Water poured out of the clouds down into a limpid pool surrounded by the nearly impenetrable jungle.
It wasn't raining.
Maybe it was somewhere up on the tepui but the clouds that clung to face of the table-top mountain were cottony white, yet still the water tumbled down.
"When can you see the top of the waterfall?" I asked as we swam under the curtain of water falling from nearly a kilometre above.
"It's normally clear just as the sun rises over the range in front but that doesn't last very long." And our guide was right, we had first caught sight of the waterfall as we traced the river along the rough path through the jungle but really had only seen glimpses of it all day between breaks in the clouds as they floated by.
Later that evening as we swung in our hammocks to the earthy sounds beyond the fire, I asked him if he could take me to the see the falls at dawn and he laughed, "Tomorrow's my day off and there's no way I'm getting up that early. If you want to go, just walk that way through the jungle until you get to the river. You'll see them from there."
"Is there a path?"
"Not really from here, but if you just keep going that way, you should get there in about 1/2 an hour."
"What time does the sun rise around here?"
"At about 6:00 I think." Early, even for the jungle.
I continued to swing in my hammock. If I really wanted to see the falls in all their glory, it meant that I would have to trudge for 30 minutes through dense Amazon rainforest with only a small Maglight to guide the way. On the trek leading up to the falls earlier that day we had seen that this was indeed the jungle, complete with snakes, monkeys and ants the size of small mice not to mention the rest of the insects that we keeping up the jungle soundtrack around us.
I turned to my brother who was in the next hammock and asked, "Are you up for it?"
"Well if you insist," he said, draining another of the tepid 20ml Polar beers, "why not?"
Setting my old-style battery powered alarm clock for 05.20, I tried to roll over to get some sleep only to be reminded that I was in a hammock. Catching naps while swinging between two trees can be lovely but if you're not used to sleeping on your back...well, suspended nights can be long.
I must have fallen asleep though because when the alarm went off I was shaken out of a beery sleep. The fire had long ago burnt itself out and darkness enveloped the corrugated tin shelter like a blanket, making it impossible to see where the open shelter ended and the jungle began. I awkwardly tumbled out of my cocoon and shook my brother only to be greeted by a slightly different pitch in his snoring. He was either deeply asleep or had reconsidered.
I was awake and alone but getting into that hammock was little more appealing than what lie beyond the shelter. So I grabbed a bottle of water and a leftover sandwich and started out in the direction the guide had indicated. My tiny Maglight pierced the black just far enough to see a thick curtain of vegetation in front of me and might just give me enough time to make out the colour of the anaconda as I bumped into it. While I don't think it had rained overnight, everywhere I touched was damp and the exposed roots that made for somewhat better footing were slippery footholds above the muddy jungle floor. I listened hard, trying to make out the sound of the river but the night jungle sounds were all that came back to me. With no light above, it was impossible to know if I was moving in a straight line or in circles. Every so often I would slip or have to make my way around the thickest bunches of trees or undergrowth and with no watch, it was impossible to know how long I had been walking.
Then I heard it, the reassuring rush of the river greeted me just before coming to a clearing on a bend the river carved out of the green. On my left a thin line of light broke above the forest's canopy and then a blueish blush started to silhouette the tall trees. To my right, there it was, a thin line of cloud lying across it halfway up, like a revealing bikini that only served to frame its undress.
I must have sat there for a few hours before I heard the rest of the group emerge from the jungle and come up behind me. As they approached I realized that it had clouded over and what had once been a bikini had now turned into a housecoat. "Sorry that you got up for nothing," they jeered but I just smiled.
"I guess the falls are just a little immodest and the show was just for me."
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