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Day 20: Down to Work

An endless ocean of green stretches before me, broken only by the snaking meanders of the Orinoco’s tributaries, including the so-called Blood River, which emanates from the ground beneath my feet. The scene should be masked by darkness, I know. Yet the moon shines so bright that it is almost as if the sun continues its relentless assault.

I’ve been here for over twenty-four hours and have yet to encounter any flesh-eating evil spirits. Though, a certain red-haired soul-sucking one certainly haunts us in the form of the expedition leader, Juliet McKinney.

Indeed, as I have suspected all along, she harbours nothing but contempt for me and intends to make my time here miserable. She proved that beyond any doubt this evening.

Sarisariñama Basecamp,

Venezulela

I don’t know what I had expected from my first night on Sarisariñama. Certainly not the cold. It’s an odd juxtaposition to be lying in a tent with your breath pluming in vapour puffs around your head. At the same time, a tropical skyforest makes all the hoots, chirps and catcalls you’ve become accustomed to in the humidity of the jungle over the last few weeks.

By morning, the sweltering heat had returned, the sun beating fiercely down upon the camp. Eager to start our first full day on-site, Sid and I headed to the mess tent for breakfast. Compared to the gruel we’ve eaten of late, the breakfast spread was like something you’d expect in a 5-star hotel. Well, maybe not a 5-star but at least a Premier Inn.

The ‘comfort team’ as someone last night referred to the group of local people, mainly from Carimara, employed as cooks, cleaners, maintenance workers and general labourers, arranged a spread of bread rolls, fruit, yoghurt and cereal, along with cafetieres of coffee and pots of tea. I guess that’s one good thing about Nathan Raine – now the camp is set up, he’ll be making weekly supply runs to and from Caracas, bringing in everything we need. It’s a reminder that even though this is the most remote excavation I’ve ever worked on, it is also the most connected.

Indeed, when walking around the basecamp, you could be forgiven for forgetting you’re on a mountain in the rainforest. It is like a sprawling canvas city, nestled with Roman precision into a natural clearing between the Sima Humboldt [sinkhole] and the northeastern clifftop.

Nine large, marquee-like structures form the perimeter of the camp. Five are science labs, while one houses communication equipment and computer servers that would make any IT specialist salivate. Another contains piles of general excavation equipment; one acts as the de-facto ‘headquarters,’ reserved for McKinney and her minions. The final one, the Mess Tent, has already become the social hub where the team spends most of its time not working.

Lined up in neat rows between these larger tents are dozens of khaki-green, two-person tents to house us all. While all the tents are raised on a durable plastic platform to keep us off the wet ground, segregation exists. The scientists’ tents, for instance, are clumped between the larger structures, but the ‘comfort team’ occupy the outskirts. Similarly, del Vega and his men have a separate mini-camp on the opposite side of the main site. If ever there was a distinction between perceived status and roles, this is it – and it has McKinney’s fingerprints all over it.

In many ways, it feels like we are little better than the gold miners who wrecked the massive expanse of rainforest we saw yesterday. Yet, while it looks like humanity has invaded one of the world’s last unconquered natural strongholds, the expedition planners have designed it to have zero impact on the environment. Everything will be removed once the mission is over, from the largest tent to the smallest teaspoon.

We are using a natural clearing that a limited expedition in 2002 found for the main site and a smaller neighbouring one for the helipad. Rows of solar panels connected to large batteries line a path leading from the mess tent towards the helipad, providing the expedition’s power demands. The toilets are less than charming but fully compostable long drops. All of our rubbish is compartmentalised into recyclable materials. It will be removed each week, courtesy of the expedition helicopter. This includes food waste which, while seemingly harmless, could alter the balance of nature on the mountain, possibly encouraging animals to scavenge.

The planners’ biggest challenge was toiletries, specifically shower gels and shampoos, which they feared could leach alien chemicals into the soil. We are, therefore, limited to a handful of ‘authorised’ bio-friendly products. Hardly a massive deal, though I already heard the annoying interns complain about it this morning,

The science labs are also far removed from anything I’ve worked in before, especially in the field. Hell, we’ve spent most of the day setting them up, and all I can say is that they are the epitome of high-tech science.

Touch-screen computers now line the sturdy canvas walls, powered by enormous solar-powered battery banks. Ergonomic workstations are arranged around the perimeter of the large tent. They are equipped with state-of-the-art polarising microscopes, a multitude of acid and lignin-free containers, a 3D-digitizer, osteometric boards, digital callipers, microscribe digitisers and x-ray scanners. We’ve also got an array of precision conservation tools: scalpels and minute vacuums, brushes, air purifiers and dozens of bottles of cleaning fluids and chemicals.

