“There are things we will never see unless we walk to them.” (Thomas A. Clark)

Introduction

Day 1 - Saturday 7th September 2002

The dawn was breaking as our Boeing 777 neared the end of its twelve-hour flight and began the descent to Sao Paulo, Brazil. The city is one of the World’s largest, and as I looked out of my window I saw a sprawling urban jungle. Tower blocks stretched as far as the eye could see, until they merged with the grey overcast sky.

Once we were on the ground, an announcement informed us that there was a very violent tropical storm over Rio de Janeiro (our destination) and that we would be delayed until the airport there could re-open. Immediately, the prospect of missing our onward flight to Manaus, in the Amazon basin, loomed. Nothing could be done except to sit tight and wait.

After half an hour, we finally took off on the short flight to Rio. This was a city I had always wanted to see, but our tight schedule did not allow us any sightseeing time there. If we were to see anything of the place at all, it would have to be from the air. However, it was not to be. The tail of the tropical storm was still over the city, and if anything it was even cloudier than Sao Paulo. Only the tops of some low mountains were visible.

I had discovered that I was sitting near to two fellow members of the Neblina expedition. Graham Blackmun, who had done a number of previous trips with KE was next to me, and in the row ahead sat Brian Cornwell, an experienced mountaineer who had climbed several Alpine peaks. As we flew low over the suburbs and looked out on the murky view below, Brian said “So this is Rio, looks more like Doncaster to me!” We all felt a bit depressed when we realized that a few factories and warehouses were all we would see of one of the World’s great cities.

Once we were down on the ground, there was more bad news. We had narrowly missed our connecting domestic flight to Manaus, and there wouldn’t be another departure until the evening. We were tired, stuck in an airport and our travel plans were in disarray. However, we were mistaken to be gloomy. Our unplanned stop now meant that we had about six hours to explore Rio de Janeiro! We phoned KE’s agent to let her know what had happened and ask her advice. She said it might be dangerous for us to go wandering around the city center and recommended paying for a taxi to take us on a tour of the sites. So that’s exactly what we did. As you might expect, we didn’t even have to go looking for a taxi – a driver with time to spare soon spotted us milling around and offered us a very reasonable price to take us to the Sugar Loaf mountain, and to Corcovado to see the famous statue of Christ.

Soon we were heading away from the airport and through the busy city traffic. All around we could see evidence of the violent storm that had delayed our arrival – huge metal advertising scaffolds had been blown over like playing cards, and uprooted trees littered the streets. We drove past the docks, and many old colonial buildings with beautiful architecture, before arriving at the foot of the Sugar Loaf.

From there, we took the large cable car that runs up to the summit. As it left the base station, we enjoyed great views of the houses and small bay below, and after only a few minutes we had arrived at the midway station. This sits atop a smaller conical mountain, very similar to the Sugar Loaf itself. We did not have much time, and still had to wait for the cable car up to the summit, but I did get a chance to photograph the small monkeys that lived at the station, as well as a rock climber who was making his way up the smooth, sheer face of the rock.

The summit station was extremely windy, so much so that it was difficult to take photographs without the camera shaking. Although the weather in Rio was still not brilliant, we did manage to get some very impressive views of the city from up there, and of the statue of Christ watching over its inhabitants.

Back down at street level, we found our taxi waiting for us as promised, and were soon on our way to Corcovado, to see the statue of Christ close up. As we drove, I saw road signs that were displaying some very famous names. One in particular had arrows pointing to Ipanema in one direction (made famous by the song ‘The Girl from Ipanema’) and Copacabana beach in the other. Eventually we found ourselves in a quiet suburb, with the road becoming ever narrower. It then began a long and very steep climb up through the beautiful coastal rainforest of the Tijuca National Park, until we could drive no further and were at the steps up to the base of the statue.

The Statue of Christ the Redeemer is huge. It’s hard to appreciate the scale of it from down in the city, but when you are standing right underneath you can’t help but wonder how they got all of the materials up to that point to build it. From the statue, a promontory extended out to a vantage point above the city. From there it was easy to see the gentle curve of Copacabana beach; Ipanema and Leblon were also just about visible. We were incredibly lucky with our timing. We had only been at the viewpoint for around five minutes, and just retired to a small café at the base of the plinth, when the sky darkened and enormous storm clouds rolled in. We could see them rapidly shrouding the mountains up the coast, and then suddenly the café was blasted by very strong winds.

After waiting for the maelstrom to subside, we decided to spend the remaining time until the taxi arrived by walking down the hill to meet it. So we had a relaxing stroll down the road through the rainforest. For part of the way the road ran beside the amazing railway that runs up to the statue, via an incredibly steep track. We saw many interesting birds during the descent, including a black one with a bright orange crest on its head. All too soon we saw our taxi coming up the hill towards us, and it was time to head back to the airport.

Our time in Rio was as brief as it was unexpected and exciting. We had never imagined that we would be able to spend any time there at all, let alone see it’s two most famous landmarks. I hope that one day I will get the opportunity to return to the city, because it was undoubtedly the most beautiful that I have seen and there was so much on offer to explore.

Back at the airport, we discovered that our plane would be taking the ‘scenic route’ to Manaus, because we would be stopping at the country’s capital, Brasilia, on the way. The flight left on time, but by now it was dark and there was nothing interesting to see, so I slept most of the way. We were all extremely tired by now, having had a twelve-hour flight from the UK and then five hours in Rio with no chance to rest properly or have a shower.

On arrival at Manaus, we were met by Walter; one of the Brasil Aventuras guides. He drove us by minibus to the Ana Cassia Hotel. Although it was late by then, the streets were not deserted. They were full of teenagers heading out to discos and nightclubs in the suburbs. As I watched the neighbourhoods flash by, I was amazed at the scale of the city. It was difficult to remind myself that we were in the middle of the Amazon Basin.

Once we had checked into the hotel, we met James, our English guide from KE Adventure Travel. We were all very tired, so after sorting out our baggage, we went up to our rooms for the night.

Day 2 – Sunday 8th September

At breakfast today we met the rest of our trekking party; Bill Scroggie from Chicago, Del and Carolyn Lane from Colorado and David Holberton from the UK. This was our free day to explore Manaus and the Amazon, a prospect that we were all very much looking forward to. Our first trip took us to the Centro de Instrução de Guerra na Selva (CIGS), which is the Brazilian Army’s jungle warfare training school. This might sound an unlikely tourist attraction, but the school has a large zoo that houses animals the soldiers have caught while on exercise in the rainforest. The animals in the zoo are sometimes used to help to train the soldiers in jungle survival and hazards. The first animals that we came to on entering the large zoo compound were the regimental Jaguars. Two were ‘normal’ Jaguars, and the third was an unusual and rare black Jaguar. These particular animals held a special place in the regiment as mascots, and were frequently paraded through the streets by their handlers. We were concerned to see that the pens they were in were very small, and they looked bored. However, Walter assured us that they were not kept in there all the time, and were usually housed in a much larger open enclosure (which we saw later on). He even said that the black Jaguar is the friendliest of the three and is very used to humans!

Further into the grounds we saw some very interesting animals. The most exciting for me, was the Harpy Eagle. These are huge birds of prey with long, dagger like talons. They can swoop down out of the sky and grab monkeys from out of the forest canopy. The eagle looked down at us with its head tilted right over to one side, fixing us with its huge dark eyes. It really was a fearsome creature. I hoped that we would see one during the boat journey to Neblina. Nearby was another rare and unusual bird, the cock-of-the-rock. These birds are bright orange in colour, and famous for their courtship displays in rainforest clearings (known as leks). When I had seen these on TV wildlife documentaries, I got the mistaken impression that they were small birds, maybe the size of finches. I later learned that I was very wrong – in actual fact they are more like the size of a pheasant. Their large size and amazing orange colour makes them a spectacular sight. There were many other animals on display in the zoo, including anacondas in a large pond, tapirs, macaws, pythons, two more Jaguars and an ocelot (a beautiful jungle cat, which looks like a much smaller version of the Jaguar). I had mixed feelings seeing these animals in the zoo. It was fascinating to observe them up close, but at the same time I felt uneasy that they had been taken from the wild. To be fair, they all looked well kept, and perhaps the best that can be hoped for is that those who see them will learn to appreciate the rainforest and the animals that depend on it.

