Updates from Atlantic Rising: Guyana, a Victorian Expedition, and Exploring with Charles Brewer-Carias
Atlantic Rising is a project that seeks to educate about global warming, by following the Atlantic overland along the 1m contour line. Atlantic Rising is funded by the Royal Geographical Society, and works with schools around the world to interact, educate, and create a conversation about global warming.
Here are some of our latest updates!
Four vignettes of Guyana
Morning
It is 5.30am in the morning. The sun is creeping over the horizon. I am driving along the coast road back from the airport. Early morning joggers pad along the sea wall, silhouetted against the grey dawn. Otherwise Georgetown is still. I turn the car onto Camp Street and cross the fetid canals latticing the city. A low mist hangs over the water. At the junction of Camp and Barrack Street the stillness is broken by a moment of conversation. A hundred people have gathered in a crowd. Young and old stand together, white and blue shirts standing out in the early light. They talk in low voices, a quiet murmur hanging in the air. All are dressed smartly for work. Breakfast bags gripped next to their sides. Umbrellas hanging limply from wrist. They stand patiently. As if they have been standing for days. Waiting. This is the passport office. It opens at 9am.
Afternoon
Its 11am at The School of Nations. Twenty five children sit in the school’s one air-conditioned classroom. They are telling us about themselves. Black, brown, white, Malaysian, Canadian, Nigerian, Guyanese. They are the children of the local and international elite. Gold, Timber, Bauxite, Diamonds. Their parents burrow under Guyana’s skin in search of mineral wealth, whilst we talk about climate change equity. Doctors, Engineers, Lawyers, Inventors. They will study at the best universities in Canada, England and America. They don’t want to make money, they tell us, they want to make a difference. “Will any of you come back to Guyana?” Silence. One girl speaks. “The reason our parents send us here, is precisely so that we don’t have to come back to Guyana”.
We had a nice drink with the Prime Minister. The poor man had had an English education and so could still recite politcal acts from the 19th century like they had been beaten into him. Which they probably had. Here's Lynn's blog about the occasion.
As we travelled south we encoutered one of the many gold mines in Guyana's rainforest. It had taken them three days to clear the trees and start excavating this area. They estimated they would be here for five days more before they had exhausted the soil of gold. It was depressing.
This is where Marcello and Darshana took us when we first arrived to show us the most beautiful bit of Georgetown. Most of the capital city lies below sea level and this dyke protects residents from severe flooding.
A very Victorian expedition
Birthday presents on Atlantic Rising are given and earned through a careful process of negotiation. For a long time I had wanted to climb Mount Roraima, a tabletop mountain or tepui, in southern Venezuela and after much arm twisting Will agreed to indulge me.
It was to be a great Victorian adventure. Roraima has such steep cliffs that for many centuries it was considered insurmountable. Explorers failed to return from expeditions to its foothills, inspiring Conan Doyle to write a tale of a Lost World nestling on its summit, inhabited by pterodactyls and the missing link between man and ape.
Lynn sensibly opted to stay at home.
The briefing lived up to expectations – Mystic Tours informed us that we might encounter paranormal and metaphysical activity along our journey. Its owner, Roberto, who prefers to ascend Roraima by helicopter, believes in that kind of thing, and we looked dubiously over his charts of UFO sightings and alien landings. Disappointingly, flying saucers look just like flying saucers, but we were heartened by the depiction of the aliens we would meet, resembling elfin princes straight from the pages of Tolkien.
And so the rite of passage began. The first trial was to endure the swarms of puri puri that descended upon us. Our guide Alex grinned at out ineffectual efforts to bat these sand flies away “you’ve come to enjoy nature, so let nature enjoy you too”. Our French walking companions translated puri puri as “rotten rotten” and joined us in cursing and squelching our way up the mountain in relentless rain. Rotten Roraima, rotten holiday. Roraima, we discovered firsthand, is one of the wettest places on the planet. It rained with a gleeful abandon that suggested we were doing something to upset the gods.
Having lived in a car for the last 10months we are perhaps not the fine physical specimens we should be and it was a tiring few days before we reached the top. There, for a brief moment the blank canvas of cloud parted and we looked out over vertical cliffs plunging into the Guyanese rainforest.
Mount Roraima. Over 2500m tall, with a summit plateau spanning over 150sq/km, guarded on all sides by 400m cliffs. Easy. Photo: Charles Brewer Carias
Name: Tim Bromfield. Last period of intensive exercise: September 2009 - loading car at Lynn's house. Favourite hobby: writing diary.
The top of Roraima is a rocky mass of smooth boulders, colourful vegetation and precipitous cracks and crevasses. Photo: Manu & Cecile.
Now that's what I call adventure - an encounter with Charles Brewer-Carias
“Let me tell you a story”, Charles Brewer-Carias fixes me with cool eyes and an enigmatic smile disguised by a moustache which looks like it has fought its way off the pages of The Dangerous Book for Boys.
With 27 species of flora and fauna bearing his name and over 200 expeditions to the Venezuelan jungle under his no-nonsense belt, Charles is something of a legend in the world of exploration. He speaks six languages, holds the world record for making fire with sticks (2.7 seconds), has his own brand of hunting knife, has discovered the world’s largest quartzite cave and the world’s oldest living organism, he’s a national swimming champion, former Minister for Youth and Sport and a qualified dentist to boot. To compare him to Indiana Jones is to do him a disservice.
Charles’s day commences in the gym of the Caracas Country Club, where he completes a routine of 80 pull-ups, 80 tricep dips and 80 press-ups before breakfast. Lynn had the enviable task of assessing his pectorals which bounce on demand. He took us back to his home in the mountains above Caracas where we sparred, in the conversational sense, my ability to ask questions outmatched by his ability to tell stories. He is indefatigable. And at the age of 71, living proof that age is nothing more than a state of mind.
His study is a catacomb of books, the writings of Humboldt, encyclopaedias of Venezuelan wildlife and manuals on knifecraft. Earlier in the day he had been taking photographs of mosquitoes as they sucked blood from his fingers and close at hand stood a chemistry laboratory clamp holding a branch in position for photographing deadly ants.
Sitting at his desk in front of a gigantic iMac he tells us that he is an anachronism, better suited to the nineteenth century - a century of explorers and discoverers - than our own. He disdains the current trend towards specialism, “what happens if there is a nuclear holocaust?” Few people would have the preparation to survive following such a crisis. And Charles is all about preparation.
Charles says that he has always been afflicted by a sickness. A sickness of curiosity. He always wants to know more. To expand his horizons. This photo was taken in a small part of his study. Which only has a few of his books in it. Photo: Will
Throughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s Charles led hundreds of expeditions (his total now stands at 270) into remote corners of Venezuela. This photo was taken on an expedition up the Rio Baria in 1987. Photo: Uwe George.
On the first day that we met Charles he had been photographing a rare ant, whose bite was poisonous enough to seriously disable you. Just another day in the office then. Photo: Will
feature photo: frog on Mount Roraima
This frog has a black back, but a yellow belly. When threatened it rolls over on its back and shows the belly. Predators confuse it with the poison arrow frog and don't eat it. That's the theory. When we encountered it, it was very content to be picked up and played with. The only time it went on its belly was when we turned it over to look at the yellow. Evoloution embraces complacency on Roraima.
All photos courtesy and copyright Atlantic Rising.
Lynn Morris is the Atlantic Rising Editor for Wandering Educators