In Venezuela, 2,723 metres above sea level, Flemmich Webb discovers the diverse attractions of the original lost world

Ireach the summit of the cloud-covered plateau, dripping with rain and panting with exertion. Visibility is poor and I half expect a pterodactyl to come swooping out from behind one of the weird rock formations that loom out of the gloom.

I have made it to the top of Roraima, Venezuela’s tallest tepui (2,723m) a remote, table-topped mountain and the setting for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel The Lost World, about the discovery of living dinosaurs in the 19th century. Although he never came here, Conan Doyle’s imagination was spot on – my first impression is that Roraima seems like the sort of remote place where such beasts could live undetected. I draw myself tightly under a rock ledge and wait with the guides and my companions for the rain to stop.

Five days earlier, we had caught a flight in an eight-seater plane from the old Spanish port of Ciudad Bolívar on the banks of the Orinoco river, to Canaima, renowned for its spectacular waterfalls and its proximity to Angel Falls. It was a further bumpy flight to Santa Elena de Uairén in south-east Venezuela, close to the Brazilian border and home to a number of companies that offer trekking tours to the top of Roraima.

We picked the cheapest, and soon wondered what we had let ourselves in for. ‘Watch out for the aliens,’ said Roberto Marrero, Mystic Tours’ eccentric owner, and author of a series of maps detailing extra-terrestrial sightings at the top of the tepui. ‘And don’t forget to ask the guardian spirits for permission to approach,’ he added, handing us our decidedly thin camping mats and meagre food bag for the five-day trip.

Adding alien abduction and spiritual assault from vengeful ancestors to dinosaur attack on my mental list of potential Roraima experiences, I clambered into the four-by-four with our two Guayanese guides, Alex and Desmond, and five fellow hikers.

After a couple of hours and numerous army checkpoints, we arrived at Paraitepui, a small, dusty Pemón village, where men sat in the shade waiting to be employed as porters. Once Alex had assembled our team, we set off walking along the dirt track towards Roraima, 18km away and still not visible.

We were in the Gran Sabana region, home to 15,000 Pemón Indians living in villages dotted around the area, and containing more than 100 other tepuis.

A few hours later, we finally came over the brow of the final hill but Roraima and Kukenán, the neighbouring tepui, were barely visible through the thick cloud.

The lost world remained so, until we got into camp. The temperature cooled, the cloud began to clear, and as if part of a geological peep show, afforded us increasingly tantalising glimpses of the sheer, dark rock flanks.

Suddenly, the last of the cloud disappeared, revealing sentinel-like rock formations on the summit, bathed in the orange and reds of the setting sun.

‘The Pemón believe that Roraima was once a huge fruit-laden tree,’ said Alex as he served up a dinner of arepas (maize pancakes) and perico (scrambled eggs, tomato and onion). ‘Their ancestors cut it down to get the fruit, but so much water came out of the trunk that huge floods swept the fruit away for ever, and since then they have been forced to till the land for food. What we are about to climb is the tree’s stump.’

By the end of the second day, we were following the route of the first non-Indians to climb Roraima – British botanists Everard Im Thurn and Harry Perkins in 1884. It was their account of their adventures that inspired Conan Doyle to write The Lost World. They had to hack through thick rainforest to get to the only route up Roraima, but much of this was destroyed in a fire in 1925, making subsequent journeys to its base much easier.

On the morning of our ascent it began to rain. The surface of Roraima’s rock walls came alive with water. We climbed up through the montane rainforest until we popped out above the tree line into a landscape of prehistoric tree ferns and slippery shale. Beneath us was a scary drop; above, the summit, somewhere in the cloud.

Through the spray of a waterfall, we plodded upwards. The anticipation built. What would we find on the top? I thought of Conan Doyle’s ‘glade of the iguanodons’ and ‘swamp of the pterodactyls’. It was not a comfort.

Suddenly there were no more summits beyond us. We were at the top, but the visibility was so poor we could see little. When the rain eased off, we hiked for half an hour across the slippery rocks to ‘El Hotel’, the uncomfortable ledge where we were to pitch our tents for the next two nights.

The next morning was beautiful and clear, so we set off early to take our first look at the plateau. Forged several hundred million years ago when the super-continent Gondwana – which included South America and Africa – was formed, tepuis are the remnants of a layer of Precambrian sediment, the rest of which has been eroded. This has left them geologically and biologically cut off from each other and the surrounding plains – real ‘lost worlds’ – hence the number of endemic species on each one.

‘Isolated from the surrounding landscape and surrounded by formidable cliffs, the tepuis harbour plant and animal species known nowhere else on Earth that are truly descendants or relics from another time,’ said Adrian Warren, zoologist, filmmaker and Roraima expert, when I caught up with him back in the UK. ‘We are just beginning to understand the evolutionary significance of these strange communities.’