Next, we drove the short distance to the Manaus base of the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA). INPA is a Brazilian government organization that conducts rainforest research. Once again, we found ourselves in a large park compound, which contained several animals. Without doubt, the most interesting of these were the two Giant Otters. We stood by their pen, and watched these large but graceful animals swimming up and down in their pool. They kept their nostrils out of the water, blowing out air to make a ‘chuff-chuff’ sound. Occasionally they leapt out onto the bank, moving with a funny loping gait, and showing just how muscular they were. One of the otters dived down to the bottom of the murky pool and emerged clutching a dead fish in its webbed paws. With just a few chomps of its powerful jaws and sharp pointed teeth it had devoured it. These otters are now very rare in the wild, and it was enthralling to see them up close.

Nearby, in a large tank, swam more extremely rare creatures – Amazonian Manatees. INPA had two at the time of our visit, a mother and calf. This species of Manatee is the only one to be confined to fresh water, and it is believed to be close to extinction. The tank they were in had large glass side panels, so although the water was quite murky, occasionally we came face to face with them.

As we ended our walk around the rest of the park (where we had seen turtles and bee hives) and were heading to the exhibition building, Bill and I made an interesting discovery. Hidden at the base of a bromeliad plant was a small birds nest, full of chicks. We both took some photographs, noticing that the change of light from the flash on our cameras fooled the young birds into thinking that their parents had returned, and they reared up with their beaks open, hoping for food.

The exhibition building turned out to be quite small, but did have a very interesting display of different types of rainforest seeds, leaves and wood samples. There were also satellite photographs on the walls showing Manaus and the surrounding rainforest.

Leaving INPA behind, we were driven out to the banks of the Rio Negro. We arrived at a dusty and rubbish strewn jetty, where the passenger ferries that ply the Amazon were moored. Far out in the wide river, large tankers were at anchor, while a little way downstream from us, a huge car transporter was being unloaded. The decks of the ferries were crowded with hammocks, where people sleep during the long river journeys. We would soon be flying to Sao Gabriel da Choeira, but the same journey by ferry takes nine whole days. Turning away from the hubbub at the waterfront for a few minutes, we took a look at a nearby fish market. Of course, I found it impossible to recognize the different species of Amazon fish that were on offer.

Walter cast his expert eye over the many water taxis that were moored at the jetty, and only started negotiating with the boatman once he had found one that met with his approval. The boat would be taking us out to a floating restaurant and then to see the ‘meeting of the waters’ where the Rio Negro joins with the Rio Solimoes to form the mighty Amazon River.

We had only just cast off, when we made an interesting re-fuelling stop at one of the large floating petrol stations on the river. Our tanks were filled using exactly the same sort of petrol pump that you would see at a roadside filling station. It seemed that the taxi-boatmen could not afford to refuel their boats until they had a paying fare.

Day 3 – Monday 9th September

We checked out of our hotel early, and were driven to the airport for our flight to Sao Gabriel da Cachoeira on the Rio Negro. Walter helped us through the airport, making sure that everything went smoothly, before we said our goodbyes and boarded the plane. The aircraft was a Brazilian Embraer 120, a fairly small twin-turboprop.

I had a good window seat next to the wing-mounted engine, and had superb views of the Amazon rainforest as we climbed up to about 20,000 feet. Apart from the immediate vicinity of Manaus, there was little sign of deforestation on the flight. The trees stretched unbroken to the horizon in every direction, and the forest appeared so vast that it seemed inconceivable that man would be capable of chopping and burning it completely. We over-flew several rivers, the sun glinting off the water as it twisted and looped in great meandering turns through the trees, occasionally leaving ox-bow lakes stranded along the way. This was not like the rainforest I had trekked through in Venezuela, where gallery forest and small hills occasionally gave way to patches of bare savannah and tepui mountains, this was the huge low-lying Amazon Basin.

Reaching Sao Gabriel, a sharp peak reared up from the forest, and the Rio Negro, inky black from the tree tannins that had leached from the forest, tumbled over wide and impressive rapids. Our aircraft dipped lower and lower towards the rainforest canopy, and just as it seemed we would land in the treetops, the green of the forest gave way to a tarmac runway and we shuddered to a halt. In just a few days, we had flown from London, right down to Sao Paulo in the Southern Hemisphere, and now we had gone all the way back to just south of the Equator.

Once inside the small terminal building, we met our Brazilian guides for the actual trek, Marcello and Valdir. Marcello was the senior of the two guides. He was a big man, with long hair tied back in a ponytail. Originally from the city of Belo Horizonte, most of his outdoors experience had been rock climbing in the mountains near to his home. He loved the jungle however, and was an accomplished photographer. During the trip, he showed us an article about the Pico da Neblina trek that had appeared in a Brazilian magazine, illustrated with his photographs. He had already guided Neblina five times, and our trip was to be his sixth. Unfortunately, Marcello spoke only a few words of English, so his main role was co-ordinating the logistics of the trip. Communicating with the rest of the party, and with James, our English guide, was the job of Valdir, the second guide. Valdir (Val) was a local man, and had a small ranch of 200 cattle in Sao Gabriel. As a young child, he had been to school in Beverly Hills, California, and spoke excellent English. It’s fair to say that Valdir was the complete opposite of Marcello, he was always telling a story, cracking a dirty joke or playing a prank on someone, whereas Marcello was usually quieter and more serious. Val was 59 years old at the time of our trek, and the son of a Portuguese father and Brazilian Indian mother. He was a very experienced bushman, and had some amazing stories to tell. For example, about four or five of Val’s top front teeth were missing, and he had a dent in the back of his skull. This had happened when he was earning a living by diving for treasure and salvage off the Venezuelan cost. This is notoriously dangerous at the best of times, but Val had the especially perilous job of operating a huge vacuum pump that sucks the gravel off the seabed to (hopefully) reveal buried treasure. One day, as he was doing this, a large rock became dislodged above him, struck him on the back of the head and knocked him unconscious. This knocked out his front teeth, but amazingly, the weight of the rock pressing down kept his air supply from falling out of his mouth. He lay unconscious on the seabed for ten minutes before being rescued! Like Marcello, Val had climbed Neblina many times, and knew the route like the back of his hand.

Having collected our backpacks, we set off into town. We had lunch at a colourful roadside café, and then went to the FUNAI office. FUNAI is a Brazilian government organization that aims to protect the country’s indigenous Indians. Before we were allowed to set foot in the Pico da Neblina National Park, we had to fill out our passport details in the register. As I waited outside in the small garden, I saw a bird with black or brown wings and the most incredibly bright golden rump and tail. Val told me that it was a yellow-rumped Cacique and that they are not uncommon in Sao Gabriel.

Before we set off on our adventure, we stopped at the Sao Gabriel office of Brasil Aventuras, where we were able to leave any equipment that we did not need to take into the rainforest. Bill was quite worried about the size and weight of his rucksack, and asked me to help him get rid of anything he wouldn’t need. We went through the whole thing, and probably reduced the bulk and weight by at least a third. I got on well with Bill during the trek, because I soon found that he had a great sense of humour and rarely grumbled about anything.

As the final preparations for departure were made, and our baggage was being loaded onto the truck, I went a little way down the hill to a point where the road overlooked the Rio Negro, to take some photographs. I was right above the impressive rapids that we had seen from the air, and these surged past a wide beach of golden sand. In the distance I could see the green forest, and an abrupt range of hills. Sao Gabriel really was a charming Amazonian town.

Back at the truck, we had a pre-departure briefing from Marcello and Valdir. They warned us that the rainforest could be dangerous, and that we should not wander off alone. There were many Jaguars where we were going, they said, and one of the big cats had recently killed a Yanomami Indian. Of course, it’s impossible to never be alone in the rainforest, and Valdir’s warning about Jaguars would often come back to haunt me in the days ahead, especially when I had to go out of the camp at night to go to the toilet!

