better on Thursday night, probably because I was so tired from the first night. I woke up early though, because at 5.30am on Friday morning we arrived in Santarém, and about half of the passengers on the boat started packing up their things and leaving. The boat was due to be in dock for much of the day, so Lucía, Armando and Maria slept on for another couple of hours, but then they too got ready to leave, so we said our goodbyes and I was on my own again. Suddenly I had a lot of space, although the place was left in a bit of a mess, as you can see below.

The mess was soon cleared up, and the space was soon taken up too, because before long people started boarding for the next part of the journey. An elderly lady installed herself directly next to me - I thought she seemed a bit frail to be sleeping in a hammock, but actually she managed perfectly well. I considered doing a bit of sightseeing in Santarém, but in the end I settled for just taking a short walk in the area immediately around where we'd docked, partly because I didn't want to take the risk of the boat leaving without me, but mainly because I wanted to protect both my belongings and my hammock spot (I thought someone might move my hammock in my absence). We eventually got on our way at 1.30pm, after eight hours docked at Santarém, and it was a pretty boring day until just before dusk, when we arrived at our next stop, Monte Alegre, and we got just a glimpse of life in a small Amazonian town.

Saturday was by far the most interesting day in terms of what we could see from the boat, because for most of the day we were moving down much narrower rivers than before, which meant that we were a lot closer to the shore. Dozens of people in small rowing boats approached us as we went along, and a lot of them were calling to us and waving with a funny two-handed up-and-down wave. It soon became clear that they were hoping for gifts, because some of the passengers on our boat started throwing objects wrapped in plastic bags into the water, and the people in the small boats rowed over to pick them up. I'm not sure what exactly was in the bags, but I think it was mainly food. A number of other people manoeuvred their boats alongside ours and hooked themselves on, at which point they were then able to board our boat and sell their goods (mainly prawns). The three young boys in this boat managed to latch on without using any kind of motor, which I thought was pretty skilful. We also saw some very isolated homes along the way.

On Saturday morning the elderly lady left, and I soon got a new neighbour, Joaquim, a French-Canadian guy who had joined the boat at Santarém, and who moved up to my deck after having had some of his belongings stolen from his bag while he was sleeping on the lower deck the previous night. It was a bit of a relief once again to have someone next to me that I could have a conversation with. That evening we also had probably the best sunset of the journey, which you can see below.

Shortly after sunset we made a quick stop at a small town whose name I don't know, and it was a bit too quick for one man, because he went ashore and then the boat left without him. Lots of people on the boat were shouting at the captain that someone had been left behind, but it was obvious the boat was never going to stop. I don't know if the man ever made it back on board.

On Sunday morning I was woken in the early hours when the boat started to rock from side to side, causing all of the hammocks to swing like crazy. There wasn't much chance of getting any more sleep when we all kept banging into each other, so it was an early start for everyone. We'd entered rough water, but it wasn't clear why, because the weather conditions were good - I guess it was because we were approaching the Atlantic, in which case perhaps that stretch of water is always rough. Fortunately after a few hours we turned into a smaller branch of the river as we approached Belém, and the remainder of the journey was a lot smoother.

Finally at about 10.30am we could see the skyline of Belém in the distance, and we knew that we were almost there. Half an hour later we were docked, and I was very relieved to be able to pack up my hammock and get off that boat for the final time. All in all, even though it was a pretty boring and unpleasant journey at times, it was definitely an interesting experience, but one that I won't be looking to repeat any time soon.

Manaus

I've spent the last couple of days in Manaus, which is a big, hot, noisy city in the middle of the Amazonian jungle. It's not a particularly attractive city, but there are a few impressive old buildings dotted among the ugly majority of the city. Yesterday I went on a guided tour of the Teatro Amazonas, which is a 104-year old opera house built at the height of Manaus's rubber boom. Next to the theatre is São Sebastião church, and both of these buildings are located on São Sebastião square, below.

I'm told the tiling of the square is meant to represent the Encontro das Águas (Meeting of the Waters), in which the dark-coloured Rio Negro meets the light-coloured Rio Solimões, not far from Manaus. I also saw Manaus's Cathedral and its art-nouveau Municipal Market, which was very much under renovation. I then went for a tour of the Palacete Provincial, which houses an art gallery and a few other exhibitions.

