Pink Boots and a Machete

by Mireya Mayor

  With the muddy soil, protruding roots, and nothing but a single green rope—which was starting to fray—to prevent a 60-foot fall, the climb to Roraima’s base was treacherous. My journal entry noted that the trip “marks the most rugged and arduous expedition I have ever done.” We trekked no less than eight hours a day, and as there was no water source nearby, we could not bathe. I had enough ailments to last me a lifetime. They included terrible stomach cramps, which I could only guess were caused by parasites, and unexplained puffed-up lips, which looked like bananas when I smiled. I took comfort in the idea that they were as swollen as Angelina Jolie’s, though, alas, not as sexy. Worst of all, I had red, blistering sores covering my legs, source also unknown. Even the thought of having to put wet boots on for another five weeks was more than I could bear. To top it all off, our food supply was dwindling, and if we didn’t meet up with the climbers—and our additional food supply—soon, this expedition would fail like the others.

  Everyone was also dehydrated. We carried only enough water for the day, assuming we’d find some kind of stream along the way. Though everything was saturated with water, it was not drinkable. Bruce pointed out that the bromeliads that blanketed the ground were full of water. I dumped one into my bottle and shone my headlamp on it; the water was thick, soupy, and swarming with thousands of microscopic worms.

  We kept trekking. Pinned to a tree was a note left by the trail cutters, who were farther ahead, advising us to continue on and camp by a waterfall. It also said to arrive before nightfall. But we weren’t sure how much longer we had to walk to reach it. We sped up as much as we could. Hours later the jungle finally opened to a place where water had been flowing for millions of years, carving a gash in the landscape. There in the clearing alongside a river was one of the most stunning waterfalls I’d ever seen. We had finally reached the base of Mount Roraima, “the mother of all waters.”

  I jumped into the river fully clothed, swam across to the waterfall, and had my shower.

  As the second week dawned, we still hadn’t linked up with the climbers. The blisters on my legs looked disgusting; weeping and oozing, they seemed to get worse by the minute. Our food supply was now dire. For several days we survived on nothing more than a meal a day. Then that ran out. At night I would eat a granola bar from a stash I kept secretly in my backpack, but eventually those too were gone. If the helicopter didn’t arrive soon with the extra food, we’d need to start walking back, which would mean hiking with nothing to eat. I wouldn’t be surprised if the porters mutinied and headed back without us or our gear. I’d seen it happen before.

  We spent the day searching for animals. Bruce and I dug up some worms he thought might be new to science. We found another worm he said was an alien species. Introduced by European colonists, they had invaded this primal area. We also found huge spiders; some of the world’s biggest inhabit these jungles. Biggest of all were the tarantulas, which seemed to be a dime a dozen. Bruce and I killed some time playing with these hairy and fearsome-looking creatures. Though Bruce was afraid of spiders, he’s a biologist, so I think this was his therapy to get over it. He let the tarantula climb on his head. The Amerindians laughed hysterically. Bruce just looked nervous.

  The laughter didn’t last long.

  Eldon, one of our porters, was laid up in his hammock. I touched his forehead, and it felt very hot. We suspected he had cerebral malaria, common in this area. We all realized that the mosquito that had bitten Eldon could infect any one of us. But he needed to be carried out, and time was working against him. More than ever we needed that helicopter.

  It was a problem for all of us, but the expedition had to stay on course.

  We sent the trail cutters ahead to continue working on the route. Then suddenly a weather front moved in. An awful sound came off the tepui and with it a huge spray inundated the camp. A massive storm caused the waterfall to roar, and its spray alone became a torrent. Jesus and I began stringing up tarps, but the wind quickly ripped them apart. Standing there sopping wet in what had been my last set of dry clothes, I thought, “This would never happen in an office.” But I hate cubicles.

  Bruce was so absorbed in photographing the frogs in his tent that he barely noticed it was slowly starting to float away. He came out, drenched and shivering, with an aluminum blanket draped over his shoulders, and said, “Last thing you want to do is drown in a tent.” The river was rising and the camp flooding. The torrential downpour went on for more than 16 hours. It was the worst storm I had ever experienced.

