by Russell Smeaton

Created on: September 07, 2009

The Roraima Mountain inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to write the Lost World and it's not surprising. A fantastic plateau that juts out of the rain forest, topped off with misty clouds swirling around the base takes the mind away with what could be lurking at the top. Well, it would take the mind away if the body wasn't so out of breath and puffing hard to get anywhere near the top.

My mates and I thought it would be a good idea to take an overland trip to hike up to the summit of this impressive rock. I've talked about the overland trip in another article (or I'm going to - and it'll be a belter!) so I'll move onto when we arrived in Venezuela. We boarded a local bus that was going in the right direction and settled ourselves down. The first problem that we encountered was that a new government had just been elected and there were worries of riots or protests. Result? Police checks every ten minutes. The second problem was that I had forgotten the Spanish phrase book. Result? A lot of sign language and picture pointing. It all worked out eventually (four police stops, two baggage checks, one confused bus driver later) and we were standing at what could only be described as base camp.

Our first task was to get some accommodation sorted out. There was a rough collection of tents so we decided that would be the place to pitch up. The second task was to get me a tent. The others had brought a nice clean shiny tent from England but I had decided that for the short duration of the hike I'd be able to hire one. Remember I told you I'd forgotten the phrase book? Hiring a tent looked a little bit tricky. That was until we met Jose! Small, swarthy and with the strength of two donkeys, this guy was our life saver and turned out to be the most excellent guide you could ask for. As Mount Roraima is in a national park, you have to take a guide so Jose came to our rescue. He sorted out a tent for me, pointed us in the direction of a cheap eating place and generally looked after us for the next week.

Eating out that night was interesting to say the least. The staple diet for many people in the region is cassava. For the uninitiated, this is a odd product that is tasteless but has a half live of around 300 hundred years. So we chowed down on some stew made from cassava. Being the only English people there, the hostess decided to treat us to a dessert of fried grasshopper. Crunchy, oily and maybe not something I'll be cooking in the near future. To be polite we all munched

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