In my spare time I've been sampling the Brazilian food, and the good news is that I don't think I'm going to go hungry. I've been eating lunch every day at the per-kilo restaurants that you find everywhere here. Unfortunately you can't really stuff yourself at these restaurants in the same way that you can at all-you-can-eat buffets, because you pay for what you eat (according to how much it weighs), but it's definitely a cheaper way of eating than ordering an à la carte dish. Also common here are churrascarias (meat barbecue restaurants), where the waiters bring unlimited skewers of meat to your table.

There are also juice bars everywhere, which serve dozens of weird fruit juices, many of which I've never heard of before, and which I don't think exist outside the Amazonian region. I've been trying them out one by one, and they've all been pretty good so far.

I've been trying to learn a bit of Portuguese, because I'm finding it a bit awkward not being able to speak the language. It seems that a lot of the vocabulary and grammar is similar or identical to Spanish, which means that I can understand written Portuguese fairly well, but the sound of the language is very different, which makes it difficult to understand what people are saying. Spanish is quite widely spoken here, so I think it's just about possible to get by with just speaking Spanish, but you can't always rely on that.

On my tour of the Teatro Amazonas yesterday the guide told me that there was a free concert that evening being given by a guitar orchestra. (In fact he told me that roughly twenty concerts per month are held at the theatre, about 80% of which are free, which seems like a pretty good deal for the people of Manaus.) So I went back to the theatre in the evening, and people were already queueing round the block when I arrived, although there were plenty of seats for everyone. I ended up in a box on the second floor of the theatre (here is the view of the very grand interior from my box). The concert was given by the Orquestra de Violões de Amazonas (Amazonian Guitar Orchestra), below.

They were pretty good, and most of the songs were obviously popular in Brazil, because a lot of the crowd were clapping, singing and even dancing along with them. However, the only song I recognised was Happy Birthday (sung in Portuguese), although I have no idea whose birthday it was.

This afternoon I'm leaving Manaus on a boat to Belém. I've bought myself a hammock, which I'll be sleeping in while on the boat (travelling in a cabin is very expensive). I'm not sure when exactly I'll arrive in Belém - Lonely Planet says the trip takes 3½ days, but I've been told it's 5 days, and I'm more inclined to believe the higher estimate, so I doubt I'll get there before Monday. I've read some horror stories about these boat trips on the web, so I'm not sure what I'm letting myself in for, but anyway I'm sure it'll be an experience.

Roraima

After a couple of days' rest in Santa Elena de Uairén, I booked myself on a trek to the top of Roraima, which at 2810m is the highest table mountain in the world. The trek is usually six days long, which involves spending three days going up, followed by a whole day at the top of the mountain, and then two days going down. However, on the day I wanted to leave, the tour operator that I chose to go with, Mystic Tours, had designated it as a 5-day trek. I never found out the reason for that, but it meant that if we were going to have a whole day at the top of Roraima, we would have to make the ascent in two days rather than three. Things didn't quite turn out like that, as I'll explain.

I met three members of my group the evening before the start of the trek, when Roberto, the owner of Mystic Tours, gave us a briefing in his office. They were Simon, an English teacher from Germany, and Dayana and Juan, a young Venezuelan couple. The rest of the group were due to arrive in Santa Elena the following morning on an overnight bus from Ciudad Bolívar. In the briefing Roberto gave us a lot of useful information about the trek, and then gave us some slightly less useful information when he started talking about the mystical aspects of Roraima. For example he asked us to memorise a short poem, which he advised us to recite when we arrived at the mountain, so that we would be welcomed by the spirits of Roraima. Roberto also told us that there have been a lot of UFO sightings around Roraima, and even showed us a drawing of the leader of the extra-terrestrial race that some people claim to have encountered. He explained that the extra-terrestrials have Scandinavian features, and the good news is that they come in peace.

The following morning the rest of the group arrived, and we met up at the Mystic Tours office. There were ten of us in total, and the six I haven't already mentioned were all from Spain, although there were three girls (Aitziber, Eunateio and Eztizen) from the Basque country who insisted on getting offended if anyone suggested that they were Spanish, which got a bit boring after a while. Anyway I was very glad that Simon was there, because otherwise I would have felt a bit isolated as the only non-native Spanish speaker in the group.