  That night Eldon took a turn for the worse. We also officially ran out of food. If the helicopter didn’t manage to get in, we’d have to start walking back, storm or no storm. Also out of food, the trail cutters were stranded on the other side of the river. It was running rampant and had risen too high to cross without technical gear. Jesus had rope and a harness. He rigged a line, and the trail cutters began to cross. One false movement, and they would have been over and under and gone.

  One by one, the guys held on to the line. Every one of them went under the current but still managed to pull his body across. Once they had all made it, we spread blue tarps and lit fires, hoping the climbers would spot us from the air. Unbeknownst to us our smoke signals were fruitless. There were little pockets of steam that looked like smoke signals coming up from the forest everywhere.

  By then the rain had stopped, but the expedition still hung in the balance. I went to the edge of the river and noticed that one of the Amerindians had carved MIREYA’S FALLS into a boulder. I smiled. Then, suddenly, I heard a chopper.

  The helicopter flew overhead and missed us again and again. It finally spotted the camp just as our hope was running out. The climbers were completely unaware of the drama that had been unfolding below them. We ran out to clear off the tarps. The entrance was perilous, to say the least. Bringing a chopper in there is extremely dangerous, as forceful down-drafts make holding it steady nearly impossible. There was also not much clearance for the rotors. Unable to land, the helicopter hovered low, and the climbers jumped out. Gear and food supplies were thrown off, scattered in every direction on the jungle floor. My hair flying in the wind, I exclaimed, “You boys sure know how to make an entrance!”

  With ropes, we got Eldon onto the chopper before it pulled out. Sucked down by the same forces that made it impossible to land, it appeared as if it might not have enough power to lift out. As it ascended, it was repeatedly pulled down by gusts of wind. We watched in terror, but the winds finally died down and the chopper pulled out, lifting into the sky.

  The climbers had not brought in as much food as we had hoped.

  We struggled across the river, holding on to ropes, and the going just got harder. As the climb became steeper, the jungle closed in around Roraima’s base, creeping up its sides as if it was trying to strangle the rock. Clinging to a rope, the four or five line cutters in front of us had to cut every branch to clear the path. Finally, we stood below the cliff we’d be exploring over the next couple of weeks. Mark, the most expert climber, led off, with Jared setting the ropes. For those two the climb was tough but not desperate. For me, it was a totally different story. In the two-hour class I took in Maryland, I’d climbed no more than 50 feet above a padded floor. Now I was going to do what most world-class climbers wouldn’t. And, as I mentioned, I’m afraid of heights.

  There were other risks. To be bitten or stung by a venomous snake or insect up there could be fatal. Although ropes would prevent us from plummeting to the ground, getting bitten and falling away from the wall posed serious risks. You could easily break a bone or hit your head. If the bite was bad enough, the victim would have to be lowered, itself a long, laborious, and high-risk task. Snakebites can kill in hours.

  Difficult as this climb was, we were doing it in the most benign way possible, so as not to mar the cliff face. No pitons hammered in, no bolts drilled. As we moved up the face, we tried to leave no sign we’d been there.

  Because the climb was so slow and a
rduous and our time getting short, Bruce, Jesus, Peter, and I called for the chopper to pick us up in a clearing and take us to Weiassapu, a neighboring tepui, while the climbers continued setting the ropes at Roraima. Weiassapu had once been connected to Roraima, but time and erosion had separated the two. The animals on Weiassapu might have developed differently from their relatives only a few miles away.

  The helicopter dropped us on the barren, windswept top. Bruce found more carnivorous plants than we’d ever seen anywhere. Because the soil is so poor, plants have found a way of surviving by trapping insects inside “bladders.” Bruce also found a carnivorous bromeliad, a long tuberous plant with a slick, waxy surface on the inside, making it impossible for captured insects to climb out.