Research has shown that of the 2,000 plant species on the top of tepuis, half grow nowhere else – among the highest number of endemic flora in the world. With little soil, plants cling to a precarious existence, often grouped in clusters in rocky nooks and crannies. Many are carnivorous, such as the terrestial pitcher plant only found on tepuis; the bright red sundew; and the Brocchinia reducta, a bromeliad which drowns insects in a water-filled well created by its tightly overlapping leaves. And there are at least 30 species of orchid on Roraima alone, 900 across all tepuis.

Animals are scarce: only three types of mammal, one lizard species and six bird species live here, but Roraima’s most endearing resident is its black frog, Oreophrynella. This 5cm-long amphibian cannot leap but crawls around the rocks, playing dead if it senses danger.

We walked for several kilometres across the plateau summit on flat black rock, past groups of orchids eking out a living in the patches of pink sand, clumps of reddish, heather-like shrubs (Bonnetia roraimae) and across rivers brown with tannins.

We reached the edge of the plateau, which looks down onto pristine Guyanese rainforest. In front of us was Kukenán, its base again covered in thick cloud. Everything was still and silent. No one spoke.

We wandered on. While I saw Conan Doyle’s dinosaurs in every outcrop, Alex shared his names for the fantastical rock shapes fashioned by the wind and rain: the monkey eating ice cream, the flying turtle, two wolves kissing, the Virgin Mary.

With few places for plants to grow, it was a surprise to come across the lush Valle Arapobo, a valley filled with grasses and plants. We jumped over the source of the River Orinoco, one of three great rivers (the Amazon and the Essequibo are the other two) that have a source on Roraima – giving the mountain the Pemón name of the ‘Mother of all Waters’.

We ate lunch in the Valle de los Cristales, a valley filled with white, black and pink quartz crystals, some formations too big to fit in the palm of your hand. Here was the first evidence that this lost world is becoming less isolated. Crystals lay strewn across the rocks, some dislodged by tourists eager to take home a souvenir, despite the possibility of being caught at the roadblocks between Paraitepui and Santa Elena de Uairén.

‘The ancient ecosystems of the tepuis are so fragile that thousands of years of history can be destroyed by a simple act of carelessness or vandalism,’ was Warren’s comment. ‘Roraima’s summit now bears the scars of those who do not take care to avoid trampling the plants, remove rocks or crystals or leave litter.’

We pushed on to the Triple Point, a white marker signifying the point on the tepui, where the borders of Guyana, Venezuela and Brazil meet, then rounded off the day with a dip in El Foso, an icy pool and waterfall at the bottom of a hole in the rocks.

By now it was getting late: we had a 9km walk back before it got dark and it was beginning to seem like classic alien abduction time. As we flitted across the darkening rocks, the colours intensified, the pink of the sand polarised by the setting sun.

The next day, we packed up the camp and inched our way down Roraima’s steep flanks, through the rainforest and back onto the plains. As we began the long trek back to Paraitepui, I looked back at Roraima, hoping for one last glimpse of the magnificent summit, but it was already enveloped in thick cloud.

As we staggered back into the village, dusty, thirsty and itching from jejenes (midge) bites, I heard music. It was a Spanish version of Never Going to Give You Up by Rick Astley, blaring out of one of the porter’s huts. It seemed as though I had left one lost world and entered into another.

Crystals lay strewn across the rocks, some dislodged by tourists eager to take home a souvenir.

How to get there

Fly to Caracas then take the bus (11 hours) or internal flight to Ciudad Bolívar. It is possible to book tours to Roraima here but it is cheaper to do it in Santa Elena de Uairén. From Ciudad Bolívar catch a flight to Canaima (to visit Angel Falls) and on to Santa Elena de Uairén, or take a bus to Santa Elena de Uairén (10-12 hours).

Where to stay

Hotel Gran Sabana
www.hotelgransabana.com

Hotel Lucretia
hotellucrecia@cantv.net Posada Michelle hotelmichelle@cantv.net

Tour companies

Mystic Tours
www.mystictours.cm.ve

Backpacker Tours
www.backpacker-tours.com

Kamadac
www.abenteuer-venezuela.de

Roraima facts

It can be climbed all year round but the most popular times are August, December, and January. No technical climbing skills are required, but you need to be fairly fit. Roraima’s plateau is 34km sq and is 6.4km wide and you must hire a guide.

More information

A useful map with information on the flora and fauna of Roraima can be purchased at www.lastrefuge.co.uk.

The company has also made a DVD about tepuis called The Living Edens: The Lost World — Venezuela’s Ancient Tepuis, available from Amazon.com