Venezuela Guianas Brazil trip (continued)

As more information comes in, the tweaking continues.

Firstly, connecting flights. Since we're flying into one airport and returning from another ("open-jaw"), realistically, the options are limited to carriers which serve both cities.

Which means: Air France into Caracas, and out of either Cayenne or Rio. This is likely to be the most expensive, and flying out of Cayenne will mean a change of airports in Paris on the way back (Orly to Roissy Charles de Gaulle).

Cheaper would be Iberia with good connections via Madrid , into Caracas and out of Rio.

Cheapest is Air Portugal, into Caracas and returning from Belem via Lisbon. This would mean an additional 'plane change and several hours' connecting time in Fortaleza.

It's likely that we'll probably cut out Rio at the end - it's a lot of extra flying to have a couple of days in the Cidade Maravilhosa, and lots of our other trips go there. Which will mean ending either in Cayenne or Belem (see above).

In Venezuela, the original plan was to spend no more than a few hours, or an overnight, in Caracas. It's a big city without much to offer, but missing it altogether is probably doing it too much of a disservice. So we'll stay in town, and take a late afternoon flight next day to Ciudad Bolivar, and stay the second night there at the Angostura Hotel.

Going by bus to Ciudad Bolivar means a ten-hour overnight bus, and arriving before dawn. This is supposed to be fun, so we've ditched that idea.

The Alba Hotel in Caracas doesn't get much of write up on web review sites, but most recent comments are from Texans who seem to be beefing more about socialism than hotels. We'll monitor reviews. An alternative is the Melia.

Flights from Ciudad Bolivar to Canaima offer the option either to fly past the Angel Falls on the way in, or not - the difference is that flying past costs a lot more. We're investigating whether our charter flight out towards to Brazil border can incorporate a fly-by.

The canoe trip upstream to the base of the falls is through rainforest, and if you're interested in birds, you'll know that rivers are linear clearings and an ideal opportunity for sightings. As we get closer to the falls, the range of habitats increases; 1000ft sheer cliffs flank the waterways.

The's only one bus a day from the Brazilian border to Boa Vista, so we'll spend a night in Santa Elena de Uairen (Hotel Yakoo), which is on the Venezuelan side about 20km from the frontier. Santa Elena is the starting point for trekkers aiming to scale Roraima tepuy - a six-day round trip which we won't be doing - this time...

Mount Roraima straddles the three borders (Brazil,Guyana,Venezuela), but access is only from Venezuela for trekkers without climbing experience, ropes and heavy-duty back up.

Our journey routes through Brazil and then loops back up to Guyana because a combination of terrain and politics means there's no overland route directly into Guyana

The bus to Boa Vista takes about 3 hours on a paved road. I was last there in 1975, when I remember a newly-built modern frontier town in the middle of open savannah. It will have changed.

So, Venezuelan section is now:

Caracas 1N
Ciudad Bolivar 1N
Canaima/Angel Falls 2N
Santa Elena 1N

Bird lists and Climate charts to follow.

Venezuela Brazil Guianas – projected trip September 2010.

Whilst this trip is likely still to be in the planning stage for the next few weeks, I think it’s useful to allow everyone to see the engineering which goes into the building of the trip. There’s still likely to be a fair amount of jiggling as we ensure that we’re allowing enough days to get from A to B to C and see what there is to see. But here’s some of what Venezuela has to offer.

Caracas airport is about 20 miles from the city, in the coastal suburb of Maiquetia. We have the option of staying near here (since next day we may be flying from the nearby domestic airport to direct to the Angel Falls).

The alternative we may take is to drive up the spectacular mountain motorway to the city itself. This road passes close to the shanty towns from where Venezuela’s president Hugo Chavez garners much of his support. This city of 8 million souls lies 1000m a.s.l. in a long valley between two coastal ranges.

An option we’re considering is getting the bus to Ciudad Bolivar, which gives us a better feel of the lie of the land, and also takes us over the Orinoco by the bridge at the Angostura Narrows. The famous bitters no longer originate from here, though they’ve kept the name.

Caracas is a city ruled by the internal combustion engine – 8 cylinders is no disadvantage when petrol is cheap as chips, and elevated motorways, freeways and expressways seem to dominate every inch of this elongated city.

Either way we end up in the Gran Sabana – a vast and almost roadless region of sheer-sided red sandstone plateaux which is reputed to be the inspiration for Conan Doyle’s Lost world. Sadly, though several places in Latin America have evidence of dinosaur footprints, these flat-topped tepuis have yet to yield any evidence beyond very small lizards.

