Life
This immense, antientropic, creative force,
order out of chaos,
creation and destruction.
We have a million wild horses inside, sometimes barely contained, sometimes docile. We are a volcano and, for us, 3-dimensional creature in a universe with gravity, there is no better outlet than climbing.

As a first axiom we take, without comments or disputes,
CLIMBING IS.
All other issues fall behind the big issue.

Intent. None of this immense force beyond forces, that sets everything up, and then invites you to come in. You can not touch it, and least use it for you, unless of course there is no YOU.
Transcend and include. The way of the man of knowledge. Out of the infinite possibilities some are offered, some are taken.

Tepuis are where it all began, this humanity chapter, the thirst for beauty, for intensity. Where we took our first steps. Where we might take our last ones… .

The jungle is rejoicing, its sons are coming back.

April 18, 2001
Flight 215 Salt Lake City to Caracas, for three weeks, after two years of not being THERE.

What will you do?

Dunno, the usual. Spend some time with mum and Elside, go climb in La Guairita. Ok, all new faces, I feel happily anonymous, trying to get into the flow of

LA TRAVESÍA.

Ok, I’m a local,

Ok, I’m partial.

But it’s the best damn traverse in the whole world. 250 meters of relentlessly pulling on your digits. Do it back and forth twice and you have climbed

EL CAP

We, the locals of course, that know every single move, can do it effortlessly in a few minutes. Anyway, I’m clumsily trying to regain control over my lost reign as a local, when, out of the blue, as usual, intent struck as clearly as daylight.

José, que haces aquí – what are you doing here?

Henry! por fin alguien conocido – at last someone I know.
He looked at me in disbelief.

We are going to Autana, tomorrow, for three weeks.

I could hear the drumming calling, the ancient gods *** more.

Tomorrow? you mean, mañana, April 20th?

Si, mañana.

And that was that.

So, who’s going?, I shyly asked.

Andrés, Hernando, Ivan y Potronco.

What a team… .

But, how come this is happening? I thought you couldn’t go there.

We’ll do it, Henry said, There are ways.

Intent. Intent. Intent.

I could feel my veins pulsating again, I could feel the dormant cat reawakening.

So, Autana, the real thing. Yes, Autana, the real thing. The jungle is rejoicing, its sons are coming back.

I mean, think about it. Salt Lake City, Man over nature, epitomizing the docilization of those wild beasts and Autana,

MAÑANA?

After a slow winter in Bakersfield, California, to Autana, mañana? My backaches, comfort, reason, everything was uselessly trying to hold back the unleashed force of hundreds of tornados.

The jungle is rejoicing, its sons are coming back.

I could feel intent all over the place, pulsating, uniting, irresistible.

At this point, the reader is obviously asking: Well, what is Autana anyway? Isn’t it just another tepui in the Venezuelan jungle? What is the big deal about it?

Well, it is a BIG DEAL, with capitals and underlined. Of all the tepuis it is the most forbidden, by historical more than anything reasons. Access to it has been closed for fifteen years, due to local disputes among the Indians. Absolutely no trespassing; If you try, you will have on your heels, at all times. LA GUARDIA NACIONAL – the National Guard, EL INSTITUTO DE IMPARQUES – National Park rangers, and on top of that the PIAROAS, ancient fierce warriors that don’t like turistas or gold seekers anywhere near the sacred mountain. And now hey have rifles. It is dangerous, it is *** unless, of course, you are one of us, the locals, Los Tepuyeros, in which case it is not so bad.

The jungle is rejoicing, its sons are coming back.

From a climber’s perspective, Autana’s South West face is, for us, Los Tepuyeros, the last, greatest, biggest challenge left which, I was sure, could not be done in my lifetime. Eight hundred meters of vertical and overhanging fierce walls. We had the team, of which I was a newly found member, we had the gear, the food, I mean, I didn’t even bring a harness or a headlamp to Caracas.

It was all taken care of. Intent.

Henry and myself were not strangers to Autana. It would be the fourth time for both of us. We had climbed previously the East face to THE CAVES.

LAS CUEVAS DEL AUTANA

We had been initiated. The other four were newcomers.

Autana can be brutal and ruthless, or can be kind and loving, or ALL OF THE ABOVE simultaneously. It will find and explore all of your weaknesses.

May 6
Pitch number four: Private dialogue with Autana.

I’ve heard all these good things about you, that you know how to climb and all that. How about a bolt?

What do you mean a bolt?

Well, look at where you are. Trying to get back in shape, thrashing non-stop for two weeks now in the jungle.

