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| First sight of the falls on the flight over |
As seems to be the reoccurring theme with people when I tell them about upcoming travels I was meet with the now usual response of "why would you want to do that?" or "are you crazy you can't go to Venezuela you'll get killed".
Ordinarily you might think responses and comments like that would have put me off but if anything it only make me more determined to succeed.
Whilst it is true that Venezuela is currently suffering from hyperinflation and political unrest and has been for the past couple of years I was still determined to complete this amazing abseil. Even upon reading that Venezuela came second to last for world tourist numbers in 2017 beating only Yemen for visitor numbers during 2017 but actually receiving less visitors than places like Libya, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan in the week before I was due to fly in didn't put me off.
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| Auyantepui and Angel Falls |
Now there aren't exactly many places that you can practice before undertaking a 2 day multi pitch 979 metre abseil and certainly nothing in the UK.
So it was off to the local climbing wall to brush up on basic skills and make sure I was completely comfortable clipping in and tying myself in to the system.
Arriving in Caracas to begin the trip we meet up at a nearby hotel providing the first opportunity to meet the other 4 team members and our 4 guides 3 local and 1 UK guide.
We were given a brief overview of the plan for our upcoming adventures and enjoyed a few local beers.
Early the next morning we were scheduled to depart Caracas for a 9-10 hour drive to Ciaud Bolivar, we would spend the night in a hotel close to the airport before catching a morning flight to a savanna airstrip at the base of the Tepui. Weather permitting this would provide us with the first view of the falls as the flight path would take us straight over Auyantepui.
It was about an hour in to the flight when the pilot pointed out that Angel Falls would be visible on the right side of the aircraft momentarily. Peering out of the window and witnessing the falls first hand with my own eyes was amazing but I was also hit with the feeling of wow that's a long way down.
Pushing those thoughts to the back of my mind and just concentrating on the sheer beauty of the sight in front of me. The pilot took a couple of loops around the falls giving us all great views of this amazing waterfall.
A short while later we landed at a dirt airstrip in the savanna at the base of the Tepui.
From here we would begin our 6 days trekking to the point from which we would get our first up close view of the falls and the location from which we would have to take those first few stomach churning steps over the edge to begin our abseil in a weeks time.
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| Views during day 3 of the trek |
The treks were hot and whilst I've had easier terrain I've certainly had to contend with much tougher also. Each day was diffrent and varied on minute we could be scrambling up rocks and ropes, the next on open sun scorching savanna. We also had swamps, rice fields, jungle, roots and massive cracks in the Tepui to contend with.
On a plus side we rarely had to walk more than 12km a day and took couple hour lunch breaks normally near a nice section of river which provided a refreshing early afternoon dip normally followed by a nice nap in the shade before continuing the day on towards camp for the night.
The weather was largely good to us, we never got caught in any showers whilst walking and it only rained on camps a couple of nights in the early hours whilst we were safely tucked up in tents.
The final day of walking before reaching the falls was by far the toughest. The first half of the day was a continuous up down repeat mostly over open ground but also a couple of jungle and swamp sections added in for good measure. After lunch it was estimated that we had another 4-5 hours ahead of us before finally reaching camp, by far our longest post lunch session yet.
After a couple hours through jungle, and swamps we reached a large section of river and stopped to fill water and have a quick break. Our guides pointed out that camp was only 900 metres away straight down the river but it would take us over 2 hours to reach as the path through the jungle was narrow and winding and had to avoid lots of obstacles on route. After some discussion we all agreed that it was worth a chance to try and just walk down the river.
So we set of down the river in hopes of reaching camp a couple hours earlier, it was easy going at first the water level was reasonably low and at most it was only knee deep at points, Sadly a few hundred metres further down the jungle closed in at the sides of the river and narrowed in to a small pool ahead of us, Dave left his bag and went to investigate and it wasn't long before he disappeared in to neck deep murky brown water. Sadly now less than 400 metres from camp and the jungle far to thick to avoid the pool and inevitable soaking of kit we had to admit defeat and return to the main path for a 2+ hour slog through the jungle on the original path.
The next day was a welcome rest day and lie in, sorting through kit and making sure every was ready and happy for the abseil.
It was our first real day of miserable weather and it was a cold wet morning. When the weather broke in the afternoon we took the short walk from camp to the top of the falls for our first up close view.