We also met our guide and porters for the trek. Our guide's name was Gideon, and he explained that he was a member of the local Pemón tribe, but he actually came from the only Pemón village in Guyana, which meant that he was a native English speaker. Our porters would be carrying the tents and cooking equipment and all of our food, but each of us had to carry our own sleeping bag and mat. This meant that I had to do the trek with my big backpack, which was the first time I'd ever done that. There was also a cheaper option for the trek, which was half the price of the standard trek, and which required you to carry all of your own equipment and food. Dayana and Juan chose this option, and as a result they had very heavy backpacks - rather them than me.

Before I describe the trek, I need to explain a bit of geography. The trek begins in Paraitepui, a small Pemón village about 80km from Santa Elena, and there are then a number of campsites on the way from Paraitepui to Roraima. The first campsite, called Río Tek, is about four hours' walk from Paraitepui, and most groups stay here on the first and last nights. Shortly after this campsite it's necessary to cross two rivers, Río Tek and Río Kukenan, which are knee-deep if you're lucky, and neck-deep if you're not. After these rivers there's a second campsite called Río Kukenan, where groups can stay if they manage to cross the rivers on the first day, or if they aren't able to cross the rivers coming back on the penultimate day. From the Río Kukenan campsite it's another three-hour walk to the campamento base (base camp), which is at the foot of Roraima. From there it's four hours' steep hike up to the top of Roraima, where it's possible to camp in one of several 'hotels', which are actually just sheltered spots underneath rock overhangs.

So we set off to Paraitepui mid-morning in a couple of 4x4 vehicles, and on the way we stopped off at a liquor store, where Gideon advised to buy some rum for the cold nights on top of Roraima. I bought a bottle, which probably wasn't such a bright idea, because it made my backpack just a little uncomfortably heavy. Shortly afterwards we encountered our first incident, when we had to rescue another company's vehicle that had taken the wrong road and got stuck in a ditch. Luckily our driver knew which was the correct road, so we arrived safely in Paraitepui.

After lunch we started the hike in good weather, with Roraima visible but partially covered with cloud in the distance. However, the weather stayed good for only a couple of hours more, after which the downpour started. We continued on in the driving rain, until we reached a stream a short distance before the Río Tek campsite. The three Basque girls and I managed to cross the stream without too much difficulty and arrived at the campsite in good time, but it had been raining so hard for the last hour that the level of the stream was rising incredibly quickly, and those only a few minutes behind us found it impossible to cross. Eventually with Gideon's help they managed to cross several hundred metres further upstream, by hanging onto the branches of a nearby tree. They arrived at the Río Tek campsite just before dark, which meant that we had no chance of crossing the two rivers that evening.

I was absolutely drenched when I arrived at the campsite, but I felt a lot better after changing into a dry set of clothes, although I realised that this was the start of an ultimately losing battle to keep anything I'd brought with me either dry or clean. Gideon and the porters then cooked us a filling meal, and after dinner we went to our tents for an early night. I was sharing a tent with Simon, which was great, except that each night after getting into the tent he would spray himself with insect repellent, almost choking us both to death in the process.

The weather was a lot better the following morning, and we could clearly see Roraima as well as its neighbouring tepui, Tepui Kukenan. We also awoke to the news that Albert and his wife (whose name I can't remember), a middle-aged couple from Spain, were so discouraged by the weather the previous day that they'd decided to give up and go back to Santa Elena straightaway. And so the group was down to eight.

Our first task after setting off that morning was to cross the two rivers. Since there'd been no rain since about 6pm the previous day, the water level was fairly low, but even so, the water was flowing quickly and it wasn't easy to cross. I was one of the first to cross Río Tek, and here you can see some of the others attempting the crossing. We then climbed up a hill, from where we had a view of Río Kukenan, which we also had to cross.

