Same procedure as yesterday, my inner clock was working once more and I woke up one hour before meeting time. The group of Gregory had arrived and was complete and everybody met for breakfast at the restaurant of Toni’s brother, a getting to know breakfast. I had Pachita which is Venezuelan Spanish for Maracuja juice, fresh, cold and delicious. Juan and I decided to inform the police about our seven day tour to Mount Roraima and ask to park our vehicles behind their office; they are present 24 hour and hopefully can offer security and we would contribute something towards the police office when everything goes well.

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We met all at the posada, the 4×4 arrived and I was on the first transport to the village of Paraitepuy, twenty eight kilometers drive to the starting point of all tours to Mount Roraima. We had one stop at a viewing point to take obligatory pictures and arrived at 10:30 hours at Paraitepuy. We waited at the National Park office for the other half of the group to arrive.

 

In the meantime I watched returning hikers from different groups, one by one, some together, mostly exhausted. I was full of energy and wanted to leave; we registered with the Park authorities but had to be patient. The other half of the group arrived at 13:15 hours, registered as well and we were ready for the group picture. Forget the group picture, we were late and had to leave, it was now 14:30 hours and we had fourteen kilometers in front of us.

The path was all right, the inclination reasonable, the weather sunny and warm; the midday heat had just passed. What Gregory had mentioned as the “test hill” was really kind of a test, a hill where the inclination suddenly doubled or tripled. I had to slow down, I fell behind. This was just the “test hill” but before I started to think too much I had reached the peak.

 

The fourteen kilometers were kind of divided into ten hills and four riverbeds before reaching the final destination, the camp. Everybody was enthusiastic and everybody was taking pictures. I was taking lots of pictures but I was focused on my pace, I did not want to stop too many times and rest and loose my rhythm, I did not want to fight mentally already on the first day too much and too hard with myself, I wanted to keep the speed and reach the camp, build up my tent and rest.

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I was not used to hiking, I had no idea what fourteen kilometers would be like and I had no watch to judge by the time how much I had walked so far. I wanted to keep the pace, after every peak I was hoping to see the camp but just saw another peak. I had no feeling for the distance.

 

Suddenly I was all by myself and was ahead of the group, the sun started to set and I could see the last two hikers from the group that had started from Paraitepuy one hour before our group in front of me. I passed them both, reached the peak just to see another peak at the horizon before they would. Another twenty minutes and I really, really reached the final peak and saw the camp. I shouted back to them to share my joy and give them badly needed positive energy.

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I reached the camp and immediately started to build up my tent, I was tired, I wanted to be ready. The two hikers from the other group arrived, as well as team Enterprise, the first three of group Gregory.

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We went down to the river and had a bath in the sunset in perfect cold water. I had the urge to drink the water and I did. I have not had that feeling since childhood after playing soccer with my friends or after playing with my brother in the summer by the stream at our weekend home in the forest. I waited for everybody to arrive but went to bed right after. Diet kept. Day one was fatal.

 

Group Gregory

Operator – Gregory

Guide – Omar

Cook – Cleidymar

Cook – Keila

Carrier – Julian

Carrier – Jesus

Doc McCoy – Alejandro Izaguirre

Chekov – Yanjos Ave

Uhura – Maria Jose Lopez

Rammstein – Omar Rivas

Dreamcatcher – Joselyn Godoy

Photographer – Gianfranco di Campo

Journalist – Mariolga Gomez

Ecuador – Juan

Belgium – Sylvie

Guacharaca – Claudia Valenzuela

Guacharaca – Yolanda di Sevo

Guacharaca – Yuli Viloria

Gringo – AlexK

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