After more than five years of preparation, expeditions to Pico da Neblina started this week, led by the Yanomami Indians of the Amazon. Adventure for few, but worth every penny, every sleepless night and every step in the mud up to the shin.
The first group of ten people from the operators Amazon Emotions and Roraima Adventures left this Thursday (17th) for São Gabriel da Cachoeira (AM). Accommodation and flights from Manaus, 850 km from the city in the Cabeça do Cachorro region, are not included in the cost of R$ 19,500 per person.
The way to the highest mountain in Brazil (2,995 m above sea level) is hard, which the Indians consider sacred and call Yaripo (“where the winds cross”). After the day of arrival in São Gabriel, on the banks of the upper Rio Negro, there will be two days for visiting indigenous communities and shopping for the trip.
On the fourth day the journey to the peak begins. It takes four hours to travel 85 km of precarious road, in 4×4 SUVs, to the Ya-Mirim creek. From there, the group travels in “flying” canoes to the Maturacá village, where they will be received by a Yanomami shaman ceremony.
The following eight days – which can become ten depending on the pace and weather conditions – are of walking classified as “extremely difficult”. There is about 2,900 meters of difference between one point and another, but with many ascents and descents, which implies more than 5,000 meters of total elevation.
Come on legs. Overnight stays take place in hammocks in the camps with poles and tarpaulins set up beforehand by the indigenous people. It can rain a lot in the region, and the clothes don’t dry. The temperature often drops to 10ºC in the higher areas.
Most of the displacement takes place on trails, but on the final stretch there are rocks that need to be climbed, albeit without great technical difficulty. Previous expeditions have installed ropes and metal steps, but the tourist must expect physical exhaustion.
There are challenging stretches, like a high-mountain bromeliad field, drenched in black mud from plant debris. The Yanomami wear long-legged rubber boots, but many tourists prefer wetland trekking shoes.
The region has several mountains, with the mountains covered with forest and small streams for bathing. The views are impressive, at least when the infamous fog doesn’t hide them.
I was there on a preparatory expedition in 2017, just before I turned 60. It was strenuous, yet rewarding, and I didn’t regret the two months of conditioning with daily 6km walks and lots of squats with a personal fitness trainer.
I chose, at the time, to hire an extra charger. Any participant can provide their own, for an additional BRL 1,900, and leave up to 25 kg of luggage with them (which can include, for example, some personal snacks, to reinforce the basic food provided). Otherwise, you will have to carry everything on your own back.
Of the total paid by the tourist, R$ 700 is intended for the Yanomami Association of the Cauaburis and Afluentes River (Ayrca), an indigenous organization that developed the logistics with the support of the Socio-Environmental Institute (ISA). Once all the legal bureaucracy with Ibama and Funai was completed, the accredited operators entered.
The objective of the community tourism scheme was to create sustainable income alternatives, socially and ecologically, for the Yanomami of the region. With it —that is the expectation—, young people from the villages would no longer have as much incentive to offer their services at degraded prices to the illegal mining that still takes place there.
The highest mountain in the country is on the border with Venezuela and in the Pico da Neblina National Park, which partially overlaps with the Yanomami Indigenous Land. Less organized expeditions had been suspended in 2003, when authorizations to cross the territory ceased.
The 2017 expedition in which I participated was aimed at surveying points that required the installation of fixed equipment for mountaineering. Radio antennas were also erected for the signal to reach Maturacá unimpeded, thus ensuring that any casualties could be promptly removed (this service is another factor making the expedition more expensive).
There were no major mishaps on the 2017 climb, apart from occasional blisters on the feet of some hikers (thankfully not mine), hammocks collapsed during the night and the end of the goodies before returning to the village.
It was eight days with wet feet, as I wrote at the time. She would return there without batting an eye, but only in about three months at least — for prior disposal of the 10 kg recovered since her feet dried again in Maturacá.
Learn more at
https://amazonemotions.com/pt/tour/expedicao-pico-da-neblina/
https://roraimaadventures.com.br/produto/pico-da-neblina/
