We just arrived Caracas after spending 10 days riding the beautiful lands of Venezuela’s Gran Sabana, in the National Park Canaima and we wanted to share with you the wonderful experience we had. We’ll start this series with a post describing how we managed to arrive to Gran Sabana from Caracas.
The group
Los 7 de la bici sabanera
This trip was possible thanks to the collaboration of a group of people that gathered to organize and live together this experience. The group called itself «La Bici Sabanera» (The Savannian Bike). After a couple of months working to make the trip, seven people ended up confirming their journey. Seven people representing a wide diversity in ages, interests, experiences and bike conditions. Some had years riding frequently, even with experience in long biketouring trips. While for others, in the other hand, this was their first bike tour ever. In the same way some had experience camping in Gran Sabana while others were first timers. Despite the diversity we were joined together by the wish to make this travel happen.
The plan
The resulting plan from the reunions of «La Bici Sabanera», was to travel together to Luepa Fort and ride through the camps near Troncal 10, for about 7 days until arriving to Santa Elena de Uairén. Then we would decide if we continue to El Paují or to Pacaraima (first brazilian town after the border with Venezuel, also known as La Línea).
One of the biggest problems to make the journey, was how to take a relatively big group all the way to Gran Sabana with their bikes and on budget. The thing is that the personal bags, the bikes and food for ten days of camping, takes a lot of space and is really hard to take it as luggage in the public transportation. You could talk to the bus drivers to arrange something, but being a group of seven made it almost impossible to do it in just one bus. After studying lots of different options, taking into account the times, costs and luggage we decided to go by airplane to the city of Puerto Ordaz, sending the bikes by mail. Once in Puerto Ordaz we’ll have to solve the transportation to Gran Sabana.
From Caracas to Puerto Ordaz
Victoria en el avión a Puerto Ordaz
The airplane to Puerto Ordaz was departing at 6am. We had to be at least one hour before at the airport of Maiquetia, therfore we spent the night at a friends house in La Guaira, a few minutes away from the airport. We got up at 3am to have breakfast and leave to the airport. There was already a waiting line for chek-in in our airline when we arrived. We have to envelope with plastic all of our bags for them to let us do the check-in and also leave in the luggage all the tools and elastic bands for the panniers.
The flight CCS – PZO was really quick, a little bit more than an hour and we were in Puerto Ordaz. It tooks longer to do the check-in and getting back the luggage than flying.
In Puerto Ordaz’s airport there were already arrived our bikes and we could take them out quickly. We were feeling great for how fast and easy it was everyting going on… we didn’t knew the odyssey we’ll have to face to move to Gran Sabana.
From Puerto Ordaz to Gran Sabana
In the airport of Puerto Ordaz we ate and split in groups: one looking for our things and another finding options to move to Gran Sabana from the local bus station that was a some minutes away walking from the airport.
Cuidando el perolero en el aeropuerto de Puerto Ordaz
The first news showed it was feasible to travel that same day, all together in just one bus. We even had two options availables, but both of them were departing at night. Although the bus station was close we couldn’t take everything by walking and we didn’t see many economic options to take the stuff to the bus station. However, at noon, we could hire a big taxi to take the stuff in two trips to the bus station.
It was already lunch time so we went to eat, taking turns to take care of the luggage. To make some time we went to the local Mall Orinoquia, that is a few minutes away from the bus station.
At first we were the only ones waiting in that part of the bus station. We were waiting for the companies that gave us positive answers about the transportation to Gran Sabana to open and buy them the tickets. As the time was passing the bus station started to fill with passengers and we weren’t anymore the only ones waiting to buy tickets to Gran Sabana.
Around 6pm one of the companies going to Santa Elena de Uairen started selling tickes and we decided to buy with them, although we prefered the other one, because the second one didn’t show any signs of working that afternoon. Our bus was going to be the last one of the last ones to get to the bus station, so we had to wait a few more ours seeing how the station was going empty again. The more people was leaving, the more obvius it was that our luggage was really big and the concerns about not being able to get into a buss were higher.
The bus arrived, we talked to the drivers and they asked us to wait aside while they fit in the smaller luggage of the other passengers. The situation was feeling tense and quite hopeless. Whispers and bad looks around our bags and boxes were going on and on. At the end the confirmed what most of us already knew: we had too much luggage and it wasn’t going to get in. They were returning us our money.