At last, it was time to set off. Most of the group was sitting up on the back of the truck, using planks as seats. It was cool up there, and good views were to be had of the forest, but there was no legroom and no escape from the blazing sun. I started the journey sitting in the cab, next to the driver. There was lots of legroom and it was out of the sun, but the heat was stifling! At first we drove a short distance out of town along a metalled highway, until we came to a large rubbish dump, and turned onto a wide dirt road. This road ran north through the jungle, all the way to the border with Colombia, but we would only be going as far as a bridge at Lamarim Creek (pronounced YA-ma-rim). The land either side of this stretch of road that was close to Sao Gabriel had been deforested and cleared for pasture or the occasional house. There were large areas where only the broken and burnt stumps of trees remained, and in others, tracts of grassy swamp. As we went further along the road, the forest closed in on either side. Our truck passed through large clouds of yellow butterflies, and we saw Toucans dart overhead, with their characteristic undulating flight. Val spotted an Agouti (a large fruit eating rodent) far ahead on the road in front of us and pointed it out.

The further we went, the worse the condition of the road became. The lack of drainage meant that there were numerous sections that were very badly rutted and almost impassable. Only four-wheel drive vehicles could make the journey to Lamarim Creek. By now, I had traded places and was riding on the back of the truck, and at each rutted section we had to climb down from our planks to lighten the load on the vehicle, and enable it to plough through at speed. We did this many times, rejoining the truck on the other side of each quagmire.

An unexpected stop came when one of the seat planks snapped in two. Luckily, there was a pile of timber lying on the road nearby, and our driver made incredibly short and accurate work of cutting a new plank to exactly the right size with his machete. He was able to hit the same cut with each swing of the blade.

We suddenly came across a large Brazilian army Mercedes truck, stuck up to its axles in a particularly boggy section of the road. In the back of the covered wagon, there was a large wooden boat. By pure co-incidence, the soldiers were on their way to the summit of Neblina as well. We had stumbled on the annual Brazilian army expedition which checks that the Brazilian flag flies at the top of the peak, and carries out any necessary repairs. The soldiers were busy trying to dig themselves free, and one was underneath the lorry shoveling earth out from under the axle. Marcello, Val and the driver fetched shovels and a pickaxe from the back of our truck and began chopping out clods of the thick orange earth and laying it in the ruts. They filled in the deepest grooves with branches. Thanks to their efforts our truck got straight across at the first attempt.

At last we reached Lamarim Creek, and the truck pulled off the main road and into a clearing by the river. Moored at the bank was the large wooden boat that we would be using to travel upstream to the foot of Neblina, already loaded with our expedition supplies and equipment. Nearby was an open sided, wooden shelter that is used as a trading post by the Yanomami. Our Yanomami porters and boatman had slung their hammocks inside and been waiting for our arrival. Now they quickly came down to the creek bank to greet us.

It was already late afternoon, so it was important that we wasted as little time as possible; we loaded our rucksacks into the boat, climbed aboard and shoved off into the creek. The river was narrow at first as it twisted between the trees. Already the evening light was dim under the shade of the canopy. Marcello was sitting just in front of me, and we noticed that a large praying mantis had landed on his baseball cap. The insect was standing on its back legs in the famous mantis pose and every time our boat went round a corner it would actually strain its head to one side to see where we were heading! We also saw a couple of large Blue Morpho butterflies gliding between the tree trunks, perhaps looking for a place to shelter for the night.

In the failing light, we emerged from the trees where the Lamarim joined the larger and wider La Grandi River. Turning to the right, we motored downstream towards our camp. Just before nightfall, we were lucky to see a small troop of Uacari monkeys leaping through the treetops.

Darkness fell and we were treated to a spectacular starry sky with a bright crescent moon. It was very atmospheric to be ploughing on down the river through the inky blackness – but as Del rightly pointed out, quite dangerous. We could easily have become snagged on submerged branches or hit some other obstacle, but there was no alternative but to carry on until we reached our campsite. As we glided along, we sometimes saw bright white flashes of light coming from the trees on the riverbanks. Valdir revealed that these were fireflies. It was interesting to see that these gave off a white light, rather than the green glow of the ones I had seen in Venezuela.

At the confluence of the Ya Grandi and Cauaburi Rivers, we reached our camp for the night. It was a hut that served as a guard post for FUNAI – everyone traveling on the river had to report here before setting off up the Cauaburi into the Yanomami areas. Confusion reigned as we scrambled ashore in the darkness and unloaded our packs onto the low flat rock that jutted out from the high bank. A short but steep climb up a muddy path brought us to the large hut, which was raised off the ground on short wooden stilts. It stood back from the riverbank, in a wide clearing, surrounded by dense rainforest. Next to the river was a small stand of tall palm trees, and we were told to sling our hammocks between them. Valdir then gave us all a short lesson in how to tie them securely, using simple knots. I made sure that I rigged my mosquito net to hang down around my hammock. It was a wise precaution – the next day Valdir told us that the owner of the hut had recently lost twelve chickens to vampire bats!

Before long our dinner was ready, and we ate it sitting on low wooden benches next to the hut. On the far side of the clearing, our Yanomami porters were re-heating some meat from a tapir that they had caught some time before.

After dinner, I made my way a little distance into the trees to go to the toilet. As I ducked under the tangle of branches, I was startled when I heard the heavy steps of a fairly large animal galloping away into the forest. When I mentioned it to Valdir he said that it was probably a Pacca. Before turning in for the night, I went down to the rock shelf by the river to wash and fill my water bottle. As I stood there, a huge and spectacular moth flew out of the gloom, attracted by my head-torch. It flapped clumsily in my face for a few seconds, and then went on its way.

Valdir had decided there was no chance of rain that night, so there was no tarpaulin above our hammocks. As I lay in mine, I had a wonderful view up through the fronds of the palm trees, with the stars twinkling overhead. Every now and then I saw the dark shape of a bat flitting past. It was so quiet and peaceful that I was asleep in no time at all.

Day 4 – Tuesday 10th September

We woke at dawn, and were treated to a beautiful sunrise that was reflected in the waters of the Cauaburi. The full-length carbon fibre tripod that I had brought on the trip proved it’s worth straight away, and I was able to get some good photos.

We were away by around seven o’clock, traveling upstream, along the Cauaburi. We passed many sandbanks on the way, often startling clouds of yellow butterflies into the air. They had been feeding on the nutrients from the damp sand near the water’s edge.

At about ten o’clock, the boat was moored at ‘Jaguar Beech’, so called because a Jaguar had sometimes been glimpsed there on the wide sandy shore. Bill and I took the opportunity to go for a swim, and while we were in the water, rare and elusive pink river dolphins began to surface and bow-wave further out in the river behind us. It was an incredible few minutes; although we had only just begun our jungle journey we had already seen some impressive wildlife. After drying off on the beach, I had a mid-morning snack of Tapir meat. It was the first time I had ever tried it, and I found it to be very tender and tasty.

Later on that morning, as we continued motoring up the river in the boat, we were fortunate to glimpse a pair of Giant River Otters bobbing in the water far behind us. It was just possible to see the whiter fur on their throats that identified them. Although they were only visible for a few seconds, their appearance caused a buzz of excitement around the boat. We were very privileged to have seen them, as they are now so rare in the wild.

The river became much shallower as we got further upstream, and this slowed us down considerably. Our boatman had to exercise great care to weave the boat around semi-submerged trees, branches and large rocks. The lack of progress caused difficulties within the group because we were becoming unsure of the schedule and timescales involved in getting to the mountain.

