Venezuela - Roraima

Next we headed off to Santa Elena, where we booked ourselves onto a hike up Roraima, a 2800m table top mountian. In our group there was 6 people, 2 French guys, 1 Venezuelan women and 1 Brazilian guy, our guide used to be native indian from Guyana, but missionaries taught him English and called him Roger when he was young. The first day of the hike we began our hike from the first camp called Paraitepui, we hiked for 6 hours and covered 12 km. We then spent the first night at the first camp called Rio Tek, didnt sleep well as we were staying in tents. Second day we woke at 5am with the sun, had a breakfast of the national famous dish areypas and scrambled egg and headed off to the next camp a further 10.5km along and 450m up. To get to this camp, we crossed two rivers, the second called Kukenan, this river was fast flowing and quite difficult to cross, we wore our socks so we didnt slip and the guide carried Samantha´s bag for her or she would have fell in. The second night we stayed at the bottom of Roraima, at the base camp. Roraima looked within touching distance but next day we realised just how much further it was to the top. The third day we began the walk from base camp to the top of Roraima, which was about 500m up and 2.5km along. When we reached the top we were congratulated by our guide and made the extra walk to hotel Indio, which was basically a cave on the edge of Roraima. We then went to explore the surface, which was the inspiration for Arthur Conan Doyles book, The Lost World and for the Jurassic Park film. On the forth day we did some more exploring. We firstly washed in the pools, which were quite cold but refreshing. We walked to the 'window' of Roraima, which was a fallen rock which had created a window of the Guyana rainforest below. We also walked to the highest point of Roraima, which had some amazing views on the way up and from the top. On Roraima because its higher than some clouds when the weather changes Roraima can become very foggy as the clouds roll in. Sam decided to do some rock climbing and twisted his knee which didnt help when the next 2 days were all downhill, putting most of the strain on your knees. The fifth day we walked from the top back down to Rio Tek, this is 15km and almost all downhill. When we reached Rio Tek, we swam in the river there and washed under the small waterfall. The last day was 3.5 hours back and this was 12km. When we finished we were all congratulated with a chinese fried rice lunch, which was much appreciated. Throughout the entire trip we got absolutely covered in bites from various insects, mainly sand flies. We also saw a miniture scorpian hiding under a tent when they were packed away. On the way back from Roraima we went to a small waterfall where the rock was bright red due to magma hardening on the surface.