We’ll be staying a couple of nights at one of the several lodges in the Gran Sabana, and the accommodation is in a pleasant resort where you can swim in the lake from a pink-sand beach. It’s a few years since I was there last – I wonder if the scarlet macaws from the nearby forest are still habituated enough to come and share your breakfast with you.

From the top of Auyan Tepuy tumble the Angel Falls, the world’s highest. We’ll be there towards the end of the wet season, so there’ll be plenty of water – in the dry season the wispy cascades have turned to misty spray after their kilometre fall. There’s a reasonably good chance that the flight into the nearest airport (Canaima) will fly past the falls if the clouds aren’t too many; or possibly when we fly out.

But cloud is quite prevalent in September.

So the plan is to do an all-day canoe trip to the foot of the falls. There’s enough water in the rivers to do this in September. I recommend doing flexibility exercises for a few days before, so you don’t crick your neck looking up. Angel Falls is 979 metres high.

For comparison Canary Wharf is 235m, and the Empire State is 381m. Peanuts.

Beware of the Llama

Apropos Bolivian road signs warning drivers that an alpaca or llama might leap across the path at any moment, I was cycling in Norfolk last weekend, and passed a road sign warning of toads.

This wasn't one of those signs put up by local residents doing their bit to protect their cuddly indigenous or endemic local fauna. ("Mind our ducks" - usually in Oxfordshire). This was a proper triangular warning sign between Aylsham and Cawston. Clearly, someone in the council highways department had taken the trouble to get the artwork right. This was no vague representation of an indeterminate amphibian.

It was clearly a toad, a toad that any self-respecting witch would have been happy to call a familiar.

I didn't see any live ones in the danger zone (or even road-killed either), though there were a couple of squashed partridges, a squirrel and another rodent in fairly quick succession.

There's a distinction to be made here - those creatures which might cause a serious accident (deer, horses) which drivers need to be warned about, and those which motorists might choose to be merciful to.

Latin America has started to do this too. I'm sure I've seen an armadillo-warning sign near Punta Tombo in Argentina; and in Belize and Cuba, land-crab alerts.

Two years ago, near Trinidad in southern Cuba, tour leader Rose Latham cautiously warned the Tocororo group that our bus taking the coast road would mean mean squashing dozens of crabs (they cross the road in their hundreds); whilst retracing our steps on the inland road would be a much longer drive. The group consensus was "Sod the crabs".

And in Panama -note that road signs are in two languages, since 100 years of Canal Zone influence means that many Panamanians are bilingual - iguanas get their own (zebra?) crossing.

Map and itinerary of planned Venezuela - Guianas - Brazil route Aug/Sep 2010

Starting either in August or September 2010, the plan so far is that this will be a 22-day trip. It's too early to get firm flight prices, but the cheapest is likely to be on Iberia, via Madrid. The trip itself will start in Caracas and end in Rio, although at this intermediate planning stage, it looks as though it'll be possible to curtail at Cayenne in French Guyana at about day 17.This latter option would mean using Air France, which is £150-200 more expensive for the flight element

What follows is a bald, yet-to-be-embellished itinerary.

We'll fly straight from Caracas on day 2 to Canaima (for the Angel Falls) and stay two nights (2N[days 2-3]), before continuing (probably by light aircraft) to Santa Elena de Uairen (1N [[day 4]) near the Brazil border. We'll travel on by bus to Boa Vista (1N [day5]), before turning north to Lethem and Guyana. The new bridge across the river is built, but the lack of a usable approach road means it still isn't open yet.

[Update 17Sep09 - the Takutu river bridge was officially opened on 14Sep09 - although it has been possible to walk or cycle across for several months]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takutu_River_Bridge

The all-weather road north takes us to Rock View (2N [days 6,7]) and then onward to Iwokrama and its canopy walkway(2N [days 8,9]). Onward to Georgetown (2N[days 10,11]) will either be by air via Kaieteur Falls or by bus - if the latter, then Kaieteur will be done as an optional excursion from Georgetown.

Bus or minibus will take us to the ferry across the Corentyne river to Nieuw Nickerie in Suriname - from where we continue to Paramaribo (2N[days 12,13]). Then on to Albina on the the border, ferry across the river to the old penal colony at St Laurent in French Guyana. It's a paved road for the 200km to Kourou (1N[day 14]).

Next day, there's a boat ride to the Isles du Salut - the most notorious of which is Devil's Island. The old admin block has been turned into a pleasant hotel(1N[day 15])and restaurant. Next day, visit the Space Centre before continuing to Cayenne (2N[days 16,17]).

Another new paved road 190km straight(ish) through the rainforest gets us to Regina and St Georges. The projected bridge, due for completion end 2010, hasn't started yet, so a ferry takes us over the Oiapoque river into Brazil (1N[day 18]). Back to red-earth roads for the bus ride to Macapa (1N [day 19]).