This was a hard day with a lot of steep hills to walk up, and again the weather was bad, so it wasn't a lot of fun. It was also clear that a pattern was being established - Simon, the Basque girls and I tended to stay together at the front, while Sara was a bit slower, and Dayana and Juan were extremely slow. Clearly the problem was that they were carrying all of their own equipment and food, which unsurprisingly was slowing them down. The plan had been to reach the top of Roraima that evening, and the five of us arrived at base camp at midday, which was early enough for us to have a rest and then carry on to the top. However, Dayana and Juan didn't arrive until about 2pm, which simply didn't give us enough time to reach the top in daylight. As a result we were forced to spend the night at base camp, so we'd have to settle for spending just one night at the top of Roraima. We did at least have good weather that afternoon, so we were able to relax, and we had good views of both Roraima and Tepui Kukenan (below).

This was the view from base camp on the morning of the third day. Even though we were camped at the foot of Roraima, we couldn't see it because the campsite was shrouded in thick fog. It had rained for most of the night and it was still raining - this was the worst weather yet, and we had to climb to the top of Roraima in it.

Anyway we got on with it, and after leaving base camp at 8am we'd reached Roraima's wall within about an hour and a half. At this point a natural ramp begins that leads to the top, which it's just about possible to walk up without climbing equipment. At times it was actually more like climbing than hiking, as we had to use our hands to lift ourselves up over boulders that were too big just to step onto. And I was doing all of this in the pouring rain while wearing a 12kg backpack - it was a pretty tough morning. Finally at about 11:15am Simon and I reached the top, shortly behind the Basque girls. It was here that I discovered how fervently the girls considered themselves Basque rather than Spanish, because when we met them they were having photos taken of themselves holding the Basque flag alongside a banner proclaiming independence for the Basque country.

We then continued to our 'hotel' for the night, where we waited for the rest of the group to turn up. At this time Roraima was still blanketed in cloud, and we were wondering if were ever going to be able to see beyond fifty metres in front of us. Shortly after 1pm, Gideon finally arrived with Sara, Dayana and Juan, at which point we had sandwiches for lunch and then rested for a while, hoping for the clouds to clear. Our patience paid off, because before long the rain stopped and the sky began to brighten, and we were finally able to see the Gran Sabana below us.

Gideon then suggested that we take the opportunity to go to the highest point of Roraima, because there was a fair chance of getting a good view. The highest point was a half-hour walk from our hotel, which took us through weird moon-like landscapes with strange rock formations and plant life. The shifting mists made things seem even more eerie. And the gamble paid off, because the clouds did clear enough for us to get some spectacular views of both the Gran Sabana (including base camp) and Tepui Kukenan. Below is a picture of me at Roraima's highest point.

After a cold night we awoke to blue skies, and this was the view from our hotel. Because we had to leave Roraima later that morning, Gideon took us to see some more of Roraima's main sights before breakfast. First we went to Bahia de Cristal, which is an area full of quartz crystals. We then passed the Fidel Castro rock formation, as well as the, erm, stone penis, before arriving at the Jacuzzi (which unfortunately contained neither hot water nor bubbles).

We then continued to the Abyss, where there's a huge vertical drop to the valley below, and finally we arrived at La Ventana (The Window), through which it's possible to see the jungle of Guyana below. (Incidentally, the only main sight we didn't see was the Triple Point, which is the point at which the borders of Venezuela, Brazil and Guyana meet. Gideon told us that very few people reach the Triple Point anyway, so in the end I don't think we missed out at all by doing the trek in only five days.) We then made our way back to our hotel, and after breakfast we packed up and got ready to leave for what would probably be the longest day of all, because we were hoping to walk all the way back to the first campsite, Río Tek, in a single day.

We found that it took just as long to descend to base camp as it had to ascend from there the previous day. Obviously it wasn't as physically exhausting going down, but it was very slow because at every step we were at risk of slipping and injuring ourselves. We were all back at base camp by 2pm, and then after a quick lunch we continued on our way. The weather worsened a bit in the afternoon, but it was still nowhere near as bad as the previous morning, and the five of us arrived together at the first of the two rivers with daylight to spare.

Gideon helped us cross Río Kukenan, and then he told us that we'd have to cross Río Tek without him while he waited for the others to arrive. I crossed Río Tek first, but not particularly successfully because I managed to fall in the water halfway through. The others then crossed in a bit of a team effort, as you can see here. It was almost dark by the time we arrived at the campsite, and we couldn't believe the rest of the group would be able to make it. However, soon after dark Sara turned up, and about an hour later Dayana and Juan finally arrived, having crossed both rivers in complete darkness with the aid of Gideon, the two porters and some torches. Despite being mainly downhill, I think we all agreed that the fourth day had been the hardest day, because we'd been walking for almost ten hours in total.

