DEDICATED TO A FRIEND
While I’m working on the final touches to this feeble attempt to put together a humorous travel diary about an otherwise very serious and incredible trip, Paul (Graham Stanley) calls me with news that fill my heart with sorrow and pain. One of the most colorful and interesting characters I’ve met in my first peregrinations in this beautiful niche of the world was “Captain Alfonso” or “The Pilot”. Well the news was that he had died in a crash the day before Paul was scheduled to arrive in Canaima on July 4th. For some time I have struggled with the feeling that maybe I should tone down the couple of parts in which Alfonso is the protagonist and use a more somber approach. At the end I decided not to. Having known him ever so briefly I like to think that he would have liked it exactly the way it is and have a good laugh about it. What I want to do tough is to dedicate this diary to his memory.
God speed Alfonso!
INTRODUCTION
Dear Friends,
This is how and why my eyes that had been shut for so many years reopened. How and why my soul that has been devoided of feelings for so many years has been relifted. How and why my heart that has been in the deep freezer of “real life” for so many years has been thawed. This is how and why I owe this to all of you – Paul above all – and the Pemón people. I hope you can bear with me and read what follows.
As many of you know I have been involved with Angel Conservation since before its conception, and for all these years I have devoted a lot of my free time and my energy to our mission. Regrettably though, I never had the chance to go to Venezuela and meet the Pemón and see the status of our projects and the difference these projects actually make in the lives of the locals. Finally this has changed. Finally the planets aligned, the winds where blowing in the right direction, my work days where cut to three a week, but most of all Paul said that he would never speak to me again if I didn’t go. I realized that this time I had no good – or bad – excuse to keep my sorry rear end in Brooklyn.
So there I was, at the beginning of January thinking that I was going to embark in another adventure – I had quite a few of them in my younger years – and I must admit that at first I had mixed feelings. What will I find? Will I be disappointed? Will the people accept me as they apparently did Paul? Why then did I feel this underlining of excitement?
For days I tried to keep this dichotomy of emotional approach to “The Trip” at bay. I tried not to think about it. I tried to dismiss the personal implications trying to convince myself that it was nothing more than one more of the hundreds of trips that dotted my life. Useless exercise in futility.
As the X hour approached my excitement soared. I couldn’t stop telling anybody who had the gift of hearing where I was going and why. I was counting the hours, the minutes, the seconds to 4:30 am on February 25, the moment Paul and I would leave Brooklyn Heights. Destination: Gran Sabana, Venezuela.
Nevertheless on the plane that from JFK was propelling us to San Juan Puerto Rico and then Caracas, my anxiety started to raise its ugly head again. My heart started pounding. Was it fear of disappointment? Was it anticipation for a new adventure? Was it fear of the anticipation of a life changing - for experience? I soon would know the answer. An answer that now, in hindsight, is the one I was hoping – but also fearing – for. An answer that will forever change my life.
THERE WE GO
The beginning was traumatic: I don’t do 4:00 in the morning! That is usually the time I go to bed, not the one my alarm goes off! Nevertheless here we go, destination JFK. As soon as we set foot in the lounge on the TV screen, tuned on CNN, roll the images of a plane crash in Holland. Great! No, wait a minute – Paul and I had the same thought: the probabilities of two plane crashes in a few hours from each other are astronomical. So San Juan here we come!
After a brief layover in Puerto Rico it’s off to Caracas. I almost dislocate my cervical vertebrae to look out of the windows and take in everything that we fly over. In Caracas another short wait and then off again: destination Puerto Ordaz. The planes kept getting smaller and smaller. Little did I know what lay ahead!
After flying over the mesmerizing Orinoco Delta we land. We have arrived. Finally some rest!! No way!! Paul literally drags me through the airport. It’s tiny but at this point it looks as big as Place de la Concorde. I ask him what we’re looking for. “Oh-La-La!” he screams. I didn’t know he spoke French, thinking that he found our destination. Sure enough he doesn’t. It’s only the bar we are looking for and where we are going to meet the rest of the crew. Obviously there are two of them, and this adds to the confusion, but eventually we manage to find the right one. There we have an incredibly warm greeting from Lydia, Valentina, Martha Vazquez (a local anthropologist) and Zam. The three ladies are part of the team, and with them Paul and I board a couple of cars and off we go. Destination: Cuidad Bolivar.