The bus left and being the last one the station was going to close inmediately. We wanted to stay inside the station but the soldier closing prohibited us to do so. He suggested to camp in the surroundings, but we didn’t felt good about it, specially for his own concerns about the security around. It was already 10pm and we didn’t knew what to do. After a quick analysis of the situation we decided to build the bikes and leave. We knew that could make it harder to transport the bicycles the next day by bus but it was the best thing to look for a better place to stay that night.We were tired and concerned about the security and the odds to make the travel the next day. However building the bikes gave us great feelings: After a day lost in Puerto Ordaz, finally we were going to ride!
We finished building and setting the load near midnight. Each one after setting the bike and loads started testing their bikes. For some it was the first time they were riding with so much weight and load volume. Handling the bike with that load was a new and weird experience that they’ll have to get use to The first tests were a bit clumsy. To get on the bike was difficult. To ride felt weird. To get off was even harder. Even putting the bike aside was a new problem to solve. A common issue was that nobody took put load on the front, so the bikes were doing wheelies under some conditions. A bit later we were all ready and getting use to the new rides.
Estación de bomberos en Puerto Ordaz
We departed from the bus station looking for a place to stay. We thought in the fire department because someone told us before that they were really close. And in fact a few minutes later we were all 6 of us arriving… «6? Wait, who’s missing?». A small discussion about the streets to take ended up in one person lost in the highways of Puerto Ordaz. Luckily, nothing that couldn’t be solve with cellphones (at this point we still had signal). With all the 7 reunited we asked the firefighters and they let us stay the night.
Saliendo de los bomberos
In the morning we got up early and rode to the San Felix bus station, about 10 kms away. Smaller and with a worst reputation, it seemed a better option to find a bus to Santa Elena de Uairén because of its higher trafic of non-oficial bus lines. In this station there was a woman distributing the passengers to the buses. We talked to her and she treat us really nicely. She told us to take two buses, departing one hour from each other and paying for extra seats for fitting the bikes there. When the first one arrived the driver didn’t make complaints and we started disassembling the bikes to fit them in the bus with the luggage. «Hurry up, I see you’re too slow» the woman was saying while we were organizing the things on the end of the bus. We took the wheels of and fit them as we could in the last row of the bus.
Equipaje y bicicletas acomodadas al final del 1er autobús con destino a Luepa
We were 4 people in the first bus and after 6 hours we arrived to Troncal 10 (the road that goes all the way through Gran Sabana to Santa Elena de Uairén). We got down in the exit to Kavanayen, about 2 kms after Fort Luepa. The first bus had most of the bijes and luggage. There were so many things that the other passengers made a line to pass the things from back to front and outside the bus, so it could be faster and they could leave sooner. We finished taking the things out and checked out if we left something in the back of the bus. The bus left and we started to assembly the bikes, waiting for the other bus to arrive. While we were working on the bikes we notice that one of the bikes was missing a wheel and nobody remembered to load it to the bus. We mantained calmed but felt really worried that we had lost one wheel on the way there, either way for leaving it in the bus station or in the bus. There was nothing else to do but wait for the second bus to see if the had it or not. They arrived about an hour after us and luckily they had the wheel with them. We also got the news that they didn’t were as lucky as us with the bus, and the driver didn’t want to take them. They had to ask a lot and thanks to the woman that fight for them with the driver, they could get in the bus. Thus they couldn’t have seats and had to put all the things in the middle of the bus, to get then off and on in every stop…
Llegada a la Gran Sabana, preparándonos para rodar
Gathered at Gran Sabana and happy of being there (without having lost a wheel) we ate and got ready to ride. At this point we realized that we did lose something in the way there: A helmet was missing and the last time we saw it was in the first bus. However the great feeling of being there, just about to start the journey through Gran Sabana by bike, took away any importance on this loss. Soon we would be riding at Gran Sabana!
That’s how we manage to get to Gran Sabana to start our bike tour with La Bici Sabanera. In the next post will write about how was the road to know the Aponwao Fall.
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Click here o see all the pics of the trip to Gran Sabana.
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