With a few days left in Venezuela, the team headed to the beach to relax and enjoy the surf before heading back to the UK, having sold their boats to Alejandro - the local kayaker and rafter who was kind enough to show us the rapids on the Orinoco.
 
To hear some of the teams stories, and see the photos (and hopefully a short video), come along to Wet West Paddle Fest on the friday night, where the team will be giving a short presentation.  Alternatively come see at the other events we will be at - Lecture Tour.

All of the photos from the expedition can be found here - http://www.robertmoffatt.co.uk/venezuela-2011.html (or will be in a few days - I´ve got one final batch to upload).

I am staying in South America for the next few months, so there will be more photos and updates on my blog - http://www.robertmoffatt.co.uk/blog.html 

Having spent a whole day trekking through the Gran Sabana, another day driving across it and then finally an afternoon of intense negotiations, we finally found a boat to take us up the river to our final objective in the Gran Sabana - a 12m drop.

After all the hassle of the previous days, the boat kept us waiting a little longer, eventually turning up an hour and a half late, so it was a great relief when we rounded the corner to see that the drop still had enough water in.

Now that we´ve completed our goals in the Gran Sabana, it´s time to head to the Caribean coast for a couple of days surfing before the flight home.

After our week on the Orinoco, it was time for the team to head to the other side of Venezuela on the hunt for waterfalls. Stretching for 350 Km the Gran Sabana highway is littered with signs for Saltos and Cascades (waterfalls, and slides), providing plenty of potential for the team.

Our tactic for finding the waterfalls was simple - follow every sign for a Salto. Some of them proved to paddleable, others needed more water (the rainy season seems to be drawing to a close earlier than usual) and others are just simply too big.

Having exhausted all the more spectacular waterfalls clearly marked along the roadside, we found ourselves at the Brazilian border, speaking to the local rafting outfit who were more than happy to provide a few more tips for waterfalls and rapids that we would have missed along the way.

There are a few more waterfalls and sections which we hope to be able to get to - we´re currently exploring options including paramotors and 10km hike ins (not such an appealing proposition in the hot humid weather, surrounded by "la plaga" - the plague like insects which seem to be everywhere).

With 10 days left in Venezuela, we hope to be able to complete our final objectives before heading to the coast for a few days of creek boat surfing, and finally returning to the UK in time for the Wet West Paddle Fest (shameless plug for our talk/presentation on the Fri night.). See you there!?

As promised, here´s a quick selection of the best photos from our week on the Orinoco. We´re now near the Brazilian border in the Gran Sabana, on the hunt for waterfalls - an update and more photos in due course.

So, we've been in Venezuela for nearly six weeks now and up until last week it was all steep low volume read and run grade IV/V fun times. We found ourselves looking at a calender unsure of how to spend the last month of the trip, with three real options, a first descent of the rio Bocono, which would include some very very steep sections and a three day paddle accross a lake, the big volume rio Orinoco, and La Gran Sabana, an area near the famous Angel Falls with rumors of waterfalls left right and center.

We decided that, even though the Bocono would have been an amazing time, the uncertainties were quite big considering how much of our to-do list was left over, so we packed our bags and headed for the second biggest river in South America, the Orinoco!

For the last week we've been having such a blast. The Orinoco splits up to so many channels at times that you can find creeking lines, ferry over, walk up an island and run huge big volume lines, rather reminiscant of back-channel missions on the nile. We met up with local Alejandero Buzzo, who has been sessioning these rapids for the last 15 years. He told us of one rapid that his memory was a little hazy on, as he hadn't run it for at least 10 years, but he was sure that there were big waves and it probably had a safe line down. We put on, feeling a little silly in our huge boats compared to Alejandero's
tiny playboat, and ran the biggest rapid anyone on this expedition has run to date, a roughly 1-1.5km long rapid with more than a few waves over 15 feet high!

Bizzarley enough, Alejandero says that even though he's been paddling the Orinoco for six months a year for the last 15 years, we were the first other kayakers he's paddled with. We decided that this should change and have, with a huge amount of help from Alejandero, mapped out a fairly large number of rapids in the hope that more people will come see what the Orinoco has to offer.

We've just finished up our time here, after nearly blagging a helicopter off the army to get a fly over shot of the huge rapids (we told them we were in Venezuela making a documentary about their whitewater). Tonight we head off to the Gran Sabana, and begin our search for big waterfalls.

Hasta Leugo!

(More photos when we find reliable internet - 4 attempts in an hour and no luck, sorry!)

A few weeks back we recieved the unfortunate news that Joe´s helmet had been broken. It had finally bitten the dust after travelling through countless sticky holes, damp welsh ditches and getting a pounding all across the globe.
 
After one spanking too many it was a complete write off.

We are happy to announce that thanks to the help of 4 Corners Riversports (http://www.riversports.com/), Joe now has a shiney new intact helmet and will be sure to keep it well polished as ever.


We think the moral of the story for Joe is to take care of his helmet and be careful where he puts it in future.

So after our mega awesome time on the Aricagua we headed over to the Mucutuy area to find some more runs. We scouted a section of re-honking-diculous steep continuous gnar, which we decided we were too good for!