The following morning we set off for the final part of the trek, which probably was the most relaxed of all, although it still wasn't easy, particularly considering what we'd been through during the previous four days. We also had the best weather of the trek, with hardly any rain. In fact the weather was a bit too good, because I managed to get sunburnt, just to add to the hundreds of insect bites that I'd picked up over the previous few days (as had everybody else). So after about 3½ hours of walking we arrived back in Paraitepui at lunchtime, where we took the obligatory group photo (below).

On the way back to Santa Elena we stopped off briefly at Jaspe Falls, which is a waterfall that cascades onto a volcanic slab of rock, and we finally arrived back at our hostel in Santa Elena in the mid-afternoon. I was absolutely exhausted, sunburnt, covered in insect bites, and aching in pretty much every part of my body, and it was a huge relief to be back. But of course it was worth it, because I'll have forgotten about the pain before long, and it was a pretty amazing adventure. But just consider that our guide, Gideon, has been to the top of Roraima over a hundred times, and after only one day's rest he was due to start the trek all over again on Sunday. That must be one of the toughest jobs in the world.

And that's the end of my time in Venezuela. Having written all that in Santa Elena on Saturday, I've now moved onto Manaus in Brazil, where I have wi-fi and I'm finally able to upload the photos. I only spent 2½ weeks in Venezuela, which is slightly less than planned because I decided in the end not to do a tour of Gran Sabana. I admit that I wasn't expecting to like Venezuela very much, but it did exceed my expectations, because Angel Falls and Roraima were two of the best things that I've seen on my trip.

OK, I'd better go now and study my Portuguese phrasebook.

Ciudad Bolívar and Angel Falls

After such a long bus journey from Mérida I'd planned to spend two whole days in Ciudad Bolívar, but I ended up spending only one, because I didn't particularly like the place. Things got off to a bad start when on my arrival the owner of the hostel was very rude to me for absolutely no reason. He then did it again the next day, just walking away in the middle of our conversation when I simply suggested that I was considering booking an Angel Falls trip through an agency other than his.

Anyway there are a few sights in Ciudad Bolívar, including a Cathedral, which is next to the main square, in which a military ceremony of some kind was going on. There are also quite a few old colonial buildings in the historic centre, such as these arcaded houses alongside the river, although this one wasn't in such great shape (it looked like there'd been a fire).

The Orinoco River itself is another of the attractions. There were a lot of fisherman throwing in their nets and not seeming to catch very much, but drawing a big crowd anyway, some of whom you can see at the top of that photo. There are a couple more photos of the Orinoco here and below.

After seeing the sights on Tuesday, I booked myself on a 3-day/2-night trip to Angel Falls, leaving the following morning. As you may already know, the big attraction of Angel Falls is that it's the highest waterfall in the world, with a 979m drop from top to bottom. The falls are in an isolated location in Canaima National Park, which is inaccessible by road, and that meant that I had to fly. The flights from Ciudad Bolívar and back are probably the only flights that I'll take in my whole South America trip (obviously excluding the flights to and from South America).

Outside Ciudad Bolívar airport I saw the aeroplane of Jimmy Angel, who discovered Angel Falls by flying over it in this plane (and fairly obviously the falls are named after him). The aircraft in which we travelled to Canaima actually wasn't too dissimilar from Jimmy Angel's - it was a tiny 6-seater Cessna like this one. On the way out to Canaima, I got the co-pilot's seat, which didn't seem particularly safe, because all of the plane's controls were within my reach. In fact at one point I accidentally bashed one of the levers with my knee, but I don't think the pilot noticed, and it didn't seem to make any difference. This was my view from the front seat - note that the pilot is reading a newspaper rather than concentrating on flying the plane.

We made it safely to Canaima, where we stopped off briefly at the Tiuna Tours lodge to meet the rest of the group (eleven in total), most of whom had arrived the previous day. We then headed off again almost straightaway because we were due to spend that night at a camp near Angel Falls, which involved a five hour trip in a motorised canoe. The walk to the canoe took us past Laguna Canaima, which is a picturesque spot from which we could see four waterfalls. We were also able to get a close-up view of the right-hand waterfall, called Ucaima Falls (below).