Later on in the afternoon, we pulled in to the bank and moored at a Yanomami travelling encampment – a basic campsite that the Indians use while moving through the forest. Our porters and Val got out of our boat to visit the camp and give them some batteries. I wasn’t sure if we would be allowed up to the camp or what sort of reception we might get, but James said he thought there was no problem. So Bill and I cautiously followed Val out of the boat, walked along a thin log and then climbed the steep bank up into the trees. I deliberately left my camera in the boat, as I did not want to cause any offence. There were three open-sided huts in the small clearing, with the occupants lying inside in their hammocks. Under the carefully woven roof of one hut, they were roasting pacca, bush fowl and some fish. Stacked neatly in another were bundles of jungle vines that the Yanomami sell to traders, and they are eventually made into yard brushes. Nearby, impaled on an upright wooden stake was the empty and sun-bleached shell of a large river turtle.

Back on the river, we found ourselves passing several Yanomami plantations. At one of them Val pointed out the tree from which Yopo is made. Yopo is a very powerful hallucinogenic snuff drug that the Yanomami use. Traditionally one Indian would blow the drug forcibly up the nostril of another, using a blow tube made from bone. The drug produces powerful hallucinations, and also commonly makes the user vomit copiously.

From the river we now had great views of Padre’s Peak; a nearby mountain that got it’s name from it’s resemblance to a priest lying down with his hands clasped in prayer above his chest. We also began to see the first of many scarlet macaws, often flying in trios and squawking loudly as they made their way overhead.

At around six o’clock we reached Maria camp. It was a beautiful place, with a wide sandy beach and a narrow path that lead up to several old Yanomami huts in a clearing. From the beach there was a nice view of Padre Peak rising up above the dense rainforest on the opposite bank. We soon discovered that we were sharing the camp with the Brazilian Army squad we had seen on the road.

There was not much time before darkness fell, so we quickly slung our hammocks inside one of the huts, while a few in the group chose to sleep on the beach under the stars. I lay down in my hammock until our dinner was ready, and after that I went to sleep. There were many bugs inside the hut with us, but we managed to get a fairly good night’s rest.

Day 5 – Wednesday 11th September

Today was our last on the river. We made an early start, and found that the army team had already motored away up the river. It was important that we got going quickly, to try to make up for time lost due to the shallow water.

As we took our places in the boat, it was my turn to sit on the back row of seats and help James to bail out our leaky boat where necessary. Unfortunately we did not make good time. Once again the water was extremely shallow, and our boatman used great skill with the throttle and rudder to keep us moving smoothly upstream. Occasionally a blue morpho butterfly drifted past us, flashing like a blue laser as its wings caught the sunlight. Where the rainforest on either side began to thin out into stands of palm trees we began to see many more macaws, both the Scarlet and Blue-and-yellow species. They were always a noisy and incredibly colourful spectacle.

A couple of hours after setting out, we came to the mouth of the Maturaca River and met the Chief of the Maturaca Yanomami village, who came out in his aluminium boat to meet us. He had come to collect some supplies that we were carrying for him. He shook hands with each one of us in turn, and then went on his way, back up the Maturaca.

We carried on up the Cauaburis until we reached a large rock in the middle of the river. Just around the corner from this was the mouth of Tucano Creek – the gateway to Pico da Neblina. As soon as our boat turned into the narrow creek, we ran aground on some submerged branches. Once we had cleared these we became lodged on a sandbank. Val, the porters and a few of the trekking party jumped out and pushed the boat upstream from this point. After about twenty minutes we arrived at a low bank on the left hand side and Val told us we had arrived. We ate a very hurried lunch, re-arranged our packs ready for the trek, and set off into the forest. After walking for just one hundred yards or so, James and I saw a huge blue morpho perched next to us in a tree.

The walking pace that Val set was very fast, right from the beginning. At every opportunity he reminded us to hurry, otherwise we would not make it to our camp before nightfall. We came to a thin three-log bridge over a gully, with a drop of four or five feet below. I crossed without any problems, and Carolyn followed me over. However, when David was right in the middle the bridge gave way and he took a bad fall. As he landed at the bottom of the gully, he hit his head on a branch. We were all very concerned, but luckily David was fine; even his glasses were still intact.

We made it into the camp just as night was falling. Once again we found that our accommodation was an old Yanomami traveling encampment. We put up our hammocks and mosquito nets inside the huts, and then tucked into a dinner of beans, meat, eggs, rice, manioc and onions.

After dinner, I was looking for a place to go to the toilet. I thought I had found a good spot and ducked down to get under the leaves of a banana tree, but as my head-torch illuminated a fallen tree ahead, I got a shock. There was an enormous tarantula resting on the trunk, waiving its front legs menacingly in the air. I hate spiders, and for a few seconds I was frozen to the spot. Some tarantulas can jump, and I had nightmare visions of it leaping at me and clamping itself onto my face. However, once I realized that it wasn’t going anywhere fast, I called out loudly to the rest of the group to come and have a look at it. They were all just as amazed and impressed as I was, and many people in the group took photos of it.

Once the tarantula drama was over, we all turned in for the night, only to find that more fun with the wildlife was in store. We discovered that bats had been roosting in the hut where we had set up our hammocks, and they were flying in and out as we tried to sleep. I got quite a shock when one of them collided with my mosquito net, and hit me in the side of the head! A little while later I switched on my head-torch and noticed that I had a smaller visitor – a little green gecko that was perched on the top of my mosquito net.

Day 6 – Thursday 12th September

We all knew that today would be a long haul, because we had to make up for the slow progress in the boat. Val said that we were approximately two hours behind schedule and should expect to walk for eight to ten hours.

Setting off at around 06:20, we forded a fairly wide river immediately after the camp and then found that the track was mainly a steep slog uphill. It was very humid, and we all had to drink a lot of water to stay hydrated. There were plenty of unusual things to see during the climb. We passed a beautiful blue flower that was growing from the trunk of one sapling. At one of the rest stops, Val found a quinine tree – used to prevent malaria. He cut off a small piece of the bark for me to taste. It was very bitter, and even after I had spat it out, the taste lingered on for a few minutes.

We stopped for a rest and a mid-morning snack at the site of an old framework shelter. During the morning, we had often seen little piles of excavated dirt and mud on the track, which Val said were the casts from tunnels made by giant earthworms. While we were at the rest stop, Pepe (one of our porters) actually caught one to show us. It was approximately the thickness of my thumb, orange in colour and at least a few feet long. I had no idea that worms as big as this even existed, and Val assured us that this was a fairly small specimen. Apparently they actually make quite a good meal, but even so, we were all glad that Pepe let the worm go unharmed.

The lunch stop was made in a small clearing, where we feasted on bread, soft cheese, salami and banana cake. This was more or less what we had for lunch every day on the trek and boat journeys.

The afternoon was very hard work, as the track continued steeply uphill through the rainforest. Many of the plants and trees (especially the palms) had wicked spikes on their trunks or leaves that had to be avoided. Often Val would shout out a warning from the head of the group, which we had to pass down the line to the back. It rained hard in the afternoon, but we all found the downpour very refreshing as it gave us some relief from the heat and humidity.

We arrived at Bebedo camp at 15:30, which was earlier than had been anticipated. Everyone was in a good mood now that we were back on schedule and the uncertainty of river travel was behind us. The Brazilian army group had taken residence in the existing shelter, but fortunately our porters had been well ahead of us on the trail and had nearly finished the construction of a new one for us to sleep in. While they finished it off, we all took a short walk down a nearby trail to the river and had a swim. Unfortunately, as I was making my way barefoot down the slimy rocks to the water’s edge, I slipped. My foot shot out in front of me, into a gap between two stones and then was abruptly stopped by the face of a larger rock. I stubbed my big toe very badly, and it began to bleed from the side of my toenail. It was very painful and it did not heal for the rest of the trek because my toe was always exposed to the damp and lack of air inside my walking boots. I was worried that it might get badly infected, but luckily that didn’t happen. The swim in the river was fantastic and very refreshing after the long hard walk.

Back at camp, we noticed a very large stick insect that was hanging from one of the leaves of a nearby banana tree. After dark, Valdir found a medium sized tarantula in the leaf litter of the clearing and warned us that there were probably more around.

