Auyantepui - This is my entry to the Pinmapple “If I had $1000 Contest”

Since I was a teenager I started to like the idea of being a traveler and when I had financial independence, traveling became my greatest passion and motivation to continue working and thus be able to save money to see new places, so when I saw this contest of @pinmapple and @haveyoubeenhere community I got excited and remembered how almost every year for at least the last 15 years, I have planned a great trip based mainly on the budget I had available.

So what would I do if I had $ 1000 to spend on a trip? I confess that the first thing I thought was to go as far as possible, something like Australia, Mongolia or an African country like Cape Verde or South Africa... especially when I saw this post from @digi-me about Cape Town: https://hive.blog/hive-184437/@digi-me/south-africa-the-best-view-of-a-city-is-from-the-top-of-a-mountain#@sofathana/qiilck, but of course, that $ 1000 will probably not reach me but just for the plane ticket.

I thought: well, in Australia I have some relatives that I don't know but who have invited me to visit them, I would not have to pay for accommodation hehehe, but I read that it is an expensive country so I would also need extra money to move and see places, eat, etc ... so I kept thinking about where I would like to go to spend that $ 1000 until after several days I yelled: eureka!

I did a mental tour of the world map several times and then I remembered a place that I have wanted to go to for a long time and it is right here in my country Venezuela: the Auyantepui.

_{The Angel Falls always appears in the brochures and tourist promotion maps of Venezuela}

You may wonder: and if it is in your country, why don't you know it yet? Well, apart from the fact that when you start to travel you are attracted to go out to know other countries and leave for later to know your own, another reason is that this destination is among the most expensive in Venezuela, that is why more foreigners go there than Venezuelans, the most of us only know this national icon from photos and videos.

Ok, and what is special about the Auyantepui? Or rather, what is the Auyantepui?

For those who don't know it, the Auyantepui is a table top mountain with an area of 700 km2, the Venezuelan indigenous people of the Pemón ethnic group call these formations "tepui", word that means hill. In one part of its summit is the Angel Falls or Kerepakupay-Vena (waterfall from the deepest place), its indigenous name, the highest waterfall in the world at 979 meters.

Photo Source

It is located within the Canaima National Park, in the Bolívar state, south of Venezuela and is one of the most famous tourist sites in the country and in the world. This 3 million hectare park is considered by scientists to be the oldest geological formation on earth, it is between 1,500 and 2,100 million years old.

_{Auyantepui location, photo taken from Bolívar State map, edited by the Ministry of Tourism of Venezuela}

If you saw the animated movie "Up", you will remember this exotic landscape although perhaps you didn't know that it was inspired by the Auyantepui.

_{Animated film "Up"}
Photo Source

Most people go to this remote area of Venezuela to see the Angel Falls from a nearby viewpoint, but very few climb the Auyantepui, which is where this waterfall originates.

I'm an adventurous person and since I climbed the Roraima, another tepui of Canaima, the highest with 2,810 meters, I fell in love with these landscapes and of course, I want to continue exploring them, so climbing the Auyantepui is one of my traveling goals and that's why This is my entry to the Pinmapple If I had $1000 Contest.

As I have been interested in going for a long time, more or less I know what the journey is like because I have researched on the Internet, it looks a bit like the one in Roraima but it is more days and much more expensive, in fact a couple of months ago I saw a promotion in an account that I follow on Instagram about a trip to Auyantepui for the month of December and I asked to know how much it cost, when I received the answer I was out of breath: more than $ 2000, with rappel included to go down from Angel Falls to the base of the tepui.

Photo Source

Of course, I know that there are options without rappelling and cheaper, it must be taken into account that the agency in which I asked is one of the most recognized, anyway this destination is expensive because to get to the place where the excursion to the Auyantepui begins you have to take a plane and it also includes all the meals, drinks and camping equipment, that is, it involves great logistics in a very secluded place.

In total, the excursion is about nine or ten days according to the itinerary they sent me and departs from Ciudad Bolívar, from there a private Cessna plane takes you to Uruyen where there is a camp where you spend the first night. The next day the walk of about 5 hours begins to a place called Guayaraca, the first place to camp and where the first terrace of the tepui is.

On the third day the goal is to get to El Peñón, crossing savannah and cloudy jungle for about 5 hours, staying there for the night and in the morning, heading to a place called Piedra El Oso, passing between typical tepui vegetation and large rocks that take you to Libertador, the top of Auyantepui at 2,510 meters, you camp there and the next day the excursion continues to the Second Wall and to the Lecho camp on the Churum river where the camp is set up. If you want to go to where the Angel Falls is born, it's about two more days.

_{Photo taken from the book: Canaima Ecological Guide, edited by Terramar Foundation}

For the return that lasts about two days, you go through the places where the climb was made again.

The particularity of this place is its incomparable landscape, of spectacular natural beauty, it is truly another world, with its own climate, cliffs, caves, rocky reliefs, jungle, valley, waterfalls, rivers, savannah, morichales and endemic plants and animals, that is, they only exist there. For these reasons, since 1994 Unesco declared it a World Heritage Site.

It's ironic that for the Pemons, indigenous people who inhabit this region, the imposing and beautiful Auyantepui represents something, let's say negative, since it means "Mountain of Hell." Many of them don't climb it, they consider it the Olympus of the Arekuna Gods where the “kanaimatón” (some evil beings) live and the deity Tramén-Chitá reigns.

So what do you think of this place in my country Venezuela? Don't you think it's worth $ 1000 and up? Hehehe, one thing is certain, I already have several maps and information about the place, I just lack the money to live this traveling dream and that is not impossible, so I will continue to trust that I will soon be able to go there.

_{I have the basics to go to Auyantepui: map, guide and really wanting!}

Many thanks to the entire @pinmapple team and the @haveyoubeenhere community for this opportunity to write and project a bit of what we want to achieve in life.