From this spot we could also see a fairly perfect table mountain (known as a tepui in the indigenous Pemón language) in the distance. There are over a hundred tepuis in this region, which makes it a pretty unique landscape, and in fact Angel Falls itself drops from the top of one, Auyan Tepui.

It's currently the rainy season, so the river is particularly high at the moment, which made the journey in the canoe pretty eventful. Who needs to go white-water rafting when you can ride rapids (against the flow) in a motorised canoe? It took us about five attempts to get past one set of rapids, and we were taking on so much water that I was certain we were going to sink, but we did eventually make it through.

In the late afternoon we arrived at the camp, which was on a small island about 5km from Angel Falls. A short walk from the camp, we were able to get our first sighting of the falls, although we'd get a lot closer the following morning. We also had this view of another part of Auyun Tepui in the opposite direction. We then had a few hours' free time until dinner, which was a very tasty dish of chicken cooked on an open fire. It was particularly impressive considering it was pouring with rain the whole time the cooks were preparing the meal, and in fact it hardly stopped raining all night.

After spending a not particularly comfortable night sleeping in hammocks, we were up at 5am the following morning for the 3km hike to the Angel Falls viewpoint, which is the closest that we were able to get to the falls. Since our camp was the closest of all the camps to the falls, we were the first group to arrive, and the view was pretty spetacular, as I hope you can get some idea of in this photo. It seemed incredible that such a huge waterfall was flowing almost from the very top of a mountain. I tried to time how long the water takes to fall from the top to the bottom, but it was impossible because the water drops such a long distance that most of it either evaporates or turns into mist long before it reaches the bottom. And just to prove that I was there...

We spent about half an hour admiring the view, and then hiked back to the camp, packed up our stuff and travelled back in the canoe to the Tiuna Tours lodge in time for lunch. In the afternoon we went to another waterfall, Sapo Falls, which involved a short canoe trip and then a 20-minute walk. The walk wasn't much fun, because the area was infested with puri puri, which are horrible little bugs similar to mosquitoes, and I got bitten a lot. Anyway the attraction of Sapo Falls is that it's possible to walk behind the falls, allowing us to appreciate the sheer power of the waterfall. This is the view from the start of the path behind the falls - at this point I put my camera in a waterproof bag, because we were about to get absolutely soaked. At several places along the path there was so much spray that it was impossible to see anything at all, but we all made it through to the other side, where this was the view. We were then able to go for a bathe underneath the waterfall, which felt a bit like someone was dropping bricks on my head.

The following day I spent the morning lazing around, and after lunch I walked to Canaima airport with Laibond and Denise, a couple from Hong Kong that were in my group. It was there that we got a bit of a nasty shock, because Laibond discovered that around US$160 had been stolen from his wallet. I then checked my wallet too, and sure enough I found that I'd also had money stolen, but only 150Bs (£15) in my case, because fortunately I'd left most of my money in my big backpack in the hostel in Ciudad Bolívar. The money must have been taken when we went to Sapo Falls the previous afternoon - we'd left our rooms unlocked because we hadn't been given keys, and our guide had assured us that it was perfectly safe. Obviously it's not a big deal in my case, but it did leave a bit of a bad taste in the mouth, and Canaima was pretty much the last place I'd have expected something like that to happen.

After arriving back in Ciudad Bolívar, I headed to the hostel to pick up my belongings, and then I returned to the bus station to catch yet another overnight bus, this time to Santa Elena de Uairén, which is in the south-east corner of Venezuela, close to the border with Brazil. I'm going to recuperate here for a couple of days, because I've had a bit of a cold ever since that 24-hour bus journey from Mérida to Ciudad Bolívar, and I also have insect bites all over my body that are itching like crazy. I'm hoping both of those things will get better by Monday, because that's when I'm planning to start the 6-day hike to the top of Mount Roraima and back.

Mérida

So I made it to Mérida, my first stop in Venezuela. Mérida is situated near the northern tip of the Andes at an altitude of 1600m, and the cool of the mountains was a welcome relief from the heat and humidity of the Caribbean coast, which I found unbearable. Mérida is also the adventure sports capital of Venezuela, and it's a good place to try such activities as canyoning, paragliding and white-water rafting.