So what? I don’t need no stinking bolts.

Oh yeah? And why is that?

Dunno, I always try not to place them, ethics, gritstone, tradition.

Oh! Is that all? I mean, you are kind of runout here. And all that rope drag. You need a bolt.

I can’t believe this is happening.

Do you even KNOW how to place a bolt? Remember last time?

Look, I don’t have that much time, it’s getting late, there’s no TIME to place a bolt.

Oh! Well, how do you know if you don’t even try?

FLASH BACK

Fifteen years earlier, Autana’s East face.

Too sketchy, got to get a bolt in. After 45 minutes of hand drilling, I could erase the marks with my tongue. I gave up, found another PROUD, RUNOUT WAY.

Oh!

Why don’t you try that again?

I’m trying, but there is rope drag and … Damn!

So what’s the hurry? You can ask for your headlamp? What is the big deal?

Ok, Ok!! Hand me the bolt kit!

Embrace the opposites.

I get it, I get it, it is just so much not me.

That’s the whole point

The jungle rejoices. Its sons are back.

The jungle teaches, with blood and steel. There is no easy way. If order is to come out of chaos it has to come through WORK. To survive as antientropic beings in an entropic universe we have to put in some discipline. And there is no way around it.

April 26
Campamento Lombeojos.

Lombeojos is the colloquial name for some small flies, not unlike the fruit flies that have the annoying habit of getting in your eyes, hence the name ‘Leaking Eyes’ or ‘Lombe Ojos’. In this particular camp, we also had the joy of sharing it with other creatures, namely PURIPURIS, small flies that bite real hard, TABANOS, aka horseflies, ABEJAS, bees, AVISPAS, wasps, ZANCUDOS, mosquitoes. The first day is harsh, but after that you ADAPT, and after a few days the overwhelming PLAGA just don’t seem that bad any more. But if you don’t adapt, then you SUFFER, suffering here in the most abstract terms as FAILURE TO COPE with CHANGES, something that any antientropic being that has well-functioning brain cells cannot afford to do if it wants to survive in style.

The jungle is ruthless with the weak.

And there is a lot of weak in all of us, and the jungle just laughs and laughs.

Today was the first day geographically on Autana.

From my previous experience I thought that it would take us two or three more days, at the most, to get to the wall, and then a week or so to climb it. The we would rappel into the CAVES, spend some leisure time there (as I remember with pleasure) and then come down, heroes, another wall off the tick list.

Those were not AUTANA’S plans in the least.

May 1
S where is the damn wall? After fifteen years of non-maintenance entropy (which works faithfully well in the jungle) had claimed the trail back. Even with Lucho, Jose and Alicate (We are talking YANOMAMI EXPERIENCE here), we could not follow the original line for more than a few kilometres. So then we had to ABRIR CAMINO.

Presently, breaking trail in the jungle was not (I thought) one of our weaknesses. Hernando and I thrashed three weeks in three different expeditions to climb just one elusive tepui, el Guadocepupuy. Andrés had been with me in Acopán when Scott Lezar broke both his legs. Andrés himself broke his legs in Kukenán previously. Crispín and Henry had numerous machete epics on their tick list, Jose and Alicate had the ancestral Yanomami wisdom, and Lucho made a living with a machete in his hand.

I told mum I would be back in a couple of weeks and we had not even touched the wall yet. Slowly all the hopes of a quick send went away never to come back and in its place came the magnitude of the endless task ahead, and its taking it day by day, with very slow progress.

If we were to be one with the jungle there was no room for the ‘when it is all over’ past.

Every day we thought we were hours away, until that thought died, and we were left with a rithms, very different from the urban rithm. Jose and Alicate, the Yanomamis, were always laughing, and at this point we were all Yanomamis, Piaroas, children of the jungle, children of the universe.

May 9
It can’t rain so hard for so many hours, it is physically impossible! For the second time in less than 48 hours we are being HAMMERED. Six to eight hours of SOLID rain. If you haven’t experienced it, you don’t know what it’s like. Damn rainy season, couldn’t wait a week or two. We still have food for two more weeks or so, but not the motivation. We are all ready to quit. Not quite. We have Hernando with us. He has painstakingly built a business in Los Roques, famous archipelago in the Venezuelan Caribbean coast, the now well known bar and restaurant Rascatequi. This is his first ‘vacation’ in five years.

Are you guys crazy? We have enough food. We are not going to let a tropical storm or two make us quit without a fight, are we? You have it all easy in Yosemite, don’t you? No, no. We are staying till the food is gone, even if it doesn’t stop raining till then.

