Our trip to Angel Falls began with Rodman telling us that liquor is expensive in Canaima, and that it's prohibited to bring it on the plane as well. In true Venezuelan disregard for the rules, Rodman then tells us that if we want to bring any alcohol, it's no problem, and to just let him know in advance, and if there is anything else we dont want the security officials to find (read: drugs, firearms, nailclippers) we need to move it into checked luggage. Apparently they dont go through the checked luggage, but they will confiscate your nail clippers if left in your carryon.
Canaima was beautiful. However, we soon realized that we had no idea who we are meeting, or where to go to catch out boat trip to the smaller falls, and no one here speaks English. We started by asking a tour guide looking boat driver, who pointed us to another boat driver, who pointed us to a third boat driver down the beach, who told us we were supposed to go with the second boat driver, but by now they've already departed, so he agreed to take us. We had a really niice little afternoon up to see the lagoon, and the local falls, which you can climb behind. When we get back to camp we asked about the departure time for Angel Falls the next day, and the guide told us to meet him at 8.30 AM the next morning.
In the morning, we found an English speaking couple that we met the previous day, and chat with them. Their group is apparently going at 7.30, but we have breakfast with them, and decided when their tour group leaves, we'll head back to our cabin and pack up our stuff so we're ready at around 8 and can look for our guide. Our guides brother comes up to the couple and tells them the bus will leave in 5 minutes, so I took the oppourtunity to ask him when our guide would be ready. He looked a bit confused, and told us that we need to be ready to go in 5 minutes as well - there's only one group. So, we rush back to the cabin to throw all our stuff in our bags, and catch the bus, which was waiting on us. Not a great start. Our guide tells us that they just kind of throw out a time, and we should be ready at that time, give our take an hour. That's how time in Canaima works.
We had no idea what to expect for the boat trip, but we decided it would probably take about 45 minutes to get to the falls, so the 30 minute boat trip, followed by a 45 minute walk, followed by a 5 minute boat trip, and a 10 minute walk, and a 4 hour boat trip, and a 1 hour walk uphill in the jungle to get to the falls were a bit of a surprise, but we still had a great time. It's the middle of the dry season, and the river is quite low, so our guides would often have to jump out of the boat to navigate through rocks and pull us up river. All around, other boats were making everyone jump out to pull the boat through the water, but our guides were expert navigators, and didn't require this...until close to the end. The water has more rocky rapids closer to the falls, so our guide started shouting for the men get out to pull the boat. The men would spring to action and leap out, but Rich, not speaking fluent Spanish, (and out guide not giving full explanations for what he wanted), was caught off guard a few times. Rich would jump out of the boat late, and our guide would immediately yell: "Everybody back in the boat". Rich would jump out of the boat on the left side and the guide would yell: "Get on to the right side!". Rich would jump out of the boat and the guide would yell: "No you! Only the three in the front!". At some point, Rich's new shoes started to come apart, making it even harder for him to jump in and out.
The climb up hill was hard. It's very humid in this region, and we'd been sitting in the sun all day as it was. Climbing over large roots and boulders for an hour on an incline wasn't what we were expecting but we managed, and got to see the falls on what was the last day that they wold permit boats up river for the view, so we were really lucky. We took some snaps, and had a snack on a boulder where we could soak in the view. The sun was setting, and it was starting to get dark in the forest, so we decided to start the one hour trek back down before it was too dark. Our guide said to us, "It's dangerous to go down on your own, lots of times there are rock slides, but you are your own person, so do whatever you want. I'm not responsible." We made it to the bottom, and waited for the rest of our group to regather. When everyone had arrived, out guide decided that the best way to cross the river at night, was to form a human chain across the river, and have everyone pass one-by-one, using the human chain as a bridge.
That evening at the camp we picked our hammocks, and had dinner. We chatted a bit with our fellow trekkers. One Swiss gentleman we met had been touring South America for a year at this point, and had developed a distaste for rice and beans. We had rice and beans for dinner. We all settled into our hammocks. There were about 50 us and everyone was just getting comfortable when someone started snoring - loudly. That evening we got little sleep with the chorus of about 5 people snoring throughout the night, and the unexpectedly cold evening that left us shivering under our blankets. We had breakfast the next morning of eggs and bread, which pleased our Swiss friend, and we set off back foor the Canaima camp, and then back to Ciudad Bolivar.
Rodman picked us up at the airport, and we confirmed for him that we had a great trip. Since it was only about 4 in the afternoon, we asked him if we could walk somewhere for an early dinner. "No," he informed us. "It's not safe to walk on Sundays." Ciudad Bolivar is not a dangerous place, as long as it's still light out, you're not walking down any of the wrong roads, and it isn't Sunday.
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