Every time we traveled to a new crag or area, we hit the road at 5 a.m., or 4:30 a.m. New York time. This will require some explanation.
One of the many—some say pointless—changes to come with Chávez’s socio-political movement, called the Bolívarian Revolution after the 19th century South American liberator Simón Bolívar, was setting the clocks half an hour ahead of New York. Jose interpreted this as a show of power—as if to say, “See? I control even time.”
It’s not just time that is off; the currency situation is a mess, too. As of 2008, the country uses bolívar fuertes, a “stronger” currency than the traditional bolívar. The official exchange rate is about two bolívar fuertes to every dollar. However, the black market exchanges at roughly five to one, an illegal statistic to print in Venezuela. So, bring cash and exchange it in the airport terminal with one of the aggressive peddlers who, don’t worry, will come to you.
Time, money and laws: they’re all subject to the whims of the Venezuelan free-for-all. Some sources estimate that as much as 70 percent of the oil revenues are off the books. The police are completely corrupt. In one sour encounter, a fat cop pocketed Boone’s Blackberry as we were all being patted down against the car. We had to bribe the swine with $40 to get the phone back. Nothing “works,” it just moves.
This may provide a glimpse into why it was necessary for us to wake up at 5 a.m. to do a three-hour drive. You never know what you’re going to get into, and you may not reach your destination for another 12 hours. This also explains why it’s sometimes necessary to take a swig of Ron Selecto before the rooster has finished crowing.
Ron Selecto, aside from being an amazing porn name, is one of Venezuela’s finest rums, produced by the Santa Teresa distillery, a sugar-cane plantation in the llanos that lie west of Caracas. Due to preferences in oak, and industry standards in aging, Venezuelan rum is more akin to sweet Kentucky bourbon than the frou-frou stuff served to the girls who are with the guys in Tommy Bahama shirts in Las Vegas. Gustavo Vollmer, the grandfather of the Santa Teresa distillery, is one of the all-time wealthiest Venezuelans. The pediatrician who attended to Vollmer’s children was Jose’s grandfather Francisco Miranda.
After Jose turned 18, he attended two years of veterinary school in Maracay, but soon realized that completing his education would take 10 years due to the constant student and teacher strikes. Jose’s grandfather suggested talking to Vollmer to see if he had any suggestions for a young man interested in agriculture and animals. Vollmer liked Jose, and offered him an opportunity to work on his ranch in Billings, Montana.
After working a couple of years on the ranch, Jose told Vollmer that he was interested in going to Montana State University, in Bozeman, to complete a program in animal science and ranch management. Vollmer paid for his education and said that if Jose ever showed up at his door to pay him back, he’d pretend he didn’t know him.
One summer Jose worked as one of two climbing instructors at a summer camp in Virginia; the other instructor was Kami, from Wisconsin. After their summer fling, Kami declined Jose’s invitation to move back to Montana with him, and he left without her. Two weeks later, Jose called Kami from a bus station all the way in South Dakota to ask if she could pick him up and drive him the rest of the way home. “How could I say no?” Kami joked, recounting the tale. When they reached Montana, Kami was surprised to find that Jose had already rented them an apartment.
“I always try to buy Ron Selecto,” Jose said. We had left the plush luxuries of Puerta La Cruz and were now camping on the Lolokal property in the mountains of El Caripe. The air was clean and smelled of flowers. Miles downwind, the faint orange glow of an oil fire burned in the twilight. This was the only clue that civilization still existed.
Jose laid a domino tile on the concrete floor of his future home. He picked up the rum bottle, and turned its bottom toward the zenith. A few jiggers disappeared into the center of the thick black beard. “The Vollmers are a good family,” he said. “They take care of others.”
Though Jose’s story seems extraordinary, this type of hospitality also seems to be quite common in Venezuela. Complete strangers opened their home to the dozen of us climbers, and even cooked us delicious meals so long as we supplied the food. I don’t know if this is a warm byproduct of a socialist society, or just basic human decency, the kind that we Americans have abandoned out of paranoia and fear.
Kawak carried a machete down into the forest to pick some tangerines. Jose helped. He plucked the ripest fruits from the branches and threw them so they gently struck his son on the head. Kawak laughed. Kawak and Paz are being home-schooled by their parents. Jose proudly boasts that Kawak has already attained a degree in farm-animal care.
Seeing this interaction was a little heartbreaking for Boone, who hates being away from his 8-year-old son, Nic. Boone had proudly explained that Nic recently received an A+ on a report he wrote on three-toed sloths. “Their heart beats once a minute, and they can only move 30 feet in an hour,” Boone recited. In Venezuela, sloths grow on trees, literally and figuratively. “If I could get a picture of a sloth to give to Nic, it would be everything.”
