Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 02:17:50 -0200 From: "Fernando Rivadavia-Lopes" <fe_riva@uol.com.br> To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg182$foo@default> Subject: Neblina II -- the Japanese Expedition
To all,
A newsflash from the rainforests of Brazil.....
For those of you who may not remember, last year I climbed
Mt.Neblina, the highest mountain in Brazil (and one of the most isolated
places on Earth) in hopes of finding the exotic living fossil called Drosera
meristocaulis. This was very important for the work I was doing with this
genus and because of this, my ex-supervisor from Japan, Hasebe-san, decided
to go there himself and take another look for it, due to the importance of
this species. Coincidentally, my friend Shibata-san wanted to go there too.
She has been all over the Venezuelan tepuis, but had never gotten around to
climbing Neblina since it is so far away and isolated. Now that she knew
that it was possible to climb it from the Brazilian side, she decided to go
for it. So she joined forces with my Hasebe-san and 5 other Japanese,
arriving in Brazil in late December '99. In fact they almost didn't arrive
because they'd been planning to land in Caracas and drive down to Manaus by
car, just to have a quick look around the Gran Sabana. But because of the
recent tragic floods in Venezuela, the airport was apparently closed. So
they had to make last minute changes and flew into Manaus through S.Paulo.
They spent Xmas in the small town of Sao Gabriel da Cachoeira,
on the Brazil/ Venezuela/ Colombia border, making arrangements and getting
the permits. They then spent a total of 14 days out in the jungle, before
arriving back in S.Gabriel. I haven't heard from Shibata-san yet, she's
probably still recovering from the trip. But last week I met with Hasebe-san
on his way back from Neblina. He had a full day here in S.Paulo before
catching his flight back to Japan.
We had a great time discussing plants in general, and especially
Drosera, as I drove him all around town. He told me all about their Neblina
expedition. Guess what? They couldn't find D.meristocaulis AGAIN!!! Well, to
tell the truth, I had little hope they would -- considering they went to the
same place we did last year. And the friends who were with me know how
desperately I searched for it, right Gert? Even after climbing the damnest
difficult trail to teh top of Neblina on the last day, Gert and I returned
to the are where H.tatei var.neblinae grew and stayed there until sunset
searching for that damned plant -- arriving back in camp at 9pm if I
remember well, walking for an hour and a half in complete dark with only one
flashlight! I'll never forget how physically and mentally wasted I felt --
not to mention pissed at having missed my last chance to find
D.meristocaulis on that trip!
Anyways, thanks to my tips -- as well as all the heavy money
they decided to waste! -- the Japanese expedition was a walk in the park
compared to ours! The worst thing about our trip were all the fights with
the guides and porters about weight. We were 8 tourists, plus 2 guides and 3
porters, but it was just too much weight to go around. We had a hell of a
time hiking up and down that mountain because of all the weight we each had
on our backs and we hardly enjoyed the trail at all.
Well try to guess how many porters the Japanese took? 5, 10,
15?? No, they took **20** porters!!!! That's right, TWENTY! Oh, plus two
guides too!! One of the guides was Deco (the quiet one we took) and the
other was somebody else we didn't meet but who -- believe it or not --
actually spoke English! And GOOD English too, according to Hasebe-san! How
they ever managed to find an English-speaking guide in that hell-hole called
S.GRabiel I'll never know!
As for the porters, they did not take Ianomamis Indians like we
did (tiny men, but incredibly strong and resistent -- and also very cheap!).
They took instead garimpeiros (illegal miners, which is the only thing that
attracts people to these remote regions) from Sao Gabriel, who charged them
about US$30 per day each!!! Calculate how much that is times 20 guys times
14 days!! Apparently they forgot about what I had written, that the guides
in S.Gabriel would be reluctant to take Ianomamis (not sure why) and would
try to force garimpeiros on them. The Japanese had considered going to
Neblina by helicopter, but it just came out too expensive. The helis have to
come all the way from Caracas or Manaus -- a LOOOONG way from there.
Anyways, it was relatively very dry this year in that region.