Day 7 – Friday 13th September

After a good night’s sleep in our most comfortable camp yet, we had a breakfast of porridge and then set off up the trail. Almost immediately we began a harsh uphill climb through the forest once again. Valdir found a dazzling forewing from a blue morpho butterfly lying in the leaf litter and also showed us a tree with sap that had oozed from its trunk and solidified. He told us that these solid white chunks are flammable and that the Yanomami often collect it to use for lighting fires. There were many other rare and unique plants on these slopes, he told us, and he had recently guided a Botanist to the slopes of Pico da Neblina. With the help of Yanomami porters, the Botanist had collected many kilos of plant specimens and taken them back to Brazilia for analysis in the laboratory. He had been looking for new chemicals that could be used as natural insect repellants and in the treatment of cancer.

We had our lunch at a creek bed that was almost dry. There was just a tiny trickle of water flowing from a nearby bank, from which we re-filled our depleted water bottles. The trail followed the creek bed uphill for a few meters, before turning to the right and taking us back into the forest. The going was now very steep, and made more difficult by the large number of slippery roots under foot. Gradually, the mud gave way to chunks of brilliant white quartz rock and the forest changed from trees to palms, bromeliads and ferns. The path appeared to be following the crest of a ridge.

Suddenly and without warning, we found ourselves at the top of the pass and looking out through ‘windows’ in the forest. Below us was an incredible view down onto the rainforest, and in the near distance, dramatic mountains of the Sierra Neblina. From this point onwards the landscape changed dramatically. We left the trees behind, and trekked through a weird landscape of mud, palms, bromeliads, roots, underground streams and quartz rock. As we neared Pico da Neblina Base Camp, Val pointed out a large mound of loose quartz by the side of the trail. It had been excavated by gold miners who intended to search it for gold, but presumably hadn’t returned to finish the job.

I reached the Base Camp with Valdir, slightly ahead of the rest of the group. There were a couple of existing frames for the shelters in place, and the porters had already set up a blue tarpaulins over one of them to form the kitchen area. The camp was located in a very pretty spot, at the junction of two small creeks. It was obvious that gold miners had previously used the area, because there was evidence of old shelters and the ground had been stripped down to the quartz gravel underneath. However, beyond the small clearing of the camp was an incredible landscape of rocky outcrops, carpeted with palms, bromeliads and other strange plants. It really was a ‘lost world’ and I half expected to see a dinosaur at any moment! I set up my tripod and took a couple of photographs of the camp, before James came down the trail. He told me that he and Bill had discovered a beautiful orchid near the path and that I might want to come and have a look. After a few minutes of searching, we found the right spot. Sure enough, there was an orchid growing there with three small but stunning flowers. It has been estimated by botanists that sixty percent of the plants on the slopes of Neblina are unique to the area and new to science.

After I had set up my hammock in camp, I set off to explore the gully formed by the larger of the two creeks. It seemed that this small river was actually the beginnings of Tucano Creek that we had navigated earlier in the boat. A path led a short distance along the left hand bank, but after that the going was far from easy, and I found myself clambering over many large boulders. In the dense undergrowth on the high banks above the creek, I occasionally saw hummingbirds searching for flowers. Within a short distance from the camp, I found a second orchid. It was not as spectacular as the one that Bill and James had discovered, having only small yellow flowers.

After picking my way over and around the rocks, I discovered that the creek widened into a beautiful and secluded area where the clear water flowed slowly past a wide sandy shore. There were several flower-covered bushes on the banks of the stream, and after a few minutes a dazzling green hummingbird with white outside tail feathers flew in to feed on the nectar. It was a magical spot, and I re-visited it several times before nightfall to show some of the rest of the group.

Back in camp, Graham and I were chatting before dinner, when a green hummingbird with an iridescent blue throat flew into our shelter. It buzzed round our heads for a few seconds and then flew off. We learnt that the hummingbirds in the area are fairly tame because they have seen few humans. Also, the gold miners that live on the mountain have made a habit of feeding them and so they associate people with food. Valdir had filled a plastic mug with sugar-water and hung it up on a nearby branch. The local hummingbirds took full advantage of this free source of energy and quite often perched on the cup to feed.

Day 8 – Saturday 14th September (Summit Day)

The whole group was awake at 05:15 to ensure an early start for the summit climb. We had a hurried breakfast, and in the pale dawn light Valdir gave us a briefing on the climb ahead. He explained that there was a creek that had to be crossed during the trek up the lower slopes, but it could not be forded after heavy rain. This meant that if it started to rain heavily while we were high up on the mountain, we would have to race back down to base camp to avoid being stranded. He expected that reaching the summit and getting back to camp would take at least twelve hours and it would be important for us to keep up with his pace if we were to make it back before dark. Brian announced that he would not be going with us to the summit, because he didn’t feel like it and would rather spend the day exploring the base camp. Naturally, we were all sad that he wouldn’t be climbing with us, but respected his decision. Before we set off, Bill rummaged in his backpack and gave each of us one of the power bars that he had brought with him from the US. It was very generous of him, and was a welcome boost to our energies before what was sure to be a testing day. Each of us took only the absolute basics with us on the trek to the summit – a water bottle, waterproofs and our cameras. I also opted to take my GPS receiver with me, because I wanted to get an accurate fix of the position of the summit.

We set out at 06:40, briefly retracing our steps back along the trail, before following a left hand fork towards Neblina. This first took us through an area that had been heavily excavated by gold miners and then plunged into a four hour stretch of thick mud and tangled roots. There were high earth banks to each side, and dense vegetation on top of these, so that we were trekking along corridors through the foliage. Some of the mud pools here were more than knee deep and it would have been so easy to break an ankle on the hidden roots and rocks. Sometimes our legs sank deep into the black mud and it was so thick and viscous that it was a struggle to break free. Another hazard were roots that had been chopped through with a machete to clear the path. The cut ends of the roots were often very pointed and if not seen in time they smashed painfully into a knee or a thigh.

Reaching the creek that Valdir had warned us about, we found that fortunately it contained very little water and was easily crossed. The banks of the stream were crowded with vegetation, including a shrub-like plant with many beautiful small pink flowers. After re-filling our water bottles we continued along the muddy path.

At this point Valdir had gone far ahead, I was trekking a little way behind David, and James was back at the tail of the group. I came round a bend in the track to find that it forked. I was just in time to see David about to disappear out of sight along the left hand fork, but I noticed that someone had bent two thin saplings across each other at the mouth of that path. These indicated that the left fork was not the way to the summit. It was a subtle sign that was easy to miss, and David must have walked straight past it. I called out to him and he rejoined me on the correct path. It was lucky that I saw him when I did. After this incident I was rather concerned about how easy it was to lose the way and decided that I would make an effort to catch up with Val at the front. It was hard work to put on extra speed through the thick mud but I made it. Walking behind Val seemed to make the climb easier, because he knew the terrain so well. I reasoned that if I stepped where he stepped and kept to his pace, I would have a good chance of making it to the top and back down safely. We were also fortunate in that James and Val were equipped with two way radios so that they could communicate fairly easily, even over some distance, and keep the group together and on track. One consequence of moving to the front of the group and trekking with Val was that I missed an interesting discovery by James and Bill. They came across a small black scorpion resting in leaf litter at the side of the trail. I have never seen a scorpion in the wild.

Having reached the end of the muddy section, we could see that the path climbed extremely steeply up a cliff face. It was quite exposed in places, and several short sections were actually basic rock climbs or scrambles. At one point in the climb a trio of Scarlet Macaws flew past at eye level, giving us a welcome distraction from the drop off nearby. I found one small rock chute particularly difficult to climb, because the handholds were far apart and slippery because of the water and algae on the surface of the stone. At another, there was a permanently fixed knotted rope that allowed us to haul ourselves up. This section of the climb was incredibly demanding, and there was no let up in either the pace or the steepness of the ground.

