TRAVELLING IN THE GALAXIES: A trip to Roroima Tepuy is a trip within yourself. Part I.

No, I have not made a mistake when typing Roroima, this is how it’s really pronounced the ‘oh so lovely’ Roroima Tepuy.

The savannah (or more specifically ‘La GRAN SABANA’ in Venezuela) has been for a lot of us a dream, we have seen it, perhaps, as a massive oasis, something we cannot truly comprehend nor live yet, something static, colourful, and with such a spiritual strength and a mystical enigma that can put your world upside down.

Maybe due to fears, insecurities, money related reasons, or simply because of lack of information, we have self-harm and cut our wings and we no longer feel like following any type of adventure nor any trip that allows you to walk within yourself, to yourself, whilst you breathe this beautiful live alongside others.

During September 2015, my friend Annie and I decided to go to the other side of our country (Venezuela) in order to get to know those sacred elements that the Gran Sabana is made of. From the moment we decided to go on this adventure we were doing our research and finding out information about the Roraima Tepuy. You know what the Internet is like: it gave us tons and tons of info, we read stories from people who had travelled to Roroima without a tour guide and who simply hired someone from the community once they got there, or some other people who would ‘sneak in’ a tour, and a lot of people who would say that you absolutely have to go with a tour guide because otherwise you would not survive and you would basically die. No, I’m not lying.

We also found tours relatively optimistic when it came to prices, others that made a home run hit (relating to prices), 5 days, 7 days or 10 days’ tours, tours that would prepare your coffee for you, the ones that would pick up your physiological needs, the ones that would give you a little present at the end, etc., etc., etc. We also had friends who had travelled before to the place (and whom I asked a massive amount of questions, so, cheers guys!)... let me just tell you that writing my thesis for a Political Science degree has been easier than the amount of information we had and read in regards to this. And we still hadn’t planned nor decided our trip. Heck, we still didn’t even have the money neither in our hands nor in our bank accounts for that matter. Haha. *

So, Annie found out through Couchsurfing this group called ‘’Mochilas de Venezuela’’ (or Venezuelan Backpacks). In their Facebook group, a girl called Yulibeth had left a comment talking about Roraima’s expeditions. (We already were in the beginning of the December, and we wanted to make the trip in the middle of December). So, to make this story short (because the important thing here is to live and breathe the tepuys and for you guys to get to see even if it’s in photographs my beautiful country, but also our beautiful world), I contacted Yulibeth, who gave me Mr. Pedro’s number (Pedro is a guy who works with Roraima Productions’, another tour company). She tells me that I should give him a call because he really is a lovely and generous person and he likes to help people.

I have to admit that our first conversation was remarkably honest from both sides. He asked me how much our budget was and I answered ‘’Well, it’s Bs. 40,000 (December 2015 price) and this must include our return ticket to Maracaibo. We really don’t have much money, but we have received Roraima’s call and we know it’s our time to go, we can even do auto stop to get there if we can’t afford our tickets for transportation’’… I thought he was going to laugh at us and tell us to save up some money and to call him back later or something like that (considering that all the tours we had contacted before were asking Bs. 150,000 or more).

Instead of that, he was really worried about the idea of us doing auto stop and he wanted to help us because, well, there was an amazing connection between us and the universe is big and the Roraima mountain is magical (There’s no need for excuses when it comes to helping others)… A couple of days after we transferred the money to his bank account and we were ready to go, the countdown had begun. (Yeah, I am really aware that we made our own bets here when transferring that amount of money to a stranger when we the only references we had of him were given from another stranger, but, we ended up getting there and going to Roraima, if we hadn’t been so sure about it we would not have done it, but Pedro was really keen on helping us to get there, and to share that love that unites us all to nature, he wants us to share these lands that are not ours and that have been here for way longer than all of us have, even if we share them through these types of texts or photographs.

The next thing we needed to do was to find out about the airplane’s fares to get to Puerto Ordaz (a city near La Gran Sabana). It turns out that a ticket (with x airline) would be Bs. 10,000 minimum. Due to our almost nonexistent bank accounts and funds, we decided to go by bus. Now let me tell you something, the furthest I had been in my country was in Cumana (Sucre state), but I had never been on that side of Venezuela. Annie had previously crossed the border to Brazil so she knew how LONG this bus journey would be and how uncomfortable it was going to be for our bums. I have to admit I was an ignorant when it came to how BIG Venezuela really is, and I thought the journey would be maybe one day or a day and a half travelling.. HAHAHA Oh, shit I was wrong.

Day 11 leaving Maracaibo. Arrived in Caracas during day 12.

Day 12 leaving Caracas. Arrived in Maturin during day 13.

Day 13 leaving Maturin. Arrived in Puerto Ordaz on the same day (we travelled for 5 hours).

Día 13 leaving Puerto Ordaz and arrived in San Francisco de Yuruaní during day 14.

So, in Puerto Ordaz we had joined Pedro’s tour. Well, in reality we joined Ervis tour, a really funny guy who welcomed us and ‘adopted us’ as if we were his daughters and who wouldn’t stop talking about how impressed he was (and how crazy we were) because we decided to go by bus.

As it turns out, we are really lucky souls, and Pedro gave us the surprise that we would stay there in San Francisco de Yuruani for two days (this place is part of the Gran Sabana), and on the third day we would begin our climb. Let me quickly explain something, Canaima’s National Park is gigantic (it’s pretty much the same size of Belgium), and the two of us (alongside Susana another girl from Maracaibo and her Ecuadorian partner Juan Pablo, and a group of Italians and Venezuelans) would get to travel around to other areas inside the park.

By the way, in one of the stops we made (and where I ate the most expensive ‘empanadas’ ever but were really good), I read that the name ‘’Canaima’’ was used after Romulo Gallegos a famous Venezuelan writer wrote the novel named, you guessed it, ‘Canaima’…but what this word really means for the pemones (pemon means person, so we are all pemones…but this is also the name used for people who are indigenous to these lands and whom are also divided according to the language they speak, they can be Arekuna, Taurepan or Kamaracoto)…sorry for the sidetrack, in any case, the word Canaima represents what they believe or their conception of the devil, of evil, of a malign being that is thus representing all suffering, especially all the pain of the region and its people.

During these days we were able to rest a little bit, so we decided to do fun stuff too, like going to Jasper Creek (or Quebrada de Jaspe in Spanish and Kako Paru in Taurepan language) which is literally a Creek made of this beautiful stone Jasper, so everywhere you see, you see this colour…we also got to meet the ‘famous’ and solitary rock called grandpa Kueka (or abuelo Kueka) (and this is really important guys, if you don’t know anything about this I will leave a link at the end so you can inform yourself), we even went to Santa Elena de Uairén (furthest town on the south of Venezuela), and we crossed the border to Pacaraima in Brazil were we had a couple of well-deserved beers.