Well, it must be said that this was to be one of the trip’s greatest highlights. It was at a very young age that Jon became introduced to a film version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous novel, ‘The Lost World’. He would sit with his brother, Rich, and they would both stare silently into the box, watching in fascination as the team of scientists in the plot, who are in search of the world’s last dinosaurs, become stranded on top of the high Plateau that protrudes gigantically from the dense jungle below. Even more hair-raising for us were the brutal, blood-curdling, roars of the monstrous beasts and the sound of the large trees falling down as they barged through them threateningly. A couple of months ago, a young trekker injured himself on top of the plateau and the emergency helicopter was called to the rescue in order to save him the painful descent on foot. Unlike in the novel, it was the fault of the inexperienced pilot that we could catch a whiff of kerosene, as he crashed into some of the irregular rock formations that dominate the plateau’s moonlike landscape. The dinosaurs that we saw didn’t obliterate any flying machines, but they were larger than we expected and the seemed to roam slowly and in single file on top of the Tepuy (table mountain).
It was only recently that we heard of Roraima and up until this point, we thought that such a film location was entirely fictional. Doyle did get his inspiration from this mountain, and how couldn’t he? This dream of visiting the Lost World became reawakened in Jon’s mind and this resulted in the team being led on an expedition of discovery, with fantastic guides and porters, and an intrepid bunch of interesting international backpackers from a variety of backgrounds. Couldn’t have been better and we shall now reveal!
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