We arrive at the Hotel La Cumbre after sunset. In the dark the place is beautiful. Almost mystical. We are dead tired but the allure of a couple of Cuba Libre is irresistible. So after dropping our luggage in or rooms we gather at a table on the patio. There we meet the owners, Chelo and her husband Pedro. Their welcome is so warm and their hospitality so gracious that we immediately feel like family and the lure of a soft warm bed disappears in an instant.
We spend the night chatting about Angel Conservation, Ecotourism, the Pemón, the Grand Sabana. I try to soak in every word while tasting some of the local delicacies that Chelo keeps having sent to the table (alongside a steady stream of Cuba Libres). Even the worm that Paul urges me to eat looks sort of appealing and I decide to go for it. Lydia is about to follow my example but at the last second she backs out. “It was because of the face you made while you ate it”, she explains. Some face it must have been! In any case it wasn’t that bad.
At the end one by one we start fading and we retire to our sleeping quarters. It’s going to be an early morning. Our next leg of the trip will start at six! Damn.
DAY 1
Good morning sunshine! I only had the vaguest recollection that Helios woke up so early. Anyway at six here we are, groggier than shining (at least I am – the ladies look like they just woke up from a 12 hour sleep). Fast breakfast and then off we go to the airport to meet with Capitan Alfonso who has to ferry us to Uruyen. What a character. Smiling and bald, with a pair of legs so bowed that a dog with a broom in his mouth could easily run through them! “When we play football I always have fun kicking the ball through his legs. It’s so easy,” Paul chuckles. Unfortunately, due to a slight misunderstanding we are a little late so we have to take another flight. Paul and I take advantage of the short delay and go to have a look at the replica of Jimmy Angel’s plane. I know it’s not the original but nevertheless just standing in front of it sends shivers down my back. I still can’t believe I’m here, that I’m only minutes away from a place I have dreamed of for the last four years.
They call us. We have to go. As soon as we get out on the tarmac Lydia, Valentina, Martha and I look at each other: in front of us stands something that looks more like a fly with a propeller stuck to its nose rather than a real plane. Swallowing our fears we clime in joining Paul and the captain. There is barely space to move and the fact that a piece of the plane breaks right in Martha’s hand doesn’t add to our level of comfort. Thank God that the landscape we are flying over is breathtaking. I can’t take my eyes off the small window and can’t believe that Lydia and Vale actually managed to fall asleep!
As the cliche goes: every cloud has a silver lining, and our being late turns out to be great as we have to make an unscheduled stop in Canaima before moving on to Kavak. What a magnificent place albeit a little disappointing. I found it a little too touristy, in a slightly cheesy way. It reminded me of some of many villages I have visited in the past throughout the world: too many trinkets, to little indigenous flare. But the people are great, especially Eulalia and her little son that we meet there by chance. It warms my heart to see how they treat Paul, as if he where family.
It is an epiphany. It is the moment in which I realize why we do what we do in this part of the world. We are not intruders. We are friends welcomed with open arms and hearts!
Then the moment comes for us to move on. We board the plane and all of a sudden I realize that this time I managed to accomplish something that I’ve tried to do since we left New York: I lost something. After the Blackberry and my passport that I lost and then retrieved from two of the planes that took us here (at a certain point Paul took charge of all my possessions) this time I left my America Oggi hat on the bar table. The captain tried to retrieve it. Unsuccessfully. Strangely the loss gave me a sense of well-being for two reasons: first, in Italy we believe that if you forget something somewhere it means that you are meant to return; second, I like the idea that some local kid is prancing around boasting a hat sporting the logo of an Italian daily newspaper.
