IHANA.COM big trip - diary - July 2002 - Paragua, track to Candelaria

Paragua is a village beside the a river which we needed to cross in order to follow the 90 kms off road route to Candelaria, the end of the track. From there its onwards by foot and boat to Canaima. The route was published in Fronteras magazine with GPS waypoints and recommendations to use high 900x16 tyres. After a big lunch occasionally interrupted by some fat minging dorises offering kisses, the ferry took us safely to the other side of the river and we set off for the adventure to come.

Chiguao ferry

This bit was...

...quite easy

Deadly scorpions

Check out the landys diff scrape...

...caused by big ruts and small tyres

After half an hour another ferry was needed at Chiguao followed by more open savannah driving before entering the jungle and some fairly easy tracks. Soon enough the ruts got deeper as the track climbed steadily upwards. Our lack of ground clearance was starting to show and we had to winch four full cable lengths, in the dark, to get 100m up to the top of the track. By the time we'd reached the top it was almost 10pm and we were exhausted and muddy but undaunted, even by the very poisonous black scorpions or chorus of frogs that seemed to sing 'hurreeee', or was it 'morir' (die) in spanish?

Trying to straddle the ruts

Cup of tea?

Small but very loud

We made camp at the top of the slope in a rare space just off the track. After some rice based dinner we tried to sleep but the continuous pinprick feeling on all exposed areas of skin prevented that, especially annoying on the face and eyelids. This part of the jungle is invested by puri-puris, tiny sandfly-like creatures who can get through all but the finest mozzie nets which T happened to have just bought in Ciudad Bolivar. That, coupled with B still having delhi-belly since Para falls, didn't make for a restful night.

Check out the special stuck page of this jungle disaster!