The last two legs to Belem (1N[day 20]), and then to Rio (2N[days 21,22]) will be by air.

View Planned route in a larger map

Bolivia (Uyuni-Potosi-Sucre) Aug08

Evo Morales, president of Bolivia, is a populist, a man of the people. He has huge support from the bulk of the population - the indigenous people of the Andean highlands, Quechua or Aymara-speaking; from which group Morales himself is drawn. But in August 2008 he had set himself on a collision course with the governors of the eastern/lowland states. The issue was mainly(and still is) the huge tax burden imposed by the government on the oil-producing areas, particularly the wealthy city of Santa Cruz.

The implications of this for us were that, although Rodrigo was confident that we could get through to Potosi, he was very pessimistic about the onward leg to Sucre. Several anti-Morales roadblocks were in place, and there was no getting past them. It was conceivable/possible/likely that we'd have to retrace our route from Potosi back overland to La Paz, instead of making a connection with our booked flight from Sucre.

We opted to risk it. There's a new road (mostly the old one being greatly improved) being built from Uyuni to Potosi, and several of our staff had said that it's not just a road journey, it's a tourist attraction in its own right.

The road out of Uyuni climbs straight into the hills, following, crossing and recrossing the track-bed of the old railway to the silver and tin mine at Pulacayo. Behind us there's a panoramic view of the salar, in a landscape made even flatter by the cloudless sky and noon-day sun.

http://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/1814/

Pulacayo is a revelation, a time-warp from a century ago, with the rails, rolling stock, turntable, engines and locosheds sharing the only road into town. A battered sign proclaims that this is the very railway which Butch and Sundance held up and robbed in 1908.

Versions of the story abound: Pulacayo's is that the mine owners themselves hijacked the payroll and miners' (pittance of) wages, and laid the blame on the two Yanqui bandits who were conveniently in the area. Sadly for modern-day Pulacayo, the most widely held view today is that it was not a railway, but a mule-train that was robbed, and that it was closer to Tupiza, to the south, and the bandidos ended up in the cemetery in the tiny mining town of San Vicente.

The old/new road onwards is proceeding apace. There are regular encampments of bulldozers and graders, and tiny communities which were once on the route are now bypassed (albeit an all-weather bypass), unless there's a bridge or a gorge which dictates the route. There are cuttings which slice though several million years of pristine sedimentary rock.

The only roadblocks are official traffic-control ones - yellow dungareed and hardhatted road workers (both men and women) with lollipops slow us when there is heavy plant crossing. There's almost never anything coming in the opposite direction.

Bolivia (Laguna Verde- Uyuni) Aug08

The final run into Uyuni, the last two hours. It looks like 14 hours will end up being 15. Now the sun is reflecting back from lozenge-shaped yellow roadsigns warning of llamas. Funny that no enterprising Bolivian hasn't started merchandising the image. The Australians are good at that stuff with their kangaroos and koalas, and you can buy them in Piccadilly Circus.

My dormant mobile phone suddenly erupts. A text message from my wife, sent 9 hours ago alerts me that we're back in range. Amazing really, I'm in the middle of a high-altitude sandy desert, in instant touch with my wife who's 100 miles away by means of a signal that, to my untechnical mind, has bounced off a heavenly body that thinks we're both in Britain.

I ponder what Charles Darwin would have though of that. I realise three weeks later in the Galapagos that Darwin would have needed quad-band to communicate from any part of what is now Ecuador. However, tri-band is fine in Bolivia, except down in the far southwest where nothing's in range.

The message is "Wots Spanish for mouse?"

When I translate for Rodrigo, he grasps the implications immediately and his face goes white. He's left his client's wife in a vermin-infested hotel room.

I reassure him that Sue is unlikely to be phased by a mouse. I begin to muse, out loud, how she will have coped with alerting the hotel to the presence of the hapless rodent. I imagine small drawings, and warming to my subject, try my own hand at charades - knowing Sue to be well skilled in this. Without boasting about how well I carry off this miming and squeaking, the result is that both Rodrigo and I are laughing so much that he has to stop the car.

The truth, when we finally arrived, is funnier still: Sue had acted out a similar but much longer performance to a chambermaid who had spent all night drinking chicha at a local fiesta, and was barely on the conscious side of catatonic.

Bolivia (Uyuni-Laguna Verde continued) Aug08

Two hours' drive southwest of Uyuni en route to Laguna Verde, you leave the main road. From now on we're in low range four-wheel drive. Frozen streams, rock formations that look like ruined red sandstone castles or abandoned medieval Tuscan villages along a distant escarpment; sulphurous mud-pools bubbling - activity influenced by the morning sun, claims Rodrigo.

