Oh, Amazon
Tuesday, Nov 7th
cloudy
Actually today is a very lucky day, we escaped from the whole day raining on the island and saw the amazing Amazon, these two words must have some relation, amazon, amaze. no matter how you describe this day it's not overrate. It's the most wonderful day I ever had.
I wake up early but don't want to go down until kevin knock the door, we need to catch the bus for Angel fall at 6am, but we didn't met Martie, he was on another flight and left earlier, it's a pity for him because he missed the great scene we saw in our plane. later he told us when he book the flight he require to go with our flight but the tour guide fool him. Actually our flight still have some seats. All travellers on the plane came from German except I and kevin. we take a big plane and need to stop by a city to drop off and pick up some German, there is a girl very beautiful and lovely, later we have more chances to close to her.
First we fly over the biggest lake in Venezuela, and overlook the greatest dam in the country. later we get into jungle area and then we fly above the angel fall and circling around twice to let us take pictures from all angles. it's the highest fall in the world, not big, water fall from the mountain and cloud surround the mountain. And here has lots of mountains stick out of the plain with flat top like a huge stub, this is Canaima's unique landform, so don't miss the chance to go and see them. I don't understand how these stubs come into this shape, what I can say is nature is a great creator.
Then we land Canaima National Park, each pay 22$ for entry fee. This is the first time I take a plane land on soil.
we follow tour guide into the jungle and not too far we reach the lake, and right in the other side we saw another fall, actually there are 3 falls from 3 branches of the river and fall down the mountain and form the lake. Now is all sunny and lovely jungle surround the lake, 3 falls has different characteristic, one is narrow and other two huge, and one of them is yellow.
we take the boat approach the fall to take picture and then goto another side where there is a trail that we can get to the fall. before we start the all-wet trip we sit down to have a simple lunch:biscuit and banana and juice. And we leave all bag here and only bring camera with us because we will go through the fall. There are two indian tour guide go with us, each carry a black plastic bag, so before we pass the fall we put all camera and clothes into it and they bring it through the fall without getting wet. And the beautiful german girl start talking with us, she is a German stewardess, her name is Cartier, 23. usually flight between the countries arround mediterranean sea, sometimes to tailand. Cavin make a joke, he place his hand on the chest, show very painful, like a man hit by heart stroke, and ask if she can help, the girl said she get emergency medical training so she can help, and kevin place his hand on stomach and girl said she can help too, and kevin put his hand lower, and the girl said "Oh, no" and we all shout out in laughter. we pass a big red-spider net but didn't see the spider, the net is like a round ball, not the flat net we saw in most of places. Eventually we reach the fall, and prepare to pass it, everyone start take off clothes except two elder German, they will stay this side. And of course we got the good luck of seeing ..... actually it is very safe because there is a rope for holding, and tons of water fall down beside me and thunder beside your ear, experience the power of nature, at the beginning the fall not so thick so you can look through the fall and see the jungle and lake and mountain far away, wonderful, and then you can only see yellow water keep pouring down in front of your eye, you will feel the awesome of the nature, and you will also arouse a fear of being dragged out by the water, think about all the brown hard rock, I can't help thinking Hukou Fall(?????). And heat of body was quickly extracted by the water, and you will feel as cold as in winter. The fall is about 50 meters wide and another side has some space and lots of flat rock so we can take pictures for each other, especially with the lovely hot girl. After that we climb up the mountain, here you can see the river fall down the mountain form the great fall, and in the upriver you can see two flat top mountain like two gate nip the river, and downriver is the lake, and look around further is beautiful plain, with jungle, blue sky white cloud, in a word, paradise. when I am busy taking picture the indian tour guide bring me to see something, follow him I goto a rock at the edge of the fall, and I look down the fall, and see a white guy lying down on the rock like a dead pig, enjoying the water spill on him. It's so funny so everybody all take this picture. It's so high so we can't tell who he is and I don't remember kevin told me he has acrophobia and he didn't go with us to the top of the mountain, and it's him laid down on the rock enjoy the fall splashing on him.
