We go flying (Hugh)

Two pairs of binoculars purchased fresh from Snow & Rock. Low quality, admittedly, but I didn’t expect both to have broken on their first outing. The first pair, courtesy of Monty, has evolved seamlessly into a pair of telescopes. I am actually rather pleased with this development. By cutting the neck cord, I have now doubled their original utility as advertised, since two kids can now look at parrots without causing argument, whilst the third child copes with the remaining tool in the original stereo format.
Unfortunately, the remaining binoculars were apparently also not functioning properly either. Jemima marches up – “this pair is broken too Mummy – everything is really small”. Turn them round, chief.

The day started out with us eyeing up a heli, but they never left us alone with it long enough to make a clean getaway.



Later found a plane.

I was rusty, but this did not dim my confidence.









We were soon airborne, and flying through tepuys in pretty good weather, only a few clouds breaking up the view.



We landed at Kavac, a fake tourist village, but were then led by pretty genuine looking locals through some savannah, then up a river and into a cave. This cave contained said river, a few ropes guiding us up the torrent to end up at a spectacular waterfall.

Monty did well; they wouldn’t have allowed adults into this place in the UK. It was only on the way down that we spied some seriously big cave spiders, one of them scuttling after Sarah almost as if the guide had a remote control.

Lunch was in one of the fake huts, and was good. The flight back was just breathtaking though – up to 8000 feet to get over the scarp of the gran tepuy, then close enough to Angel Falls to get the wings wet.



I think the pilot (yeah ok we picked one up in Kavac) really fed off the screams, and his days in ‘Nam were coming back to him by the end as we buzzed the Canaima falls then the hotel before landing a lttle breathless back at the airport. Just awesome.