Tepui Slideshow

Paradise Lost and Found: An adventure to Mount Roraima, a tabletop mountain deep in the Amazon jungle.

by Mark Synnott

Simply put, tepuis are some of the world’s most remarkable geologic formations. They are not, however, well-known among mainstream mountain enthusiasts. Tepuis represent the remnants of an ancient sandstone plateau called the Guyana Shield that once covered an area of roughly 200,000 square miles in the heart of the Amazon. Millions of years of rain and storms wore down the shield, and today, what’s left is about 100 tabletopped mesas rising thousands of feet above the jungle canopy. These giant quartzite cliffs, some as tall as 3,000 feet, have isolated the plant and animal life on the massive summits from the surrounding jungle. For scientists, these bizarre formations represent a true Lost World where countless new species have been discovered. For climbers, the tepuis represent some of the biggest, yet least explored, big walls on the planet.

Perhaps the best thing about exploring in tepui country is the opportunity to spend time with the Amerindian people who have lived in the jungle below these mythical peaks for thousands of years. It can also be a bit depressing at times to see the environmental degradation that has taken place as the result of rampant pit mining.

Our November 2006 expedition to Mount Roraima began with a flight to a small mining village called Imbamadai, deep in the hinterlands of western Guyana. Imbamadai lies on the banks of the upper Mazaruni River, the third-largest in all of South America. As you fly over the river, you can see it is pockmarked with mines, which show up as brightly colored ponds scattered along the banks. On one side of the airstrip lies the old Amerindian village where the indigenous people have been living for thousands of years. On the other side is the mining town, with a store that sells beer, Red Bulls and Cokes (for astronomical prices), and a club called The Pink Pussy Cat Disco.

The miners use mercury to extract gold and diamonds from the slurry, which they suck out of the pits with giant vacuums. So much of this toxic heavy metal has leaked into the river that the villagers warned us against even dipping our feet in the water (this, of course, after we had already gone swimming). We spent two days in Imbamadai, and during that time we visited several of the mines. I think Greg Child put it best when he described the scene as something out of Dante’s Inferno. We were shocked to see miners rolling big lumps of mercury in their bare hands. The thing that was most striking about these guys was their eyes, which were so jaundiced that they literally looked like zombies. It was plain to see that the mining kills not only the surrounding jungle, but the miners, too.  

Now contrast this with the next village we visited, Wayalayeng, home to about 120 Amerindians, including 40 children. It sits perched on a small plateau at the lip of a 300-foot waterfall. As the crow flies, this idyllic little patch of paradise is only about 50 miles north of Imbamadai. But 50 miles is a long way in the jungle, and the trip takes at least two days by boat (only possible during the rainy months, when the water is up). Unlike Imbamadai, Wayalayeng does not have an airstrip. The lack of an airstrip has so far protected the people of Wayalayeng from coastlanders coming in and setting up mining operations.

Wayalayeng today is one of the most beautiful and pristine places I’ve ever seen. It has a crystal-clear river running nearby and stunning views of the surrounding tepuis. The 40 or so families have always lived without electricity, plumbing, and communication with the outside world. They subsist mainly off slash-and-burn farming and a plant called cassava, whose roots yield a tasty potato-like starch. Protein, when they can get it, comes from either fishing the local streams or hunting small deer, tapirs, and agouti, with bows and arrows and machetes. The people of Wayalayeng must produce 100 percent of the food they need to survive. There is no backup and no outside assistance of any kind.

On the Venezuelan side of Mount Roraima, about 50 miles from Wayalayeng, there is a major tourist operation centered around a via ferrata hiking trail that leads to Roraima’s summit. There is a road on the Venezuelan side, and we discovered that construction has begun on a new road that will run somewhere through the vast wilderness that separates this region from Guyana’s capital of Georgetown, hundreds of miles away. Obviously, this road project has major implications for the Amerindians living in this area. 

The trail, which now leads from Wayalayeng to the base of Mount Roraima, was pioneered by our first expedition in 2003, and it has opened people’s minds to an alternative future for this remote corner of Guyana. Would it not be possible for Guyana to designate this area a national park? This may be nothing more than talk at this point, but I personally think this would be far better than letting it become overrun by miners and loggers. The Amerindians, it seems, are worried either way. If the area is designated a national park, would the government come in and take away their land? The bottom line is that the people of Wayalayeng face a very uncertain future.

If you are lucky enough to visit this amazing part of the world, you will quickly realize, as I did, that the real treasures of the Amazon are not gold, diamonds, or logs. The real treasures are the plants, animals, and people that live in this remote corner of the world. The sad reality is that the search for one treasure is destroying another, much like what we’ve seen all over the Amazon basin. As a result, some isolated indigenous communities are choosing to remain remote, much the way their ancestors did for generations.

Mark Synnott is the owner-operator of Synnott Mountain Guides, located in Jackson, New Hampshire, in the heart of the White Mountains.

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Posted on April 24, 2008

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