We go back along the same trail and since it's going down the view is different, when we came up we only see the jungle ahead, but when we come down we see the plain and other mountain so I catch some beautiful scene too. The indian boy stop somewhere and hit the ground to let me know where there is underground river and hollow. He also show me the antidote in his medical box for all kinds of snake, scorpian, ants, spider. His name is Engli, and already has girlfriend. I told him to go out of jungle to see the world and earn more money.
we go to the restaurant we stop by for lunch to have dinner, the chicken wing is beautiful. I and kevin and stewardess and her bf sit togther eating and chatting, when we are eating banana a parrot fly down on our hand, and we feed it with parrot while taking picture at the same time. we tempt the parrot walking from one's hand to another using banana, so funny, until this greedy parrot can't take anymore it fly away from us. And we walk around the lake, it's so beautiful here, serene lake and grand mountain. the restaurant also built like indian house with grass roof, outside there are some stoneware. then we leave the beautiful park, before we take the airplane we stop by a shop to buy souvenir, i buy some postcards in case my picture not good these cards can still remind me this beautiful park.
in the airport I and kevin help each other take a funny picture, we each hold a handful Venezuela money in hand and background is the plane. think about 1 us$= 685 BS, just change 50$ you get 35000 bs. and if each bill is 500BS each, how many pieces in your hand?
the pilot is late, he was with his girlfriend in the jungle, not knowing what happen. so we all wait for him coming back. and this latercomer bring us more exciting things, we fly very close the ground and the lake, maybe he is showing off to his gf, that's another wonderful experience, we can see the jungle and water right under our plane! The plane drop off a group of German to a forest hotel including the lovely stewardess, they will stay in jungle 3 days for more exploration then fly to Magarita the island we are on. i will never forget the hot feeling when we take the picture together.
And the most amazing thing happen, the sunset in Amazon, beautiful sunglow, bloody red, with beautiful cloud. there are lots of swamps down there, so you will not just see one sun reflection in the water but 2 to 6, like chained bulbs. And cloud seems to be concreted in the sky. close to horizon there is a dark clound just like along flat disk, and the sun slowly drop down in the middle of this cloud, what a grant scene, and the sky is so big, and the fog start rising from lake and jungle, all of these form a magnificent picture, and a mysterious, serene world.
since we flying eastward so we chasing the sunset and see a lot of different grand pictures, sometimes it was covered by cloud, so the cloud in the sky show different color, and later we saw there was a cloud wall in the left front, gray and white, looks like the mountain that has 4 USA president head portrait, and the more we approaching it the more clear we can see, it's bigger and bigger and, my god, it's lightening here and there, and our flight keep closing to it, we are closing to the storm, the first time I feel flying dangerous, but I think the pilot familiar this situation so should have no problem, and the wall become bigger and bigger, I try to catch some pictures with Kevin's camera because my camera stuck(inner sponge fall off and block the film rewind). The plane begin circling around the wall and eventually get into the cloud, and now totally darkness, but if you look down from the window you can see some white cloud under the plane, and after a while cloud become thinner, you can see left side lightening, and there is a plane come in opposite direction on our upper left hand side, much closer to the lightening center, another brave pilot. sometimes there is a hole and we can see the redness from the hole. Finally we break through the wall and now we see lots of cloud pillar stick out of cloud sea, wonderful, no word can describe. Sometimes we can see one or two light flashing on the earth, by the river, and sometimes even see sunglow in the water, and when almost close to the island look down from left window it's pitch-dark but from right window you can see the lightening city.
And after we landed we knew how lucky we were since it had been raining for a whole day and tonight the show was canceled.
I will never forget all today's brilliant natural scene and nice stewardess, I never never feel so excited. It's worth waiting and sometimes it sparkle just when my life need some sparkle.