That night Sam, Emily and I lay shoulder to shoulder, “like an Oreo cookie,” as Sam observed. We looked up at the black fathomless canvas pocked with untold tiny white lights. Emily had never seen fireflies before. We watched the insects go about their peculiar business. Politics, money and laws, which often intrude so painfully in quotidian life, felt absent out in the wild mountains of El Caripe. People are forced to exist awkwardly somewhere in the space created by these two irreconcilable worlds—just another one of the lame jokes played on humankind.
During the trip, we had stopped at a few less-than-inspiring crags. By that, I mean low-angle sun-baked choss that is guarded by nefarious insects of exaggerated stature and banded together in extreme numbers. One day ants the size of quarters bit me and I broke out into hives the size of dinner plates.
There was also a black “bee” that lived on many cliffs. The bees burrow into your hair—just your hair, for some reason—and go to work secreting glue to embed themselves there. On various occasions I was forced to climb dirty runout terrain with the maddening sensation of buzzing insects crawling on my scalp. When that happened, I promptly lowered and demanded that my partner pick the bugs out, like we were monkeys.
Toward the end of the trip, we reached the quiet village of Miraflores, the entrance to La Puerta, the best sport-climbing area in Venezuela.
From the Lolokal property, it’s less than a two-hour drive to Miraflores. This town is a precious and happy anachronism. There is no cell-phone reception, no grocery store and no campground or hostel. There is a tiny tienda, really just a local woman’s kitchen, which sold beer, chips, eggs and basic supplies. Next to the tienda is a natural spring, freshly filtered by the dark, rich soil.
The people of Miraflores wake up at 3 a.m. when the rooster crows and ride their horses or donkeys up into the hills to work their lands. We stayed with an old rancher named Cheymo. Our three days spent here offered a rare glimpse of what a true community looks like. Everyone knows each other, works with each other and helps each other. And everyone is peaceful and content.
From town, the climbing area is one mile up a flat, paved path that crosses through the river three times. After the third crossing, the forest abruptly ends and 600-foot walls appear. Coming upon this anomaly is a truly arresting and visceral experience that sets your chest on fire. It feels as though you are about to enter a portal that leads to a mysterious and benevolent place. You feel small in front of these immense white walls. The stiff breeze cools your hot face.
We noted an astounding compilation of rare aspects. Because the walls are so tall, the climbing is always in the shade. The consistent stiff breeze keeps the conditions in legitimately good form. The approach is only 20 minutes. It feels spiritually restorative to be in a place like Miraflores, where the people are so nice and life is so simple. And the routes are just fantastic.
La Puerta has about 150 bolted routes, many multi-pitch, and room for 500 more. Most of the climbing is moderate, in the 5.9 to 5.11 range, though there are more than enough 5.12s and 5.13s too.
We climbed a 150-foot 5.10, but it wasn’t this combination of length and difficulty that was so distinctive; it was the consistency. Every single move was brilliant, a bit challenging, and completely absorbing—so absorbing that you didn’t even notice the 25-foot run outs between the bolts.
We climbed one anonymous route that we all agreed was the single best 5.11 any of us had ever done. It miraculously linked the most deliciously juggy tufas for a full 100 feet of climbing. You’d climb one tufa feature until you were standing on top of it, looking at the hold-less white wall, only to reach up and grab the tip of the next hanging stalactite.
La Puerta was a place of blank beauty. The essentially grade-less and nameless lines forced us to reconnect with our most creative instincts as climbers. These are the reasons to travel, and they are experiences you can have anywhere, I think, as long as the setting is powerful and you are with people you love and love to be around.
One of the most enticing lines at La Puerta is a sustained 100-foot route that I later found out is called Nueva Era. Sam spent an hour onsighting it, then Emily flashed it, and then it was my turn. Jose hooked the rope through the Grigri, and I jumped headlong up this white shield of complex sequences through intermittent features.
When you are onsighting or flashing, a necessary element of true spontaneity ends up either working for, or against, you. And you’re never quite sure which way it’s going to go.
In a wild stem against a giant 20-foot fin of rock, no more than 10 inches thick, I mulled over the crazy paradox of being happy with where you are and being driven to change your situation. Routes can become microcosms for life in this way. If I just stayed at the rest, I’d never get to the chains. But leaving the rest also invites the opportunity to fail.
I left my stem and made some intimate moves around the fin to regain the steep face. I climbed up and then back down, sapped myself and made the mistake of resting too long. Realistically I was doomed. But I’d begun to learn how to climb through the pump. It’s simple, actually. If you’re still on the wall, you keep going. The commitment to keep going places you in the moment, into a vacuum of all anxiety—that you might fall or that you might succeed. There’s no thought, no cynical self-absorption or analysis, about whether what you’re doing is right or not. This is a place where nothing matters and everything matters all at once.
I did a Rose move under my arm, and two blind fingertips caught a pocket. I kept going, and, as it turned out this time, I didn’t fall.
Andrew Bisharat wants to thank Kami and Jose Miranda for waking him up.