After the cliff came an easier (but still steep) section over quartz rocks. The plant life here was very interesting; we saw a beautiful orchid, carnivorous pitcher plants and another interesting insect-eating plant, the bladderwort. The bladderworts on Neblina grow in the small pools of water that collect inside bromeliads. Once established they send up a single green stem, topped with a beautiful lilac flower. The roots that grow inside the pool of water have little sacks (bladders) on their ends. The plant pumps the water out of these bladders to create a partial vacuum and when a tasty morsel floats close by, a trapdoor opens in the bladder and the insect is sucked inside to be digested. We took a rest at this point, while we examined the interesting plants. Unfortunately, I had put my camera away and so missed the chance to photograph a beautiful hummingbird that perched on the branch of a small tree, just feet away from us!

Eventually, we reached the foot of some formidable looking cliffs and had our lunch while perched on a steep bank of rocks. Looking at the way ahead, I was beginning to wonder if I was going to make it to the summit. By this stage, Carolyn’s knees were hurting badly, so she and Del decided to go back. Tomei, one of our Yanomami porters helped her all the way back down to the base camp. That left four clients, Bill, David, Graham and I, plus Marcello, Valdir and James, to push on to the summit.

Just after the lunch stop we came to an almost sheer rock face some fifteen feet high that was safeguarded by a knotted rope. I climbed up very carefully, trying hard to keep a tight grip on the sodden and slippery rope. When I got to the top I found a narrow ledge with a nasty drop off to the left, and I rested against the rock while I got my breath back. Next to me on the ledge were the troops from the Brazilian army unit who were on their way back down from the summit, having completed their repairs to the flag. They were waiting patiently for us to ascend before they could use the rope to get down. When the others in our party reached the top, Valdir told me that the leader of the Brazilian army unit wanted to talk to me and pointed him out. I made my way over somewhat nervously; why on earth would he want to speak to me? The army man spoke briefly to one of his sub-ordinates, who to my amazement began cutting the Brazilian flag from his uniform. The leader then presented this to me, with a salute. By now I was totally confused, and so I just saluted back and thanked him. They made their way down the rope, and I turned to Valdir in the hope of an explanation. Apparently, the leader of the army group had seen my very short haircut (a number 3) and had assumed that I was in the UK army. He had decided to give me the Brazilian flag from the uniform as a goodwill gift. I was amazed, but very grateful and I still have the army patch that he gave me.

From this point the path to the summit was a very steep rock scramble that was exposed in places. Fortunately, we were now amongst the clouds and they shielded us from seeing just how nasty the drop offs probably were. Everyone was very tired, and wondering how much further there was to go, when we finally sighted the Brazilian flag fluttering above the summit cairn. A few minutes later, and we stood on the roof of Brazil, at 9,888 feet (3014 metres) above sea level. As I reached the top (at 12:04) I shook hands with Valdir and as each member of the group joined us, we congratulated each other on completing such an arduous climb. I marked the position of the summit on my GPS receiver and then we took group photographs next to the flag. Each of us signed the summit book, which Brasil Aventuras had placed underneath the summit cairn in a Tupperware box. I wrote:

            “Rowan Lee Castle (British and Canadian) at 12:21 on 14^th September 2002. A stunning mountain!”

We spent about one hour on the summit, during which the dense cloud that surrounded us parted briefly only once, to reveal a memorable view straight down onto the canopy of the Venezuela rainforest on the other side.

Then began the long down-climb back to our camp. It was very difficult to make our way down over the slippery rocks, and of course this time we were facing the drop offs, which made it more unnerving. I had particular problems on one steep section not far below the summit, and James took my camera and helped me to find sturdy foot and hand holds. When we reached the knotted rope down the rock face where we had met the soldiers, I went down first. It was more frightening to descend than it had been on the way up, because I had to lower myself backwards and the rope was very difficult to grip. I wasn’t surprised when Graham asked James to belay him with the safety rope as he came down after me.

We had a rest stop by the foot of the crags, in exactly the same place where we had lunch. I took a photograph of James next to the precipice, with neighbouring mountains as a backdrop. From this vantage point we could just see the lip of the Rio Baria canyon, the deep and unexplored rift that cuts right into the Neblina massif.

When we reached the treacherous cliff section, it was my turn to ask to be belayed with the safety rope, to help me descend the awkward rock chute that had caused me such difficulty on the way up. I remember another tricky part of the cliff very vividly. It was another short scramble down a rock chute, onto a very narrow path next to a big drop off. We had to climb down this facing the rock, and the very last section was an awkward step backwards off one of the footholds. As I stepped down, I overbalanced backwards and stumbled towards the drop. Luckily for me, Valdir was watching my descent closely, and as I stepped back, he put his arm out behind me and stopped me going any closer to the cliff.

When at last we reached the foot of the cliff, it was time to retrace our steps through the seemingly unending mud pools and roots that lay between the camp and us. By this time we were all exhausted, my knees hurt with every jar from a submerged rock or sharp contact with the end of a root. It really was difficult at times to summon the energy to lift my feet out of the black mud ooze.

Exactly twelve hours after we had set out to the summit, we returned to our base camp. Brian, Carolyn and Del all came out of their hammocks to congratulate us and Brian passed around a very welcome hip flask full of Scotch whiskey. I was shattered after the climb, which was definitely the most demanding I had done. I had just about enough energy to re-arrange my pack and eat my dinner of potato, rice and vegetable stew, before heading to my hammock for some much needed sleep.

Day 9 – Sunday 15th September (Rest Day)

It had been an uncomfortable and chilly night in the hammock, with a cold persistent wind blowing in under the tarpaulin. I had breakfast, with delicious hot chocolate, and then I took my camera, zoom lens and tripod down the creek to the magical spot I had found before. This was our rest day after the summit climb, and I had decided to spend the morning relaxing by the creek and trying to photograph the hummingbirds feeding on the flowering bushes. It was the hope of being able to photograph hummingbirds in the wild that had led me to bring along my tripod and zoom lens in the first place, and make the effort to carry them all the way up through the jungle. I soon had my equipment set up as close to the nearest flowering shrub that I could find, and then it was just a matter of waiting patiently. I had read that hummingbirds are very territorial and must feed constantly to stay alive, so I reasoned that I would have a fair chance of capturing one on film. In the end, I discovered that a hummingbird (perhaps the same one) visited this particular bush roughly every half an hour. Even with the modern features of my camera such as fast auto-focus and a high shutter speed it was very difficult to photograph these extremely quick and agile birds. The action head on my tripod proved indispensable. It looks a bit like the brake on a bicycle handlebar and with one squeeze of the lever the head and camera can be swiveled to the desired position, but as soon as the pressure is released it locks solidly in place. This allowed me to quickly follow the bird as it darted around the flowers and fire the shutter as soon as the head was locked in place. It took me the whole morning and an entire roll of film to get a handful of shots that I thought might have worked. Fortunately when I was back in the UK and had the slide film developed, I found that the results from a few of the shots exceeded my expectations. I thoroughly enjoyed that morning by the creek, and it was impossible to tire of watching these dazzling little birds.

I got back to the camp just in time for lunch. As we sat around on the log benches next to our camp a hummingbird flew up to us, and fed from the plastic mug of sugar water, often when one of us was holding it! One bird flew right into the middle of our group, hovered, and looked at each one of us in turn before darting away.

A few of the others in our group had spent the morning up at the gold miners camp. They told me that the miners had been very hospitable and even given them some food. Unfortunately, the only thing that they had to offer was a lump of animal fat that they heated over the fire. Bill told me that during the cooking process, it quite often caught light and had to be hurriedly extinguished. Bill had done his best to eat it, not wanting to appear ungrateful, but said that it was almost inedible. Apparently the miner’s camp only consisted of a pole shelter like ours, but with blue tarpaulins on all sides to try to keep out the wind. They had rigged up many sugar feeders for the friendly hummingbirds, which were constant visitors. The miner’s had been enduring these extremely tough living conditions for eleven years. They had so little that they used notebook paper to roll cigarettes. While I was at the base camp, the three miners paid us a visit, and even showed us their precious stash of gold dust.

