A Surreal Day of Canyoning in the Andes Mountains (Venezuela)
Rappelling down waterfalls along the Santa Catalina River (City of Merida, Venezuela)
It’s a day that will definitely be remembered for the rest of my life. I have never done such extreme activities, and it didn’t seem very intense that day when I lived through everything. It was just a very bright day, hard to describe.
Since everything in Venezuela was extremely tentative and the agreements were not respected, life revolved around the principle: the end is good, everything is good, no matter how much time it would take until the end – I did not believe in particular that the representative of a company called “Fanny and…” until the driver with the car appeared to our hotel in the morning at the scheduled time. Maybe the fact that the owner was a Swiss had to be important to take into consideration while explaining the exact timing.
After some discussion of my clothing at the hotel (early in the morning), we headed towards the Merida downtown tourist office to get the tougher equipment. But in the downtown, at the “Fanny and Co …” it was the usual wait, because it turned out – our group had grown in participant numbers. Originally, I had to go with one woman but some foreigners had also signed up after I had left the so called headquarters of the tourist office. I was even returned $ 25 because it was no longer an individual trip. OK, I said (and so I was thinking) that more people mean also more fun.
It is really difficult to describe what actually happened that day, emotionally. Basically, it’s easy to write what took place. When the group was finally together (besides me – four other people – two Canadians – Michael and his partner, and two Swedish young people Mattias and Linda) we started riding up to the mountains (Andes). There were eight of us at the jeep – a local driver, two guides (!) and our five-member group. All the ropes and other things needed were also put on the car roof. The weather was really sunny and warm, the car windows were open, music was rather loud.
We drove out of Merida in high spirits without any understanding what was waiting for us. Up the mountains! The city view down behind us was very beautiful. At some point, the car stopped, we left all the unnecessary things (main clothing, cameras, etc.) in the car. Put on some specific rubber clothes (something like divers use). It was hard to pull the tight rubber around the body and then close it tightly with the lock. Helmets on the head we moved (yet in high spirits) towards the mountain river in the middle of the dense forest. The trees were so large that they even hid the sun and from time to time seemed to be rainy, however everything was vice versa. When we looked up into the sky, it was possible to see between the trees that the sun was completely present in all its glory.
We started the trip down from comparatively low water level, just crossing the river (for the exercise, to get used to the next hours of the day). The water was cold and rocky in the riverbed. Everything was slippery – both the bottom of the river and the banks of it.
The rocky riverbed was very misleading because you could never guess where the stones were and how big or small they were. In addition to all that, I had slightly wrong footwear, but we all had basically the same problem. My own boots (at least for me) seemed to be a complete mess because they were immediately filled with water and some pounds of weight added to the legs. The legs were like bricks all of a sudden. Thus, it was very difficult to move, but nothing could be done or changed at this point – no way back. The journey itself, however, lasted 6 hours. That was what we intended to and that way it continued up to the very end of the journey.
First descent with rope. It was very exciting because it seemed – we could all do it. Of course we got, but for me it was the first fear. Namely, one of our local guides, disappeared. The second security person was left with us. We did not understand what happened to the first guy. Only some moments later we were explained that the first guide went ahead to see that everything was OK. He also made photos and filmed us (to memorize everything for us). The second one taught us what to do next. A Canadian descended first. I was following. I heard how the Canadian man was told when and where to turn his head during the descent, but I wasn’t repeated and so I almost “sank” when I turned towards the waterfall and fell down through the water. A fraction of a second was a real distress, and then the idea began to work, I turned my head out of the water and went down happily about 20 meters below the river. After such a shock, I even started for a second to fear the water, but at the same time I realized what the power it was, how it could stifle you, and how dangerous the smallest amount of water could be.
There was quite a lot of movement along the river. Moving on the river banks seemed more dangerous at times than being in the big water itself, because we passed some of the rapid falls, not along the rope through the water, but just on the banks. These were narrow and slippery shores where we scratched the stomach against the muddy walls. By the way, there was no security equipment, and I was hesitant because one slip and I could have fallen somewhere … Anyway, I started to recall my travel insurance clauses (that was a bit of a fun).
After a while we came to the next waterfalls, where we had to go down and yet down. The whole trip seemed to be fast and finally – even smooth. For the first time I was thinking about time. Six hours went by like one minute of impressive voyages.
In the evening at the hotel, our Estonian “Fabulous Four” convened (from different journeys) and discussed unlike experiences. At the same hotel lobby I also received the CD of my surreal Day of Canyoning in the Andes Mountains (Venezuela).