After the exhausting journey from Colombia I decided that Friday should be a rest day, so pretty much all I did in the afternoon was have a quick look around town and book a paragliding trip for the following day. I also had a look at Mérida's famous teleférico, which is the highest cable car system in the world (it peaks at a height of 4675m). It also happens to be the highest cable car system in the world that doesn't work, because it hasn't worked for over two years.

Another thing I did was discover how the currency exchange system works here in Venezuela. The Venezuelan government enforces currency controls that mean that the Venezuelan bolívar is currently pegged at a rate of 2.60 to the US dollar, so for any official currency exchange transaction such as withdrawing bolívares from an ATM, paying by credit card or changing money in a bank, 2.60 is the exchange rate you'll get. That rate might have been realistic a decade ago, but Venezuela's economy has gone down the tubes since then, and today a more appropriate rate would be between 7 and 8 bolívares to the US dollar. Fortunately there exists an active (although illegal) black market in which it's possible to exchange US dollars or euros for bolívares at a fairer rate.

I knew about this situation before I arrived in Venezuela, so I brought a large supply of US dollars with me from Colombia (which obviously isn't ideal for security reasons, but I didn't have a lot of choice). I wasn't sure how the black market operated, but I soon found out, because the guy working at the paragliding agency offered me a good rate if I exchanged a large number of dollars. He didn't have enough bolívares on him, so after making a couple of discreet phone calls we went round to a nearby bathroom store that was owned by a friend of his, and he was able to sort me out with the necessary cash. An added bonus from this transaction was that I was able to fix the broken shoulder strap on my small rucksack, which had been bothering me for weeks, using the elastic band that was wrapped around the large wad of notes.

If you're like me (which you're probably not), you may be wondering why you can't exchange US dollars for bolívares at the black market rate, then change them back to US dollars at the official rate, thus making a guaranteed profit of about 200% (e.g. $100 buys about 750Bs at the black market rate, which buys about $300 at the official rate). Well the answer to that is that no bank or 'casa de cambio' will buy back bolívares, which I suppose is a public admission that the official exchange rate is nonsense.

Another oddity about Venezuela is that petrol is almost free - I'm told that you can fill your car's entire tank for less than 50p. A consequence of this is that most people couldn't care less about fuel efficiency, so they tend to buy huge, gas-guzzling, American cars, and drive like maniacs. Below is a picture of a typical Venezuelan car.

Saturday was my birthday, so for the sake of doing something a bit special I went paragliding in the afternoon. The starting point for the flight was the top of a hill called Las González, which is about an hour's drive from Mérida. It was raining when we left Mérida, and the rain got even heavier as we approached Las González, so I was expecting the paragliding to be cancelled. However, just a few minutes before we arrived, the rain stopped and blue sky appeared, so in the end the conditions were pretty good.

Having never done paragliding before, I obviously did a tandem flight. My pilot didn't seem to be much more than 18 years old, but he appeared to know what he was doing, so that was OK. Here is where we set off from, and in my July 2010 album there are several more photos that I took while airborne, starting with the one below. I think we were in the air for about 25 minutes, after which we had a soft landing.

I'd hoped to do a two-day white-water rafting trip starting on Sunday, but even though it's supposedly the high season for tourism in Venezuela, none of the tour agencies had a trip leaving until Tuesday, and I didn't want to hang around in Mérida that long. Instead I enquired about renting a mountain bike and going for a ride in the mountains, but then I had an attack of laziness when I woke up on Sunday morning, and I decided I didn't really feel like doing that. So I put plan C into action, which was to go on a long walk around town (even though there's not really a lot to see in the town itself).

One of the places I went to was the bus station, where I discovered that there was no direct bus to Ciudad Bolívar today (Monday), which was when I'd planned to leave. Having read a few people's accounts on the web about what a nightmare it is to get from Mérida to Ciudad Bolívar if you have to change buses, I decided that the best option was to catch the direct bus on Sunday evening at 7pm. It meant that I left Mérida a bit earlier than planned, but that's how I find myself now Ciudad Bolívar on Monday evening after a 24-hour bus journey, which wasn't a lot of fun. I plan to spend tomorrow trying to find a place on a tour to Angel Falls.