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Roraima is the highest tepuy in the
Gran Sabana, towering 2,800 metres (9,000 feet) above the plains.
Kukenan (Matawi) is its twin. They lie at the confluence of three
countries (Guyana, Venezuela and Brazil) and spawn tributaries of
three of the continent's greatest rivers (the Orinoco, Amazon and
Essequibo). Pemon legend variously describes Roraima as the Mother
of All Waters and the home of the Goddess Kuín, grandmother of all
Men...
Approaching
the Twin Towers of Kukenan and Roraima (right) -- photo: Rafael
Leal, Tepuys Home Page
This section includes
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rest stop at the foot
of Roraima |
 Climbing to and exploring its surface is one
of the most memorable experiences of people's lives. Everard Im
Thurn and Harry Perkin's account of the first ascent of Roraima
is a classic of Victorian exploration (see above) --
it makes you want to drop everything and follow in their intrepid
footsteps.
One small step onto a tepuy's surface
is one giant leap onto another planet. It's the Earth, but not as
we know it. You're surrounded by amphitheatres of rock, carved over
millennia by the unforgiving rains and winds. Faces and animals
and creatures emerge in their strange, other-worldly shapes, while
sweeps of cloud close in all around you, then disappear. Your only
bearings are the faint paths of rubbed-away lighter rock, the footsteps
of all the other trekkers who've come before you. Vegetation is
sparse, reduced to weird and wonderful plants, lichens and mosses.
Water is everywhere, running in rivulets, coursing through crags,
gathering in mustard yellow and mushy pea green-bottomed pools,
constantly seeking the mountain's edge from which to hurl itself
lemming-like.
Roraima is also a mystical place to
be revered. The Pemon twist stories of natural events which in time
become myths explaining a mountain's strange aspect; name tepuis
after a story's protagonist; weave magic and reality into a seamless
blend of narrative. Tepuis house the mansions of the mawariton
high up and out-of-reach. The king of the vultures, Anwona,
hides atop the highest of them, while Rató the water spirit lurks
in the depths of the region's hundreds of rivers. Westerners' flights
of fancy regarding Roraima are no more far-fetched. Arthur
Conan Doyle based his novel The Lost World on the reports
of early explorers to the region, imagining dinosaurs and prehistoric
tribes running amok on the summit. More recent theories claim Roraima
is one of the Gran Sabana's 'Invisible Pyramids' of energy...
 Tepuis such as Roraima and Kukenan continue to withhold some secrets
from science, harbouring hundreds of isolated species -- islands
in time caught up in the clouds. Of Roraima's vast surface, only
44 square miles has so far been explored. The rarest creature so
far found is a black frog, oreophrynella quelchii. Flora
includes many species of carnivorous sun pitchers of which the Heliamphora
is perhaps the most rare and spectacular. It is thought as much
as half of Roraima's species live exclusively on the mountain.
 Atop their quartzite summits
lie labyrinths of pagodas, valleys of crystals and clear pools that
disappear in the depths. Star-shaped, catherine wheel flowers on
long spiny stems, carpets of fuchsia drosera moss, spiky
yellow-orb flowers and carnivorous pitcher plants cling to nooks
and crannies, sparkling in the rare moments of blinding sun. Stunted
trees with wide boughs and spindly leaves evoke parchment scrolls
of Japanese Zen gardens, Hokusai waves of prehistoric rock washed
over by brush-stroke clouds.
The odd bird flits and chatters, but
otherwise, the silence is deafening. You lose all sense of scale,
any track of time. The land is old -- these were once the valleys
of Gondwana and Pangea -- stuffed full of gold and diamonds, charged
with Life's current for over two billion years. The landscape is
in constant motion, and yet completely static, like a giant cog
in the wheel of time, slowly clunking the gears of evolution. It
has witnessed every wonder of Nature, and every folly of Man
 Notes:
Roraima's name has been corrupted from the original
Pemon word 'roroima', 'roroi' meaning blue-green, and 'ma' large.
The mountain is now universally known as Roraima however.
Kukenan's original name in Pemon was 'matawi' meaning
'place to die'. Because the cataract that plunges from its flanks
(the fourth longest in the world), spawns the River Kukenan ('always
dirty'), the name has gradually become corrupted. You might also
see its spelt 'Cuquenan' and 'Kukenaam'.
For more information :
Bibliography
-- particularly Uwe George's inspirational National Geographic article.
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