We woke up without an alarm, a little before 04:00.  Justin slept fine, but Crystal not so much.  The heat and lack of air movement made it difficult for her to get comfortable.  We got dressed in the dark, then headed over to the dining area for a quick snack - sandwiches and granola.  A little after 04:30, we headed over with Lina and Andrés to our boat for a 2-3 minute ride to the start of the hike.  Ferne, one of the locals, was with us as well.  

The path at first was solid rock, like granite in California or Blue Rock in Hawaii.  The path was straight up at a steep angle, with a rope to assist us if need be.  Ferne told us that back in the day, the adolescents training to be warriors would go up and down the hill to gain strength.  Justin did fine, as it was similar to walking uphill in Puerto.  Crystal was lagging a bit, but a) she hadn’t slept that great, and b) she was carrying the small backpack.  So when we stopped to take in the sunrise, Justin took the backpack.  We had a very colorful sunrise, and the clouds both helped the sunrise be more colorful and also helped us not be so hot.

When we started hiking again we went through a small jungle area, with lots of palm trees.  Then we entered an area, sort of on the back of the mountain, with lots of vertical stairs, more like ladders.  Then we came out right near the top, where it was solid granite again.  All told, it was only about 45 minutes to the top, and not so bad given what it looked like from the bottom.  Mavecure is the shortest of the three tepuys, only about 170 meters (560 feet) tall.  Pajarito and Mono are 712 meters (2336 feet) and 480 meters (1570 feet), so substantially taller.  [For reference, El Capitán in Yosemite is about 914 meters (3000 feet) from base to summit.]  The weather was cool (for here), and there wasn’t any direct sunlight, and there was a bit of a breeze, so we had about an “easy” hike as one is going to have.  

At the top, there was one group in front of us, and we waited a minute or two for them to vacate the picture-taking area.  When they started back down, we went to where they had been.  There were really nice views across the river, even with no sunshine.  We imagine the rocks wouldn’t look too different in the sun, as it’s not like they’re colorful like Uluru or something.  Ferne told us stories about how the peaks got their names.  There was a war, and three kids were orphaned and raised by their grandmother.  They weren’t huge fans of hers, so they sent her a little further away.  Mavecure was a bit of a rebel, so the two older siblings separated him by a river.

Ferne also told us a second story, this time about a princess.  The princess wasn’t really into “princess stuff,” and instead she worked with the women to make their lives better.  There was a captain that was infatuated with her, but she didn’t reciprocate.  The captain was told of a local plant that would make people fall in love.  The plant grows on the side of Pajarito, in a vertical strip below what looks like a “cut” in the mountain. But the captain accidentally picked the wrong version of the plant, and when the Princess got the potion, she went crazy instead of falling in love.  So she climbed up the mountain (Pajarito), going through it and coming out the back.  The “eye” in Pajarito is supposedly where she resides now, watching people from high above the river.   

Everyone seemed generally happy we had chosen to visit their narrow sliver of the globe.  Inírida, and Guainia generally, don’t receive many tourists.  We noticed at one point that Andrés was helping Ferne to read a book.  It was interesting seeing this, as we definitely take reading, and learning to read, for granted.  Going down the stairs/ladders was tougher than going up, and the backpack kept wanting to spin around (there was only one shoulder strap) so Crystal took the backpack back for the descent.  The walk back may have taken longer, as the guides were chatting quite a bit with each other, checking their phones, etc.  We didn’t have a busy schedule today, but we were worried about it starting to rain before we got down off the rock, which we were told was quite slippery if it got wet.

In the jungle portion of the trail, we saw several giant Socrateas.  We got down the steep part at the very end just fine, with Crystal using the rope and going backwards on the steepest parts.  Justin has much bigger feet, and descended in a zig-zag pattern, so he didn’t need the rope.  We were back down at the river around 08:00.  We came back to the lodge, and got breakfast around 08:30.  We talked with Andrés and Lina about spicy food, and did our best to explain “Hot Ones” in Spanish.  

After breakfast we chilled for a bit.  Crystal played with one of the two resident cats and read her book, whilst Justin went for a short walk along the shoreline.  He saw one of the people rock climbing on Mono - Andrés and Lina had told us that professional and semi-professional rock climbing was finally making its way to Mavecure, to the wonderment of the local people living in the area.  We caught up a bit on the trip log, sitting on a deck facing out towards Pajarito, Mono, and the rapids in the river.  We saw a couple groups have to walk their boat through the rapids going upstream.  Thankfully there were no mosquitoes, or at least so few that it wasn’t a problem for us to be just sitting outside.

At 11:00 we got on the boat to go upstream a couple minutes to Caño San Joaquin, an offshoot of the main river with colorful water from all the tannins in the leaves.  Andrés was playing American country music, and we didn’t have the heart to ask him to change it to something (anything) else.  At the beach, Justin went in the water and was wading against the current, trying to get away from the reach of the country music.  When he turned around, Crystal was talking on the phone, and Andrés and Lina were doing some sort of IG photo shoot, and the country music was still playing - it was surreal for the middle of Guainia.  The sand was white, and the water was varying shades of gold and burgundy - very picturesque.  We hung out there for a while, and then headed back.

When we got back to the lodge, it was lunch time.  After lunch we had a couple more free hours.  Crystal read and Justin took a nap.  At 15:00 we got in the boat to go across the river, just east of Pajarito, to the Remanso indigenous group.  While waiting for the local guide to show up, a black dog was enthusiastically happy to see us.  The guide, Caesar, finally showed up, and he and Lina and the two of us went on a walk to go see the Inírida flower.  On the edge of the village we saw a big solar farm - they also have batteries so that there is power even after the sun goes down.  There were also cell towers and even wi-fi in the small village.  

We walked through a secondary forest (cleared to plant Acaí palms, which didn’t do well), then a primary forest, and then a sort of savannah area with a lot of exposed rock before we got to a marshy area where the flowers were.  The flowers were really interesting.  Caesar told us that if the flowers are cut, the whole plant would die, but we weren’t entirely sure how/why it would work like that, but figured Google could help us out at a later date.  [Narrator voice: it did not.]  The marshy area over exposed rock is pretty much exactly what we have in the front of Lot 2 and Lot 3 in Pahoa, so we were curious whether we could obtain any seeds or plants and have a go at it.  

We walked back towards the river and the pier, where Lina called Andrés to come get us - it took only a couple minutes for him to arrive.  During that time, we asked some questions of Caesar about climate change, since the Inírida flower was the logo for a climate conference held in Colombia this year.  He told us that the seasons are not nearly as well defined as before, and this year “summer” (the dry season) came much earlier than normal.  While that was good for us on our trip, as we didn’t get rained on, obviously it’s much more difficult for the local people to farm when the seasons are random.

Back at the lodge Crystal read some more, and Justin walked down the shoreline to get some photos of the sunset.  The generator came on at 18:00, at which point it was already quite dark.  We charged our phones and watches, and we read until dinner at 19:00.  Andrés bailed on dinner early, but we chatted with Lina for a while about her being a Mom (her son Domenico is almost 2), her family in New York City, the many dialects of Spanish, different tour companies down here, anacondas, and clientele having realistic expectations about where they’re going.  After a very nice conversation, we went back to our room and went to sleep shortly thereafter.