A rainstorm blew in, the others retired to their hammocks, while I sat by the fire in the kitchen part of our shelter, drinking cappuccino and chatting to Val. While I sat there, a hummingbird flew in and tried to drink from my mug of hot cappuccino! Then it moved on to trying to sip sugar from the lids of the bottles of juice that we had. Val and I had to wave it away from the juice bottles, because whoever bought the supplies had mistakenly got us diet ones for the trek and these would be harmful to the hummingbird, because the artificial sweetener would not give it the energy it needed to survive. These birds require so much energy just to stay alive that they live constantly on the brink of disaster, and I remember seeing a documentary that showed they could only afford to stop feeding to go to sleep at night because they slow their metabolism right down when they roost.

As the rain cleared I watched Val tidying up and doing tasks around the camp. His jungle skills were remarkable. With a machete, he cut a nearby piece of wood to the right size and within a few seconds had shaped one end to make a new handle for our shovel. It fitted perfectly into the shovelhead at the first attempt. When we had been trekking, I had seen him draw and throw his survival knife in the blink of an eye, and he buried the blade right up to the hilt in the stem of a banana tree.

My most remarkable encounter with the hummingbirds happened that afternoon. I decided to sit out on one of the log benches and hold out the blue mug full of sugar water, in the hope that one of the birds would feed from it. I had quite a long wait, but eventually, one came down and actually perched on my thumb as it drank from the mug! It was so light that there was hardly any pressure from it’s little feet on my skin. I could feel the down draft of air from its rapidly moving wings. It didn’t settle down completely, presumably in case it felt threatened and decided to make a quick getaway. After a few memorable seconds it finished drinking and flew off to the safety of a nearby branch.

We were all very glad that we had been given the chance to spend a day in this incredible and remote place, and we also needed the recuperation time. My legs and knee joints ached terribly from the descent the day before, and it was the first time I had experienced anything like it, even after a long trek. Walking any distance around the camp required a lot of effort.

After dinner, I was glad to retreat to my hammock once more, but it was not a peaceful night. The temperature dropped considerably and a gusty wind buffeted the shelter. I found it very difficult to sleep and couldn’t wait for the sun to rise.

Day 10 – Monday 16th September

I got out of my hammock at 05:30 and we had a breakfast of porridge before setting off down the trail at 07:30. We went back down the same route that had brought us up the mountain, so once again we navigated our way over and around the roots, boulders and mud that made up this strange part of the world.

A steep and tortuous descent, that was hard on the knees, took us back down to the forested ridge. The three gold miners passed us on the trail. We didn’t know it at that point, but they were heading for Sao Gabriel and decided to come along with us. This was to cause a great deal of friction within our group before the trek was over.

Once again I was walking up front with Val, who was now setting a furious pace. I could only just manage to keep up with him. Val and I arrived at Bebedo Camp (where I had smashed my toe on a rock before) roughly half an hour before the rest of the group, and this was where we all stopped for lunch.

The afternoon was a grueling trek along the undulating path, which took us to our camp for the night at Bebedo Vehlo. This was the spot where Pepe had caught the giant worm before. Val and I were able to keep in touch with the rest of the group by radio during the descent, although the ups and downs of the terrain meant that often our messages were broken up or distorted. We arrived at Bebedo Vehlo at about 16:30.

When everyone had made it into the camp we learnt that the gold miners would be camping with us and were also going to be sharing our boat. As I mentioned earlier, several members of our party were not at all happy about this. It didn’t bother me particularly, as this is how life in the jungle works. If others need transportation and are prepared to do their bit then there is not a lot that can be done about it. Unfortunately in this case the miners tried to pacify the opposition by claiming that one of them had suffered internal injuries while digging for gold and needed to get to hospital. This patently wasn’t true, but as I’ve said, I had no reason to object to them coming along for the journey back, especially after they had been so hospitable to our party at the base camp. The existing shelter at Bebedo Vehlo was old and rotten, and I noticed how all three of the miners worked extremely hard to help our Yanomami porters to construct a new one.

The new shelter was completed just in time. I had only just finished rigging up my hammock and mosquito net when a terrific thunderstorm struck and the jungle trees were rocked by a powerful wind. Suddenly I heard James shout a frantic warning to us to get out of the shelter. I have never got out of a hammock so fast! We all raced outside into the rain. James had rightly been worried about the possibility of dead branches falling from the nearby trees and landing on our shelter. Once the wind had lessened slightly we felt it was safe to take refuge under the tarpaulin once again. The downpour was torrential and we were forced to eat our evening meal standing between the hammocks.

Day 11 – Tuesday 17th September

Today was our last day of trekking in the jungle. We trekked at a very fast pace down to the Tucano Falls camp, where I had seen the big tarantula. Near the clearing where we had camped was an old Yanomami plantation of banana trees. We made our way between their stems until Val found a huge bunch of bananas on the ground and handed them out. They were perfectly ripe and delicious.

Val was concerned that the river we had forded before, that lay between the banana plantation and the camp, may have risen after the rains and be too high to cross. Luckily, this turned out not to be the case and the river looked no different than before. It was very hot and humid here, so we were all glad of the opportunity to have a refreshing swim before continuing the trek. Val told us that when the Yanomami first came to this camp from Venezuela, there had been a big battle between two family groups. He said that the graves of seven Yanomami warriors lay up on the bank.

We paused briefly in our old camp, just long enough to sort out our rucksacks and then set out again for the boat. I was up at the front of the group again with Val, and when the trail took an odd turn or the route was difficult to see, he cut saplings and put them across the wrong path so that the rest of the group would not get lost. At one large fork in the path, the right hand branch had a stick placed across it at waist height. Val said that this path led to the Yanomami village of Maturaca after a few days of walking, but that the village was out of bounds to foreigners by order of the government. However, if any emergency had happened on Neblina to one of our group, they would have had to be carried to the airstrip at Maturaca to be airlifted out. This was a sobering reminder of how remote Neblina is and how difficult it would be to rescue an injured trekker.

On the way to the boat Val and I saw several tiny leaf-coloured frogs that had been encouraged to come out by the recent rain. We also disturbed a very large brown lizard that shot off through the leaf litter as we approached. On one very dark and dank stretch of the path we saw two brightly coloured heliconid butterflies hovering over an orange flower. Amazingly they danced in the air in the same spot long enough for me to get my camera out, let the condensation disappear from the lens and get a photograph of them! It was very hot in the jungle and probably the most humid day we had trekked on. The recent rains seemed to have brought a multitude of insects to the tree canopy, and they kept up a constant cacophony of noise. Nearing the boat we passed by several menacing and turbid pools that lay in hollows in the forest floor. At one of these, Val said he had often seen a large Anaconda resting in the murky shallows. We could clearly see a rut in the mud at the edge of the pool where the great snake had slithered in and out of the water in the recent past. By this point in the day my energy was starting to flag and I could not believe the pace at which Val was walking. It was such a struggle for me to maintain the pace that I felt faint on more than one occasion.

At about 12:30 I finally reached the boat, and the jungle trek was over. I was absolutely shattered and drenched by the humidity and my own sweat. I took off all of my equipment, and sat fully clothed in the sandy shallows of Tucano Creek – not caring that my pockets were slowly filling with fine gravel stirred up by the current. The others soon arrived and joined me in the water for a swim. After that we had a relaxing lunch on the riverbank and rested while the boat was prepared for the return river journey.

It wasn’t long before the boat had been pushed back down Tucano Creek and we rejoined the Cauaburis River. We saw many Toucans, Blue and Yellow Macaws and Oripendula birds (these have a yellow tail and a brown body). At one point we even saw a snake swimming across the river. It was a non-venomous whip snake and was black with white bands.

We stopped for the night at Mariea Camp. I think there comes a point on any trek where I suddenly feel very at home in my surroundings, and that happened this evening. Darkness had fallen, and I had gone down to the long sandy shore near the huts to wash in the Cauaburis River. As I stood knee deep in the tea-brown water, shaving by the light of my head torch, the stars were twinkling in the sky above the dark outline of Padre Peak. The night was perfectly still with no breeze and even the flowing river made little noise. The jungle was quiet and eerily beautiful and I knew that I would be sad to leave it behind.