  Meanwhile, Jesus and I took on a much more dangerous mission. We would rappel into an enormous vertical hole called a chasm (technically not a sinkhole but similar) that is hundreds of feet deep. What its bowels contained was completely unknown, and we hoped to find more new species. The longer I looked down on the hundreds of feet under me, the more I resisted, so I tried not to look down. If anything went wrong—if the anchors came out or the ropes frayed—we’d be dead.

  Before the climb I called my mom on the satellite phone to let her know I was OK, thinking it could be the last time I talked to her.

  Hooking my belt to the rope on the chasm’s edge, I longed for those cushy mats and padding I had trained on. Most unnervingly, you must immediately put all your weight on the rope, and just trust that everything is tied up correctly. Thankfully, the rope passed the test. I yelled to Jesus that I was coming down, mainly to tell myself I was going through with this. I don’t know why I kept looking down, but I did. Reaching bottom, I stood in a forest and ventured into some rocky caves, knowing I was probably the first to do that. Looking up, I saw a giant chimney of vegetation and moss. It was humbling and breathtaking. Once there I knew I would have regretted not doing this. With my headlamp, I found a huge spider and got tangled in its web. I put several spiders in canisters. Then I found a strange-looking toad and included that, too. I wondered if it had ever seen a human before.

  Now we had to get out of the chasm. To get back up we had to jumar. Jumaring is the art of ascending a slope by rope, using a toothed, metal clamp. It is murder on your arms and legs. I began ascending and decided to take it slow. But, then, hanging hundreds of feet in the air, I looked up and noticed that my single, fixed rope was rubbing against the edge of the rock.

  The rope had frayed. So had my chances for survival.

  I was still quite far from the top, and my arms were giving out. I stopped to rest, feeling I could go on no longer. I was an insect trapped in a bromeliad. But I’d seen the fray in the rope, and a sudden burst of energy propelled me on. Somehow I made it back—in what had to be record time!

  Bruce and I were absorbed by our discoveries. We took detailed notes on the specimens, drying and packing all the plants. Bruce was especially excited about the toads. They would test the theory of continental drift on animals, as each tepui is like an island, on which species have followed independent evolutionary paths. The camera’s flash never paused in his tent. Then one of the guides brought us a big worm. It weighed a third of a pound and looked like a weird tube. I could only begin to imagine the size of the fish you could catch with it. Bruce made me lick it. He said it excreted a horrible-tasting substance that kept it protected from predators, and he was so right. But it seemed like a good idea at the time.

  Back at Roraima, nearly 2,000 feet above, the ropes had been set. It was time to hook up with the climbers. The chopper delivered us back to a clearing, from which Jesus and I would climb to a camp established on the rock face.

  Crude ladders, spindly ropes, and log stairways were the only ways to the barren cliffs above. We were back on a “trail,” and climbing would again be very dicey. Most of it would be spiderlike. Only Jesus and I were going up. I was scared and excited but still noticed how grimy my nails were. No question, I needed a manicure.

  Mark greeted us and hooked our daisy chains to the wall. All I could think is, “What a room with a view!” Then I saw where we’d be living for the next few days—a hanging “hotel.” A three-foot-wide ledge, with a precipitous drop below. We would have to stay tethered to the wall. Accidents happen when you get comfortable, careless, or lazy and neglect to keep yourself hooked up at all times. Same goes for gear. Basically, anything you don’t want to lose, including your backpack and camera, must be hooked to the rope. Jesus’ very expensive camera fell, never to be seen again.

  Mark and Jared had rigged up the “portaledges,” hanging tents we’d sleep in that night. These accommodations were a flimsy sheet of nylon attached to the rock face by a single, six-inch steel pin. There was no privacy whatsoever. As I saw one of the guys unzip his pants and pee off the ledge, it occurred to me that at some point I would have to “go to the bathroom,” too. What if I had to, you know, do more than pee? I decided to skip meals and drink minimally. I would pee only when everyone else was asleep.

