Messing about in the river
Trip Start
Jul 27, 2005
1
11
16
Trip End
Sep 04, 2005
Loading Map
Map Options
Show trip route
Hide lines
Merida, Venezuela
Tuesday, August 9, 2005
We arrived at the office to find the couple from breakfast also there... they were also going canyoning. 20 minutes kicking around the office and then we were packed into a jeep, 6 of us in total and all Brits. The jeep heads off up into the nearby mountains, the roads are near vertical here and the jeep struggled the last couple of miles, all part of the ride the guide assured us as we slid back down a few feet!!
We reach the top of the mountain at the start of what looks like a dirt track leading onto someone´s farm, here the guide tells us to get into out wet gear; for me this was simply a pair of shorts, for the girls a bikini... they cursed the guide for not telling them before hand that they would have to trek an hour into the canyon, deep into the forest beforehand. We hiked down some very steep terrain to the start of the canyon, the guide paid some farmer on the way - I guess this was to let us through his land without being savaged by a herd of rabid llamas.
We finally hit the water, a babbling brook it seemed, fresh clean water gently flowing over the rocks, here we put on our canyoning suits and began trudging through the water.. very cold, the girls finally glad to get some more clothes on!!
We headed downstream for about 20 minutes, clambering over fallen trees and jumping into deep pools in the river... the water starting to pick up pace. We stop at the first waterfall; a 10 metre cascade into a 1 metre deep basin. We get a quick safety demo and dry run of how to abseil a waterfall and then it was time to go. Kelly, an adrenaline junky student, was the first to go. She rushed to the edge, hooked the safety line in and was off over the edge, I followed.. the advice of "don't look up" was well taken, the force of the water was incredible as it pummeled me from above, 2 minutes later and I was down. From there we went on to tackle a 20 metre and finally a 35 metre waterfall, the latter being particularly scary since you couldn't see the bottom from all the spray.
Just incase the waterfalls weren´t hair raising enough, we had to negotiate a couple of "jumps", these consisted of narrow ravines (about half a metre across) and a vertical drop of about 3 or 4 metres, sounds easy right? not when you cant see what your jumping into ´cos the water is running so fast off the top - anyway, the pictures may tell the story better.