We stop for breakfast at Mallku, at a small hotel, with stoves fashioned from oil-drums burning gnarled roots - from where? We haven't seen a tree for three hours.

Hotel is rather a grand word for it. It's a cave with a shack built at the entrance, a few rooms with foot-thick duvets, and an empty sun-lounge. Both sun and lounge are not the right words, since by empty I don't mean of people (although they're absent too); there's nothing at all in this part of the hotel, just windows.

The only guests, Swiss I think, but speaking good Spanish, are enjoying their rolls (toasted on the oil drum) and hot Milo (powdered chocolate substitute). They're wearing thick sweaters, overcoats, woollen hats, scarves and gloves. Eating breakfast.

At well over 4000m above sea level, we pass a lake whose name I have noted down as Laguna ...? (you try making intelligible notes at 20mph on a road that seems to be a mixture of sand and talcum powder). The shores are piled high with heaps of snow, or salt. It turns out to be borax. I also make a note to look up borax - what is it used for?

http://www.ballymoney.gov.uk/Household_cleaning_factsheet.pdf

Beyond is Laguna Colorada - colorado/colorada means red in Spanish. Rodrigo tells me there are pink algae in the lake (which the flamingoes feed on, and this makes them pink too...but I'm not convinced). Certainly the lake looks pinkish, but it's greatly accentuated by the reflection from colour of the hills behind. It seems more likely that wind erosion is the culprit. The lake's very shallow, judging by the flocks of flamingoes hundred of metres from the shore. They may be standing in pink sediments.

The point where we turn around (although the track carries on into Chile) is Laguna Verde and the volcanoes of Licáncabur and Juriques. It's just after lunchtime; by the time we've had our packed lunch most of the lake has changed from a dull jade green to brilliant turquoise; you can watch it happening, spreading west across the surface like ice melting. Rodrigo says it's to do with the wind, and it usually happens earlier in the day.

We're the only ones here, but an hour later on the return leg, it's evident that there are a dozen or so other 4WD groups - mostly backpackers having fun in hot springs. I guess they'd preferred this to waiting for the lake to do its party piece.

Rodrigo's very sniffy about these other Uyuni-based tour operators. They're cheap, since most of the visitors are young backpackers; they don't maintain their vehicles properly, they cut corners, they're cowboys.

We pass several, one crawling along belching black exhaust fumes. You can imagine the expression on Rodrigo's face. Two hours' further on, we have no choice but to stop. Rodrigo reluctantly lends one of his two spare wheels to a 4WD full of Australian, Canadian and French. One of them pleads with us for a lift, since we're likely to arrive in Uyuni two hours ahead of them, and he's got a bus to catch. We agree, but then he starts arguing with his Bolivian driver. Even though he's now getting a free lift in a reliable car, he wants his money back.

After about 5 minutes of wrangling, and no agreement, we leave him with his group. Was I that unreasonable when I was 25?

Bolivia (Uyuni - Laguna Verde) Aug08

The fact that the road infrastructure is still so poor is probably because Uyuni was, for most of the 20th century, one of Bolivia's great railway hubs.

To the west the single-track line still runs towards the Andes, Chile and ultimately to Antofagasta on the Pacific coast. Southwards it continues to Tupiza and Villazón and Argentina (no services or even track beyond the border); and northwards to Oruro and La Paz. The line eastwards towards (but not to) Potosí was dismantled years ago.

But in fact, the road south-west is a good, all-weather affair, although I didn't follow it all the way to Avaroa/Ollagüe on the Chilean border. At San Cristóbal, a Canadian company is mining silver, and they're probably funding road maintenance.

By day three in Bolivia, my wife had succumbed to altitude sickness. We warn all our clients about not flying into altitude, not overdoing it, taking time to acclimatise, so of course I, on her behalf, completely disregarded that sound advice.

Although Rodrigo carries oxygen, she opted to stay in bed for the day. That morning, the two of us set off at 4.30am to do the 14-hour off-road (off all-weather road that is) round trip to Laguna Verde (green lake) and near-perfect cone of Volcan Licáncabur. Both are at the far south-western tip of Bolivia, near the Chilean border. We usually allow two days for this.

I don't know where Shakespeare got his inspiration for his lines in Romeo and Juliet "jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain top", but he probably never got to this part of Bolivia.

I've occasionally, even in Britain, seen hillsides catch the dawning sun. But you need to be facing west on a high flat plain at the very instant that the sun rises, to catch it dancing tiptoe, for a few seconds, on the very peak.

So, Shakespeare must have just imagined it.