Backpacking Mt. Roraima, Venezuela

Hiking - Day Two, Mon Aug 23rd

( Click On Any Photo For A Larger Version )

 
It rained all last night. Two of our group discovered their tent was not water proof at all. Here their sleeping bags hang to drip dry.

 
The rain continued into the morning. We were to cross two rivers today ( The Tech and The Kukenan ). The group was concerned that with the difficulty in crossing the river yesterday and the constant rain since last night, the rivers would surly be too high to cross today. We decided to stay at this camp site for the day and hope that the rain would stop. Shortly after this decision was made a group of backpackers returning from Roraima told us that the rivers were high but crossable. So we decided to continue, as originally planned, to the base camp at Mt. Roraima. Left Photo: Our tents in the morning. Miriela and Jose back left, Irene right. Right Photo: Myself preparing breakfast inside the tent because of the rain.

The rivers were not as bad as we had feared. The Kukenan River is pictured above. We went up stream a little from the normal crossing point. There was a 'Y' in the river here so we were able to cross the river one half at a time. After yesterday's hike I decided my 30 kilo ( 66lbs ) pack was too heavy. We took out some things we thought we could do without or were not going to need till the way back and hid them in a waterproof nylon bag near the river. Top Left Photo: Marcus helping Miriela across and two guides not in our group. Right Photo: Morella and Gustavo crossing the river. Marcus and Jose carrying their packs across. Lower Center Photo: Miriela and The Kukenan.

A view of a waterfall at the base of Mt. Roraima taken from the trail at full ( 12X ) zoom.

One of our group was a doctor, Melania. This came in very handy when I got a persistent cramp in my right leg. She gave me a muscle relaxer shot right there in the middle of the trail. She gave out a total of nine muscle relaxer shots to the group over our six days hiking. Photo: The trail across The Grande Savannah with a cloud covered Mt. Roraima in the background. The waterfall in the photo above can be seen in the center.

Filtering water from a stream.

 

Because of stopping for pictures and exhaustion Miriela and I were falling behind the group. It was getting late and we did not want to have to set the tent up in the dark and possibly rain for a second night in a row. So, when we passed a little used camp site called Military Camp, we decided to stay there and add the two hours left to get to base camp to tomorrow's hike. The family FM radios came in very handy to inform the rest of the group of our plans. Left Photo: Left edge of Mt. Roraima. Right Photo: Boiling water for dinner. Lower Photo: Panoramic of Mt. Roraima

Some sort of bird of prey photoed from camp.