Hernando, how can you not love him? The fierce warrior’s spirit was with us through him.

May 1
Henry and I have bee thrashing through the jungle all day determined to get to the wall. By observing Lucho and the Yanomamis, we have learned to go quick, marking just enough to be able to get back. The rest of the team headed back down to try to rescue El Bongo, our only way out, which was on the verge of coming out of existence as a useful means of transportation due to the river’s level going up and down so abruptly because of the rains (and subsequent lack of them.)

Every day we have quit around 3:30pm, to have enough daylight to find our way back. At 5pm we finally give up, and instantly the clouds lift and we finally see our wall. We are way past it. But now we know. We have an hour and a half of light, three hours to get back.

FLASHBACK

Acopán tepui, 1998?

I’m with Scott, who just broke his legs, it is getting dark, we have no headlamps, we are out of the trail. Has Andrés not come to search for us, Scott would most probably have not survived or walked or climbed or danced again. Not only did he bring light, he carried Scott on his back for hours, and next day ran 30km to get to a radio. Andrés’s [*** - legs?] went through misery after that.

Damn, I thought. It’s going to get dark on us, the guys are going to come checking on us. Forty minutes from camp here they come, as predicted, Andrés on the lead.

They went to the river (two hours away without weight), barely saved the boat which was almost broken in half, came back, and as soon as it got dark set off to look for us, “just in case.”

Los tepuyeros are always looking out for each other… .

May 12
Spectacular days, wall climbing as good as it gets. Beautiful small ledges for a person or two, impeccable rock, another first, my first bigbro placement up a delicious overhanging 100ft pitch. Anybody’s dream.

It seems to us that the top is not that far away, although we have a vague memory that we should be only half way through. It has been long since we saw the wall from a distance, it sure seems ours now.

It has not rained ‘hard’ again and the overhanging wall stays dry.

We have been making slow but steady progress. A pitch or two a day. No matter how good of a speed climber you are, when you are putting up a route on a tepui if you can squeeze two pitches in one day you are rocking. I know not any exceptions to that rule yet.

We are 400m up. We are not far from the top (we think). We are running out of food, so Ivan rappelled down and went with Andrés to previous camps where we had stashed some extra food. When they get back we will burn our bridges with the ground and go for the all or nothing push. Spirits are high, Autana has been smiling for several days.

April 29
Lucho is the reason we are here. He knows all the Indians. We are using his bongo. Jose and Alicate work for him. He has traveled with Henry a lot before on photographic assignments. He is a mad dude, he is going to the top with us. Today though he made a mistake. His boot broke, and trying to repair it he pushed all the way through his thumb with the needle.

FLASHBACK

Autana, 18 years earlier.

In the most unlikely expedition there is the late ***Chuty (my first climbing partner), two Spaniards and Rambo 33, the ‘organizer’, who has a survival knife with stitches and all that. We are on a single ledge, on the East face, putting up a new route.

Presently he is concentrated taping his survival knife to a stick he has in his hand, trying to make a spear. I hope he knows what he is doing, Chuty and I thought simultaneously just before we saw the knife sever his finger. We had a point, his hand was never the same.

However, Lucho’s is bad news. I was counting on him for breaking trail that day, he is by far the best of us (with the Yanomamis) for the task. In the jungle, wounds get very infected, it is not good. He stares at his right hand finger. It looks VERY painful. He breathes deep and slow. Everyone is quiet – ten minutes later nobody has spoken.

So where are those boots I can use today?, he asks casually. Let me see that machete there.

Not one word of complaint. He broke trail all day. As if nothing had happened… .

That’s Lucho, the good warrior.

May 8
Ivan just led the sketchy key traverse and now I’m heading up an easy chimney with some loose blocks. I have a lot of experience with loose rock but in spite of that my toe touches a TV-size rock which had been waiting perhaps thousands of years for an excuse to pitch off. I shout a warning as it beelines for the ledge where Ivan is belaying.

FLASHBACK

Autana, North ridge, 20 or more years earlier.

The leader touches a block that comes down right through Lictor ***Torre’s leg. He was lowered, [***horsepigged = piggy-backed?] for hours to the boat, and finally reached a doctor two or three days later. After two days in the jungle a compound fracture gets pretty infected. Two years later he was finally able to walk properly and climb again.

Presently, the rock miraculously hits the wall right at Ivan’s level and shoots straight out into the void. I can still see it in slow motion Ivan, jerking back as the boulder goes by millimeters from his face. As close as close can get.