Smiling I settle in our little tsetse fly with a propeller stuck to its nose, and off we go over thousands of acres of untouched land towards Uruyen and an adventure that at this point I not only feel, but know will change my life. The flight to Uruyen is almost uneventful. The passengers in the rear cabin are dozing off - tiredness is getting the best of all of us – until the captain, I’m sure with Paul’s delighted complicity, does a sharp right turn and a nose dip right on the steep side of the Auyantepui (Devil Mountain) to slide perilously close to a beautiful waterfall. Great fun! Probably not for the sleeping beauties in the back, who let out a couple of shrieks, even if more out of surprise than fear.
Anyhow, after flying around Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “Land That Time Forgot” (one day, I swore to myself, I will do the three day hike and go to the top of this unbelievable Tepui) we finally line up with the landing strip at Uruyen. Shoot, if the one at Canaima looked like little more than a two lane dirt road, this appeared even smaller! The only reassuring thing was that it was in the middle of a vast space bare of almost any type of vegetation taller than a few inches. So, if anything went wrong at least we didn’t risk hitting any tree. Some consolation it was.
All our fears dissipated as the captain performed a book perfect – if a little rocky – landing, although I think that some of us after getting out of the “tsetse fly” would have liked to perform a “Papal stint” and kiss the land on which we just set foot.
All of our jitters vanished when we looked up and saw the sincere smiles of the “welcoming committee”. It was made up of a bunch of happy, raunchy kids and a couple of guys with open smiling faces. One of them immediately caught my attention. His eyes where smart, inquisitive and alert, filled with the soft glow of self contentment. He came forward and embraced Paul as if welcoming a brother coming back home after a long trip abroad. The scene sent a chill down my spine. Immediately he turned towards us and said his name was Clemente. Finally! I’ve heard his name for years, and now I at last got face to face with him. I liked him from the get go, and I am happy to say that now I to have a new good friend.
Like a swarm of busy bees the kids flocked around the Yugo with wings and extricated our luggage while Clemente introduced us to the owner of the lodge, Victorino, and his family. We are immediately ushered to the communal hut and offered refreshments before we were shown our accommodations. As soon as I opened the door I was impressed. It was Spartan but not as much as I expected. Certainly not a resort for pampered travelers, but neither a down to the bone shelter that modern “explorers” apparently dig. Good, the first group can go to Canyon Ranch in Arizona
“Everybody ready in five. We are going on an excursion”. I think it was Paul’s voice, but to this day I’m not sure. Otherwise… Just kidding. Anyway, the five minutes turned into fifteen (and it was not the ladies fault) before we all gathered at the meeting point. On my way I eyed a once red pickup truck that had probably schlepped around Jimmy Angel himself in the 1930’s. Jokingly I told Lydia
So, here we are climbing on the bed of the vetust vehicle (a lot harder than the one I was courting a few minutes ago), that might have been used by Hannibal when he crossed the Alps with his elephants, and off we go for our first land adventure. Destination: Yurwan Falls.
The ride on the barely visible trail in the open Savanna was bumpy but unexpectedly, and pleasantly, pretty smooth and a lot of fun. Great, I thought, a nice ride to the bottom of the falls, a few pictures, maybe a dip in the pristine waters at the splashing of the drop and then back for food, a couple of drinks and a leisurely decadent nap on a hammock contemplating the sunset pretending to be Hemingway.