  As night began to fall, the reality of our low-impact style of climbing really hit me. Normally, on a huge wall like this, climbers would drill bolts into the rock from which to suspend the hanging tents. Those bolts can hold thousands of pounds each. But we would be entrusting our lives to “bat hooks,” tiny metal hooks that simply hang over small flakes on the rock face. They’d be backed up by “friends,” camming devices that Mark would slip into the little crevices. They expand and grip the rock. We hoped.

  I lay in my hanging tent exhausted but unable to sleep. I kept staring at the tiny pin that was supposed to hold up both me and Jesus. My first thought was that we should have had less dinner. Then I noticed a spider the size of a dinner plate inside the tent. I was not going to sleep until that spider was out. I shined my light so as not to lose track of it. Then I called for Jesus. He asked if I had it cornered. “No. It has me cornered,” I replied.

  After very little sleep, I awoke at dawn and lifted the nylon sheet. The view was breathtaking. Above the clouds were the most incredible shades of yellow, orange, blue, and purple emanating from the sun. To this day, I have never experienced a more beautiful sight.

  We still had to move up the ropes, and my fingers were seriously blistered. On the midline of the cliff, more than 8,000 feet up, was a hanging garden that might harbor species never seen before. Like everything on this trip it was risky. Just overlooking one basic step could cost you your life. At these heights you make only one mistake. You don’t get the chance to make two.

  Trying not to look down, I concentrated on the beauty that surrounded us, such as the colorful green bird that perched at eye level. His wings under the sun’s rays were iridescent. Wedged into the rock wall, we found a scorpion with all her babies molted on top of her. The contrast was spectacular: the female, black as night, against her clinging, glowing white babies.

  We continued on, and soon the summit of Mount Roraima, Guyana’s Empire State Building, loomed in front of us with all its hidden treasures. It was unbelievable that we’d finally arrived. The place looked completely forbidding, with fantastic black rock formations. We all had chills, not from the cold, but because we knew the significance of where we were standing. We had the feeling we had discovered a missing place. I had never seen or even imagined anything like this: a landscape laid down long before the dinosaurs, even before there were fish in the seas. It was primeval.

  In this veritable lost world, hot water had pushed its way up through this rock and crystallized, creating a garden of jewels in curved and haunting shapes. These diamondlike stones covered the floor and were striking against the black rock. Every few hundred yards, a massive waterfall poured over the rim, and geysers of water burst from holes in the sides of the cliff amid the surrounding electric green jungle. To our collection we added more plants and animals that had developed in complete isolation. A cute little pebble toad, resembling a small dinosaur, crawled on the palm of my hand.
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  As scientists we are trained to think in concrete terms. But when you go to a place like that, you feel the ghosts, the spirit of things that lived there eons ago. It’s not something you see. It was nearly impossible to comprehend just how old this place was.

  As we explored the top of this Jurassic Park, a storm moved in. We took cover in tents, but I worried for Mark and Jared, who had gone off on another climb, one none of the rest of us could have handled. They were too far to get back to beat the storm. Looking into the mist, it struck me that most climbers couldn’t make that climb even when it was dry. Fortunately, they made it back.

  The expedition was over. Although I was anxious to get home to my family, I was also sad to be leaving this extraordinary place. We heard the chopper overhead and quickly broke camp. I took one last moment to absorb my surroundings, trying to commit every detail of this lost world to memory. Once again, the view took my breath away.

  Perhaps discoveries had been made and papers would be published. Regardless, as the clouds reclaimed the summit, time would just move on. Meanwhile, I had caught a glimpse of eternity.

  Eleven

  Leopard on a Gurney

  JULY 13, 2003: It is extraordinary how such an arresting coat blends so perfectly with the freckled light! Basking in the sun, he sat and watched us for a while, then, keeping us in his gaze, stood and began to approach. It was unclear to me whether he was stalking us or exhibiting predatory curiosity. The end of his long tail twitched as his nostrils tasted us. My survival instinct was now nudging me sternly. But then he turned arrogantly to the side, no longer interested, and sashayed through the bushes, turning as he did to give us disruptive bipeds a look of exasperated hostility.