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| Angel Falls from the top of Auyantepui |
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| Leg trembling views |
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| The team |
Those first few moments peering over the edge of the Tepui witnessing the beauty and hearing the roar of the falls as it plummeted 978 metres to the trees below was amazing and terrifying at the same time. 978 metres that is almost a kilometre the giant trees in the canopy below looked like nothing more than little pieces of broccoli.
Now I'm not exactly scared of heights I mean I've done multiple bungee jumps & skydives as well as previous climbing and abseiling but looking over the edge gazing at the near kilometre drop ahead of us in the upcoming days I expect everyone would have a tingle in the legs, a churn of the stomach or a doubt in their mind.
All I could think of was the famous quote by Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw "If a man says he is not afraid, he is either lying or is a Gurkha"
Thinking of those words eased me and I thought how everyone else was probably having similar emotions and doubts.
Early the next morning we woke, made final preparations and checks and took the short 15 minute walk to the edge again.
Harness and helmets checked and fitted we made the final approach to the small ledge from where we would take those first terrifying steps.
The ropes rigged we lined up awaiting our turn to clip in and make the first steps. I was towards the back and had to wait nervously for my turn.
It's the waiting, I hate the waiting. My mind racing analysing everything that could go wrong talking myself out of it, convincing myself back in to it.
I was the biggest in the group and always kept coming back to the thought of the ropes holding my weight, even thou I know they are designed to withstand much greater weights I didn't like being the heaviest strain that they would face.
Finally it was my turn, I grabbed my bag clipped the safety lines of both it and myself into the ropes leading to the edge and walked over.
I was now stood on the edge trying to ignore the massive drop behind me, I made my preparations tied myself in to the system, checking, double checking and even triple checking everything I was finally happy and unclipped my safety lines. Moving my bag carefully back and between my legs taking car not to disturb any loose rock which could have been very dangerous for the people already below.
No going back now it was time to take those first few nervous steps backwards and slowly one shakey foot at a time I moved backwards until I had no rock left, this was it the moment of truth, I slowly lower myself off and no longer had contact with the wall I was simply hanging in mid air with nothing but a massive void beneath me and a waterfall to my right.
It was done I had taken the first steps and to my relief the ropes help. I breathed a massive sigh of relief, all my doubts and fears were eased I knew I could do this and I could finally just enjoy the amazing views surrounding me.
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| Landing on the first ledge, after completing the first abseil |
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| Second ledge |
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| Gavin arriving at the second ledge |
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| Worse ways to spend a Monday morning |
The 2 days of abseiling were completely diffrent, the first was either big sections of clean open wall or simply hanging and lowering down on to the next little ledge, after spending the first night in a small cave we continued on to the second day and it was completely diffrent. We were faced with at times thick jungle and vegetation to negotiate our way through making sure not to get the ropes caught or ourselves tangled in the roots.
It felt like a scene from Jurassic park or Indiana Jones and on several occasions the theme tunes for both could be heard amongst the vegetation as we whistled or hummed along living out our inner Indy.
Finally after negotiating the final few trees on the final rope we touched down on solid ground once again but it wasn't over yet we still had a 2+ hour walk through the jungle to reach our hammock camp for the night.
It turned out that this was to be one of the hardest sections of walking yet. The steep think jungle path down to our camp at times felt like we should still be abseiling, negotiating slippery rocks and tree roots it was over an hour before we made it do on to a flatter more walkable path.
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| Negotiating the steep jungle path |
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| Dave with smiles of excitement |
Upon reaching the flatter ground the path opened up and split off in a fork, straight on would take us to camp but to the left we would find a small pool at the base of the falls, so ditching our bags and equipment in the bushes we headed off down the path eager to get another view of the falls and enjoy a nice swim in the river.
The pool and clearing gave us another great view of the falls and we could almost see our entire route down including the cave where we spent the previous night.
Refreshed after our swim in the pool we retrieved our gear and continued on to camp.
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| At the bottom |
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| Refreshing dip |
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| Wow, Thoughts realising 2 days earlier was at the top. |
That night we slept in hammocks in a small hut with views of the falls, my hammock had a perfect line through the trees at the falls and going to sleep and waking up to that view was amazing, the sense of achievement and memories it gave felt amazing
We still had a couple long days ahead of us on our journey back to Caracas but we had set out what we all wanted and that was to abseil the world's highest waterfall. The excitement and happiness in camp was obvious.
I'm continuity on the look out for new and exciting things to satisfy my need for holidays and adventure and after completing this I don't know how I'm going to top it.
Future travel planning just got a lot harder
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| Venezuelan currency AKA Toilet paper because these small bills are effectively worthless for anything other than the super cheap petrol. |