Ha! Nothing further from the truth! The “red wonder” stops in the middle of an open space just at the foot of the imposing mass of the Auyantepui. “Everybody down!” Clemente’s order shatters my hopes. “How long to the falls?’ I ask understanding that from now on the journey would be on foot. “Oh, not that far”, he answer with a smile that means exactly the opposite. Damn, I hate walking. When I lived in Italy
Back to us. We disembark and realize that the only place were there could have been a water fall was “on” the Tepuy. The only problem is that I don’t see any, and the wall of the Devil Mountain is quite far away. I look at Clemente while he (and a group of young Pemón, including his son) is starting to lead the five of us towards our destination. I’m determined not to slow them down. I didn’t want to look like an old fart to the ladies, our guides and especially to Paul, otherwise back in “The Hood” I would be ridiculed by everybody. Without malice he would make sure of it. Therefore, I start putting one foot after another and incredibly, after a few steps, I fall in to a rhythm that puts me at the head of the line, right on Clemente’s six o’clock. I feel rejuvenated, full of an energy that I haven’t felt in decades. Can it be the magic of this place? The only time I felt something like this was approaching Ayers Rock in Australia
So on we go through a grass knoll speckled with strange black rocks (Paul tells me they have been charred because of the “slash and burn” method of agriculture that is still used in this area) and then we are finally at the foot of the Devil Mountain. From this point of observation it doesn’t look devilish at all. It’s beautiful! We stagger along a trail that winds and climbs through the luscious tropical rainforest, and forces us to ford a few small rivers. Luckily it’s the dry season so the endeavor is not that grueling. Even Martha, the self described “Gorda Feliz” (The Happy Fatso) manages, with a little help from the youngsters, to keep up with the rest of us.
All of a sudden Clemente stops and instructs us to leave everything on the rocks on the bank of a river much bigger than the others. The goal is near, but from now on we will be in water deep up to our necks. We comply, and he takes charge of our cameras putting them in a black plastic garbage bag. Splash! In we are. The impact with the frigid water shortcuts my synopsis for a few seconds, but then I realize that the water is not that cold, on the contrary it’s rather pleasant.
Finally after a few hours of back breaking truck ride, a lot of walking, as much slipping, sliding, holding to branches, and a little swimming, we reach our destination. The majesty of Yurwan Falls
Unfortunately good times don’t last for ever and we have to leave. I coped with the abandoning of this incredible place thinking that if this was only the beginning I couldn’t imagine what marvels laid ahead. I was soon going to be proven right. Back we went into the river and to the huge rocks where we left our meager belongings. There the young ones, and Clemente, prepared a very nice meal that we all enjoyed while basking in the sun like a bunch of albino lizards.
Thankfully, before we can turn into baked lobsters Clemente starts playing drill sergeant again, albeit a nice one (no it’s not an oxymoron), and sets us back to the point of origin, not after sticking himself to Martha in order to give her all the help she needs without making her feel self-conscious in front of us. Off we go on the way back. It feels easier and shorter than the incoming trail. Paul and I take the lead, laughing and chatting and admiring the flora and little fauna that we encounter. Our pace must have been Carl Lewis style because when we finally have the old red and rusted “sabana-ship” in our sight we turn around and see nobody behind us for miles. Did something happen? Did someone get hurt? Should we turn around? One of the young kids reassures us saying that while we where focused on beating the world record for tropical forest crossings the rest of the group took a detour to go admire another waterfall. Damn, I thought. I’m missing it. The disappointment lasted just a few seconds, because in that long hour that we waited for the rest of the gang the two of us had what turned out to be the only time alone for the reminder of the trip, and sitting on a burned rock I listened to Paul pointing out plants and flowers that I had never encountered before in my worldwide travels, all the while filling me in with the history and legends of these incredible surroundings and their inhabitants.
Suddenly, over the hedge of a shallow ravine, we see some heads bobbing up and down. Clemente and the ladies are on their way back.
Our first day of exploration is over. We pack our tired bones back on the bed of the pick-up. Our driver (who can’t be older than 12 or 13, but drives better than 98.7% of New York cabbies and at least knows his way around) hops behind the wheel, and off we go, destination a nice shower and an even nicer nap.
After a couple of hours, somewhat clean and rested we reconvene at the communal hut. The brightness of the day is fading away and the vast extent of the sabana and the imposing Moloch of the Tepui softly caressed by the wind are magnificent in the sunset twilight. We all have a drink, and then a dinner definitely not indigenous (but more than acceptable). Exhaustion has the best of us and we all retreat to our own thatched roof huts. Lying on the bed I take out one of the couple of books I took with me. I start reading: the same sentence three times before I fall into a deep sleep populated with pleasant and exciting dreams.
TO BE CONTINUED...