The large Podostemacea we saw on the rocks along the Rio Negro by S.Gabriel
were all dead or in seed, no flowers or green leaves left. The boat ride to
the base of Neblina (and back) took about half a day longer than it did for
us. They went in two large boats apparently and had to get out several times
so the boats could be manually dragged past rocky places in the river. We
didn't have to do this a single time, neither on the way there, nor back,
since it rained just before we left and right before we returned. It was
still muddy at the top of Neblina, but believe it or not, practically no
Helis were in flower! They only found about 3 scapes and apparently got no
seeds! We saw LOTS of Helis in flower and got plenty of seeds of both
species, H.tatei var.neblinae and the smaller new species we found there
H.sp."Neblina".
Well, here comes the worse part of the story. Unfortunately,
there was something else they apparently forgot about my mails. They didn't
see that magnificent H.tatei var.neblinae site, the only one we found for
this species!!!! It was the best CP site and they didn't go there! This is a
REAL pity, especially because I'm certain I mentioned this to them several
times since I insisted that they camp there, and not at the cramped place
where we'd camped. It was not much further along the trail and there was
much more space for tents -- not to mention that it was a MUCH more
interesting area too! BUT... Hasebe-san maybe did see H.tatei var.neblinae
at a site which we didn't find. Unfortunately he was exploring alone that
day and Shibata-san didn't get to see this site either....
Probably the weirdest thing about this expedition was that among
the 7 participants, there were four ladies. The youngest one was Shibata-san
(who's age I will ommit, since I'm not sure she wants everyone to know!
:):) ) while the other 3 were all above 55: one around 55-60, another around
60-65, and then the oldest lady was **70** years old!!! And believe it or
not, they ALL made it to the top of Neblina!! Amazing isn't it? Well, if you
think it's surprising that they made it to the top of Neblina, you'll be
even more shocked to hear that these 3 older ladies have also recently
climbed **MT.EVEREST**!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! UNBELIEVABLE!
You see, the leader of their Neblina expedition was a guy named
Kuraoka-san, a good friend of Shibata-san's who frequently travels with her,
especially to remote tepuis. He's a crazy rock climber and is hooked on all
sorts of radical sports. He's been to the top of Mt.Everest twice himself!
Anyways, he makes a living (partly) by guiding people on wild hiking and
trekking trips. So these 3 elderly ladies (and maybe a few others, I'm not
sure) on the Neblina expedition were actually clients of Kuraoka-san's, who
have travelled with him before. Apparently, while organizing the porters and
other details at S.Gabriel, the guides almost refused to go along when they
saw the old ladies! HA!HA! They had to be convinced by Kuraoka-san that the
"grandmas" were fit for the trip! It was apparently the talk of the town
when they got back -- nobody could believe such old women had reached the
top of Neblina. Hell, neither could I!! HA!HA!HA!
In fact, there was also another similar curiosity about their
trip. Apparently, they had to camp a bit further upstream from where we did
last year, because our campsite was already occupied by a French team. The
French apparently camped at the very top of Neblina on New Year's Eve
because they were there for a reason: a wedding at midnight!!! Yep, some
crazy French couple not only came up with this lame idea, but also decided
to drag their poor relatives up there for the event! Talk about a
troublesome wedding, huh??
Another bit of interesting news was that Hasebe-san saw plenty
of Saccifolium on Neblina. This is that really strange plant which is only
known from the very top of Neblina. It has inverted cupped leaves and it was
one of the reasons we were climbing the mountain: to find out if it was
carnivorous. Knowing what it looked like from the pictures I sent him, he
had no problem finding more. We spent hours searching and only found one
plant -- and it was quite different from the drawing in the paper where it
was frist described.
Well, I'm really happy to hear that my Japanese friends had a
great time and much less trouble than we did last year on our Neblina
expedition. It's a pity though that they didn't see the H.tatei var.neblinae
site (see pics on my website and on Andreas Wistuba's). Asfor the elusive
D.meristocaulis, it is apparently restricted to the N and NW corners of the
Neblina mountains, which is on the Venezuelan side. Unfortunately this area
is apparently only accessible by helicopter. Any CPer out there bursting
with $$ they wanna donate to a good cause??? :):):)
Best Wishes,
Fernando Rivadavia
Sao Paulo, Brazil
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Jan 02 2001 - 17:35:05 PST