We then headed up to the rio Canagua (a different one to the last time), a fairly roadside run, which looked like the first average river we had come accross, just a bit of a rocky grade III bimble. After some great faff, much to Sandra's dismay, we put on with around 20 locals watching us, running, driving and riding donkeys along the banks.

We paddled down some cool rapids which were far more entertaining than we had anticipated from scouting and came to our first horizon line. Not realizing we had failed to see the three meter drop under the bridge the last three in the group were supprised to find themselves boofing over Yonnies recirculating boat, which he had decided to leave after inspecting the river bed in much detail!

We continued on down and were super pleased to find more and more awesome class IV/V rapids turning what we thought would be a two hour bimble into a sweet full day of boating.

A group of 3 young kids had been following us on their bikes the whole way, running down to the river to watch us. It only seemed appropriate to go swapsies and give them a kayaking lesson in return for a go on their bikes!

To top off an exciting week, we were left with three choices of day trip;
- The lower chama, which appeared to be sweet boulder drop grd 4, with the downside of being packed with rubbish and running straight through the city, we discussed the option of pursuading everyone to simultaneously flush their toilets to improve the water level...
- The upper chama, a roadside grade 3 bimble which looked ok from the road (with the downside of being a grade 3 bimble).
- The Santa Domingo, a mythical big volume rafting run with the downside of a solid 7 hour arse numbing round trip over the mountains in the jeep.

We opted for the third option, jumping on the river under a bridge full of eager onlooking locals. The river immediately fires you into 7km of solid big water grade 4/5, with countless big moves (and big beatdowns) to be had. Full carnage formation, we approached the first set of rapids with a mixture of plugging, sidesurfing and generally being upside down.

Warm up over, we got into the swing off things, hitting some solid lines through some very big water. The final two kilometres mellowed out to some epic grade three with big waves for surfing and kickflips culminating in a fairly jazzy looking, river wide walled in weir drop. Cracking day out.

Unfortunately Sam has had return home early (rumours of herpes, marriage and illegitimate children are yet to be confirmed), leaving the rest of us to finish the expedition.

After our failed attempt a couple of weeks ago, we returned to complete the 2nd descent of the Rio Aricagua. Having checked out a more suitable put on, we spent the night camped by the river, eager for the first glimmer of dawn and our opportunity to paddle into the gorges below.

The first 5km were a gentle Alpine style grade 3, allowing us to adjust to paddling with fully loaded boats. Gradually the river began to steepen, and we soon found ourselves paddling through mini gorges enjoying the continuous grade 4 whilst brightly coloured birds drifted overhead, through the jungle that surrounded us.

All warmed up and feeling comfortable with our loaded boats we soon entered the first gorge. As the walls on either side became vertical cliffs, and the river increased in difficulty we continued downstream making good progress, only occasionally being forced out to inspect. The river got better and better, with more continuous read and run grade 4+ as we left the first gorge behind.

We continued down the river at a good pace, only slowing for the hardest rapids of the run before pressing on, keen to finish the second gorge before camping for the night. Eventually the rapids began to ease off, and suspecting that we had completed most of the run we pulled over to make camp, watched keenly by monkeys in the canopy high above us.

Unsure of how far we were from the lake, and how long the lake crossing would be, we were up early the next morning keen to get going. The river was now a continuous grade 3, and we pressed on to the confluence with the Rio Caparo, only pausing to watch a tapir in the middle of a rapid eating the grass from a rock. After 5km we joined the Caparo, passing otters and giant birds (Sandra is adamant she saw a Jaguar...), before eventually the river became flat and we had joined the start of the lake.

Unsure of how far we had to paddle (the lake isn´t on any maps) we pressed on, looking out for the Caimen we had been warned about, but only coming across a 5 foot long Iguana. After 4 hours of paddling we came to the hut where we´d agreed to meet our driver, relieved that the lake paddle was over and all agreed that the previous day had been one of the best sections of whitewater we´d ever paddled. After a successful fishing trip, there were plenty of pyranha for dinner, and the obligatory bottle of local bootleg spirit!

After 2 days scouting, we found a steep river/canyon section running through the town of Calderas. Locals told us that this section had been paddled only once before so we were super excited to get it done.

We slept beside the river in our hammocks with the help of some local spirit and tasty boiled yukka. At the crack of dawn we walked 20mins up to the top of the 8km run during a typical tropical rain storm.

The action started straight away on the rising river with non stop technical grd 4 read and run for the first 3km.

As the riverbank started to gorge in, we came across 2 harder rapids in quick succsession. These were both really cool rapids with the first requiring a sweet right flair and the 2nd some cool boulder dodging and branch removal.

The final 4 km was even more amazing read and run which the team lapped up meeting up with the jeep in no time at all.

Now off too Catutumbo to have a break from kayaking and see amazing lightening storms and floating houses!

We are now packing our stuff up once more to spend the next week in the jungle, for a second attempt at the Rio Aricagua and a handful of other rivers in the area. We should be back in Merida next weekend with more photos and stories to follow.