Status: On a pristine white sand beach on Los Roques
I managed to find my first new travel buddy Steph at Houston airport on 13 August in the evening after killing six hours by myself at the airport. I walked twice from one end of the airport to the other (just to stretch my legs after the long flight from Singapore via Moscow), had some nachos, got myself connected to the wifi to waste time on Facebook to see what my friends have been up to - and had a couple of hours of a nap on the most uncomfortable chairs that Houston airport provides.
Steph had lounge passes - and they have SHOWERS in the president lounge. I had a life saving shower after all that flying - next opportunity to shower will be in the Canaima national park after another 3 flights and an overnight trip to Angel falls. Hooray to travel buddies with lounge passes!
We found Elle at Caracas airport on teh morning of 14th Aug with a dodgy money changer from whom we changed some bolivars at a not-so-great black market rate - but we got enough to get ourselves started and definitely a better rate than the official government rip-off rate.
Catching the two flights down to Canaima was good fun, starting from running to the domestic terminal, jumping the security check queue, Steph's bag getting "searched" at Caracas end after check-in (luckily she never puts any valuables in her check-in bag - we heard from other travellers their camcorder was stolen on the same flight), meeting a very cute and helpful young man at the check-in counter in Puerto Ordaz and finally flying from Puerto Ordaz to Canaima in a tiny little Cessna that fits 6 people (includes the pilot). According to Steph&Elle also the pilot was cute haha - I wasn't paying attention as usual.
Eventually we got to Canaima where we were assigned a guide who was about 3 ft tall (in reality he was probably about 5 ft) and he did a really good job at destroying all of his chances of ever earning a tip. Among other things, he had a few too many beers on the way up from the "base camp" to Angel Falls campsite, asked me to warm him on the boat when it was raining as he did not have a raincoat (he gave it to Elle) and did not understand why I refused to, wanted to hold hands with me, Elle and Steph all in turns, put his hand under my t-shirt while he was assigning as the hammocks to sleep in (you do know the meaning of the word "calentorro" - something in the lines of horny&desperate - suited to describe our 3 foot tall guide) and in addition kept giving orders and bossing around our group - where we are allowed to sit and where not. My favourite order was when at breakfast table he asked the rest of the group sit at one end of the table and said to Steph "but you sit there" and pointed to the other end of the table. Perhaps Steph upset him when she refused to hold hands with him???
Angel Falls was worth the trip. I think I still liked better swimming at the bottom of it rather than viewing the world's highest waterfall disappearing into clouds at 979 meters of altitude. Boat trip back was also fabulous - the river has a lot of rapids and we got splashed wet in our little canoe in the wide and fast running river. It was a real "Tierra del Agua" (Waterworld) in Canaima - amazing waterfalls, rivers full of fresh, clean water, reflections of the surrounding forests, beautiful views - and no litter!
Yet, my favourite part of the Canaima trip was Salto Sapo (Sapo Falls), which we saw in the morning of our last day before leaving Canaima. Salto Sapo is "only" 25-30 meters tall but it's nearly 100 meters wide. The best part? You can walk behind it for the full length of the falls. We left our shorts and t-shirts on a rock near the waterfall and wandered behind the huge, cooling watermass in our bikinis and flip-flops. It was spectacular. The noise of the water falling from the heights, getting completely utterly profoundly soaked in the cool, fresh water and walking along a slippery, rocky path at times with hardly any visibility at all was an entirely breathtaking experience.
After returning from Sapo we had a quick breakfast and caught another three flights (same hassle with running from one flight to another trying to jump security queues and maximise use of time at check-in and airport tax payment). We arrived at los Roques islands late afternoon of 16th August.
Los Roques is beautiful but it felt a little like a rip-off where you can spend 10 times the money you would spend in Thailand just to get your Caribbean experience. So far it's been fun with nice meals on the beach, a crab in the bathroom (turned out to be dead???), a couple of nice dives on the reef and an afternoon spent on a white sand beach knocking back mojitos and attempting to get skin cancer seated on Steph's sarong under a big, blue umbrella.
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