May 14
Andrés and Ivan are back with news. Yesterday they hiked out to the bongo. Jose and Alicate had eaten the stashed food, so they all rode out to Caño Manteco seguera, a small Indian village we could see from the wall. Here they realized we had not been as anonymous as we would have liked to have been. There were rumors of people in Autana almost since the day we took off. Besides, Potronco’s permit to be on the river as a tourist had expired after 20 days. And on top of that there had been two deaths. First, a tourist had died near Seguera of a heart attack before we got there. Second, there was the Delfin incident. Lucho used to work for Delfin. Then Lucho started his own successful business, something that Delfin never quite liked. It seems that he was one of the main rumor spreaders. Two days ago he took some tourists to Seguera. At one point he was by himself in La Voladora (The Flier), a very light boat with a big, potent engine. You have to be very careful though. If you accelerate and the accelerator gets stuck, the boat will stand vertically on the motor’s end. Then, very likely you will fall back into the water, right where the engine is. It is a well known accident among Voladora drivers. This is precisely what happened to the experienced Delfin. The motor cut his throat and arm. He still managed to swim to shore, stand up and say – So this is how I die – and died, fully aware of the cause.

To summarize. Nothing ever happens in the Autana area and now there are two deaths, a foreigner, a foreigner with an expired permit, and a mysterious group of people in forbidden land. The Piaroas were going up the very next day to find out what exactly was going on, and so was the National Guard. They knew our cars, and all the alcabalas (guard checkpoints) were waiting for us. Our main concern was Lucho’s work permit. We had to get out of there quick, and everything might be ok. The longer we stayed the worse it would get. So next morning Andrés and Ivan hiked all the way up (five hours, with no weight, going fast) with the news. After a swift debate we came to the only possible conclusion.

The only way to get down in only one push was to leave the ropes fixed. At dusk we were all on the ground, had some food, and started hiking down in the dark. Half way down the main talus, it started raining cats and dogs again. After a couple of hours of that we reached Campamento Camerones, where Yanomami Jose had build a roof with sticks and banana-like leaves. Ten minutes after getting there we hear this rumble, point the headlamps toward the little stream we had just crossed, which was now a torrent, three feet higher than it had been. It rained super-hard all night, topping out the two previous big storms we’ve had. Next morning it stopped and with first light we were on our way. All the rivers (more than twenty) were very high, and in several spots the trail was a knee-deep swamp.

Five hours later and 200m from the bongo, Hernando and I, the last ones, see an unexpected sight. Seven people are walking up the trail towards us, all with rifles, one of them barefoot.

You guys hunting?, we ask.
Yeah.
What are you hunting for?
Monkeys, turtles.
Oh? We saw some.
How long ago?
About five days.
How long have you been in here?
About a week. Hey, good luck.
Thanks.

They kept going. Crux number one was over.

Now, cruising on the bongo the outrageous Venezuelan rivers is a very rewarding experience on its own. More so for us, who for the first time in a month didn’t have to do a thing. A combination of perfect timing, good luck and slick local knowledge allowed us to go through crux number two, the National Guard.

We had escaped. Lucho wouldn’t have a problem. We passed all the alcabalas, in spite of Hernando’s broken windshield and his lack of driver’s licence. Lucho fixed Potronco’s permit problem just before they were off to look for us. We were home free.

May 17
It’s not over till it’s over.

Last leg, Puerto Ayacucho to Caracas. As soon as we take off, tropical storm number four breaks loose. I thought we should wait it out because of Hernando’s windshieldlessness. But Hernando insists.

I can drive, he says.

The next two hours I’m sitting with Andrés and Ivan in Ivan’s pickup with Hernando leading the way, testing his Gore-tex jacket. In every alcabala they feel sorry for him and let him go without a hassle. Every time we finally outrun the storm, there is a ferry river crossing, and it catches up again.

It is good practice for my sailboat, he says.

April 27
Just got back, everything is wet. We need a fire. Wood is wet. Each of us, one at a time, do our best efforts to get a fire going. Even Lucho, with his plastic bag trick, or Hernando with his ‘always works’ candle method, fail. Alicate observes. He is our last resort.

The Yanomamis have lived in the same environment for hundreds of generations, and each subsequent generation receives the important information younger and younger. Alicate knows every plant and how to use it. Finally we give up and ask him for help. He laughs, goes to a nearby tree and gets some bark.

Try this, he says.

The fire rages, knowledge wins again.

Tepuis are sacred
We love tepuis
We climb tepuis
We are Los Tepuyeros

To be continued…