At dinnertime, a German couple and their guide who were on their way up river to Pico da Neblina joined us. They were planning to take a tent with them and camp overnight on the summit under the full moon.

We set up our hammocks in one of the Yanomami huts, as we had on our previous visit. As we were tying them in place, we noticed that an enormous rat was staring at us from the roof. It had brown fur and a white underbelly. It didn’t seem to mind that we were there at all, and we let it be. As we climbed into our hammocks for the night we got a nasty shock. The timbers of the hut were quite rotten and began to give way. At first we thought we might have to move huts or sleep on the beach, but fortunately we managed to get round the problem by tying our hammocks in a slightly different way.

It was difficult to get to sleep at first because the gold miners had their radio on at a high volume in the next hut. They were listening to a match involving their football team – Sao Paulo.

Day 12 – Wednesday 18th September

I had slept well during the night, but been badly bitten by mosquitoes. Today was the final leg of our river journey back to the road at Llamarim Creek. I had my Global Positioning System receiver switched on for most of the way, so I was able to trace our progress back past the waypoints I had logged on our outward journey.

The only thing of special note that we saw during the morning was a very big dead snake that was lying on a fallen tree branch in the river. Decomposition had begun to fade the colours and patterns on its skin, but Val said he thought it was an Anaconda.

We stopped for lunch on Jaguar Beech. I had a swim in the river, and once again we were lucky enough to see a River Dolphin.

In the afternoon our journey became more difficult. Our outboard motor kept surging and then cutting out, leaving us drifting in the middle of the river or entangled in the undergrowth on one of the banks. The engine belonged to one of our Yanomami porters, Tomar, who had bought it for R$ 6000 with his severance pay from the Brazilian army. He now earned an income from renting it out. Our boatman then had to remove the sparkplug and clean it before we could continue. When we reached the FUNAI post, Valdir went ashore briefly to talk to the owner of the house and tell him that we were all safe and out of the National Park.

Shortly after we set off again from the guard post, our engine problems came back with a vengeance. It appeared that our boatman did not have a spare sparkplug, and I looked on nervously as he began bending it into shape with a screwdriver. Somehow he managed to coax the engine back to life and we went on our way. It was reassuring that Marcello had brought a satellite phone with him, and presumably could have summoned help if we had been stranded.

In the middle of the afternoon there was a terrific thunderstorm and torrential rain. I got soaked to the skin before I was able to put on my waterproof jacket, and by that point the rain was so fierce that we all took cover under a blue tarpaulin that had been placed over our heads and across the boat. One lightning strike hit the forest very close to us, there was a tremendous bang and we saw a bright yellow flash.

Eventually the storm died away, but by now I was wet and cold. The sun was going down too, and the air temperature dipped considerably. We were still a long way from the shelter at Llamarim Creek.

Darkness fell as we began to motor up the La Grandi River. By the time we reached the entrance to Llamarim Creek there was no light at all. Pepe had to stand up on the stern and shine a powerful torch so that our boatman could steer a path through the trees and submerged branches. I switched on my GPS receiver and turned on the backlight so that I could see exactly how far we had to go to reach our camp at the road. With about one kilometre still to go, we got stuck in a couple of places where the boat ran up on submerged branches. Val and Pepe had to get out of the boat and into the inky water to push us back off – dangerous work in the dark.

My GPS showed that there was just a hundred metres to go before we reached our camp, but I could see nothing. There was no sound except for our engine and no lights but our own torches. In fact, we saw nothing at all until we reached a huddle of boats that were tied up at the creek. When I climbed out of the boat and onto the bank, I was cold, wet and stiff from sitting on my bench seat for many hours. I was looking forward to changing into my dry sleeping clothes and climbing into my hammock.

Our accommodation for the night was the wooden shelter that we had seen at the start of our journey. Sharing it with us were many Yanomami Indians who had come from Maturaca (and possibly other villages) to trade at the roadside. In particular, they had brought many bundles of jungle vines with them to sell. These were identical to the bundles I had seen at the Yanomami traveling camp in the jungle, and as I mentioned earlier, these are made into yard brushes. I set up my hammock on the upper level, and changed into my dry clothes. While I was waiting for dinner, Val came over and quietly suggested that everyone should keep a close eye on their possessions, as there were so many strangers around. However, there were no problems with theft at all.

Our porters set to work cooking our dinner, but were continually struggling to prevent the food being eaten by a stray dog. This dog was in an exceptionally poor condition. It was emaciated from a lack of food and was severely lame in one leg. The state of its coat also suggested that it was probably harbouring any number of parasites. No matter how many times it was pushed away or how many small stones were thrown at it, it kept coming back to the cooking pot. In the end, Marcello picked up a large stick and struck it a fairly hard blow. It yelped and then ran off. Unfortunately, what happened next caused the most controversy of the whole trip. Del and Carolyn were staunch animal lovers, and as soon as they saw Marcello hit the dog they were outraged. They told Marcello exactly how they felt, and Carolyn refused to eat the food that had been prepared. It was a situation that was basically a clash of cultures. Of course, no one wants to see an animal being mistreated, but on the other hand it is not a good idea to have a stray and diseased dog menacing a campsite. This incident caused a lot of ill feeling between Marcello and Carolyn in particular. Marcello felt that he had been humiliated by the way that Carolyn had spoken to him, and Carolyn of course was very upset about what had been done to the dog. What happened next only served to explode the issue out of all proportion. Without the knowledge of the rest of the group, Marcello went off in search of the dog and killed it with a machete. In some ways this was probably the kindest thing that someone could have done to this poor animal, as at least its death would have been instantaneous and it put an end to its obvious suffering. However, the disagreeable thing about the killing was that Marcello had done it out of spite, rather than any concern for the dog or our health and hygiene.

We all retired to our hammocks for the night, still unaware of the sad fate of the dog.

Day 13 – Thursday 19th September

I had slept well, and woke up at first light. Shortly after I got out of my hammock, I heard Marcello parading up and down the camp shouting, “I killed the dog! I killed the dog!” This was clearly done to annoy Carolyn and Del. At first I thought that Marcello might be joking, but later that morning Bill told me that Marcello had indeed dispatched the animal with his machete.

Our incredible journey into the Brazilian rainforest was now at an end, and we packed away our equipment and waited for the off-road taxis to arrive. We knew that it would probably take them at least three hours to make their way from Sao Gabriel. When they eventually arrived, we were all amazed to find that they had remembered to bring a crate of Coca-Cola with them, that Marcello had ordered for us. Not only that, but they had been transported in a cool box! We were all in very high spirits now that we had successfully completed the trek and were about to head back into town.

Once again, the drive down the road through the forest was very enjoyable. It seemed much hotter than before. There was not a cloud in the sky and the tropical sun was extremely fierce. The heat didn’t bother the butterflies though, and great clouds of them flitted and danced above the road and along the verges. As before, we had to stop regularly and get out so that our truck could make its way across the rutted sections, and once or twice our vehicle even had to tow the smaller Ford 4WD across the worst parts. On the way, Valdir decided to give me the brightly coloured necklace made of plastic beads that he had bought from a Yanomami Indian.

Our first stop in town was at a petrol station. While the truck was re-fuelling we all got out, bought some beers and drank them in the sunshine. I think it’s true to say that no matter how fascinating and beautiful the rainforest is, nothing lifts the spirits more than finally getting out of it!

Next, we stopped off at the Brasil Aventuras Office, which was unfortunately the scene of a rather ugly argument between Marcello and Carolyn. The row began when Marcello finished giving an after-trek talk to the group and then rounded on Carolyn, saying she had shown him disrespect over the whole dog incident. Carolyn retaliated in kind, and poor Valdir was forced to translate the insults backward and forward. The rest of us looked on in stunned silence, and it was clear that Val was embarrassed and upset by the whole thing. He was visibly shaken. As we gathered our things to leave for the hotel, I made a point of telling him that the whole argument over the dog was not his fault and he shouldn’t take it to heart. The whole group felt that Val had done a superb job of guiding us on the trek and had certainly done nothing wrong.

Copyright(c) 2002 Rowan Castle. All rights reserved.