They’ve also issued us with tablets, protected by what looks like nuclear-explosion-proof rugged cases. The idea is that we carry them around during our explorations. Any notes we make will automatically upload to the cloud as and when one of Sharpe Enterprises’ dedicated satellites passes overhead. This way, everything from detailed recordings to musings and random thoughts about our experiences will be backed up for later analysis. It reminds me of Ian Hodder’s post-processual approach to excavating Catalhoyuk, only with a load more money and technology thrown at it.

Indeed, wrapped within the canvas folds of the expedition’s five labs, it is easy to believe you are back in some ultra-modern European research facility rather than the hot and sweaty remote table mountain.

By late afternoon, with the camp set up more or less as we want it (barring any inevitable efficiency improving tweaking as and when we use the facilities), McKinney held a full-team briefing in the Mess Tent. She gave us more details on how the expedition would work and what she expects of us all.

In a cringe-worthy attempt at humour, she divided us into three groups. Because we are apparently Primary School children and not seasoned academics with hundreds of research papers under our belts and qualifications coming out of our ears (Nadia alone is up to three PhDs, I think), she called us:

  • The Dirt Diggers
  • The Cheeky Buggers
  • The Flower Dudes (she said this with an attempt at a hippy-esque ‘flower power’ type accent that made me shiver with embarrassment).

Or, translated for adults:

  • Archaeologists
  • Entomologists/Zoologists (the latter of which were somewhat put out by being glossed over, especially considering the whole zoological team comprises entomologists, herpetologists, mammalogists and ornithologists)
  • Botanists (and phytologists)

Supposedly because she doesn’t have the expertise (but, in reality, has little interest in) the zoological and botanical teams, they will be headed by Professor Jones (not of Indiana fame) and broken into two teams – a sinkhole team and a summit team.      

The inclusion of the biological part of the expedition is a prerequisite for UNESCO’s funding. While the archaeological ruins found by Kira Sharpe are the expedition’s focus (and Sharpe’s interest), Sarisariñama is so remote and difficult to mount scientific missions to that it seemed like a perfect opportunity to launch a full science expedition rather than just an archaeological one.

Rumour has it that McKinney finds this inclusion a curse, adding a layer of complexity to what she feels should be a purely archaeological mission. Indeed, biologists have previously studied the summit and the base of the Sima Humboldt, the sinkhole in which Kira Sharpe found the ancient doorway. 

After the sinkholes were spotted by a pilot, Harry Gibson, in 1961, scientists mounted an expedition in ‘74. This first mission encountered numerous problems, not least landing helicopters on the summit and needing to resort to climbing down from rope ladders. A second team arrived two years later. These guys discovered the Sima de la Lluvia, a 1.35 km quartzite cave that was, until recently, the longest known in the world.

Both of these expeditions emphasised studying the biodiversity of the mountain, along with geology (something we’ve neglected this time). They discovered numerous species of plants and animals on the summit that are found nowhere else in the world. Even more fascinating, they also discovered plants and animals in the unique forested base of Sima Humboldt that are entirely separate from those found on the summit.

I guess McKinney believes that enough has been found in these regards and that all time, energy and, of course, money should be ploughed into the unique and unexpected archaeology to be found here.

To that end, she has further divided the archaeological team, which makes up the majority of the scientists here, into four sub-teams. Yes, here we go again: 

The Burrowers (i.e., the team working in the underground ruins)

The Hole-ier than Thous (a team working on the sinkhole floor)

The Summit Straddlers (you can work that one out)

The Grounders (a team working in the rainforest at the mountain’s base).

We will all be rotated through these roles every couple of weeks to give us an overview of the entire operation and distribute any specialisms. Of course, this is all subject to change as and when we make any significant discoveries.

All seemed good. Everything made sense.

Then McKinney asked if there were any questions.

I opened my mouth, and everything went to shit.

“What about an ethno-arch team?” I asked.

It seemed like a perfectly valid question.

However, the thunderous look in McKinney’s eyes as she zeroed in on me suggested I was wrong.

Nevertheless, I elaborated, reciting the Ye’kuana legends that our guide in Carimara, Rodrigo, had told us about the Evil Spirit and the river of blood.

Of course, I wasn’t trying to suggest such legends were true. My point was that the Ye’kuana have a history with this mountain, enough of one to have it feature prominently in their cosmological outlook. This, I explained, is something I’ve encountered numerous times in my research: a link between mythology and real-life places and/or events.

Succinctly, in the Ye’kuana oral histories about Sarisariñama, there may be some hint, some clue that might shed light on the people who built the doorway and to whatever it leads.

McKinney’s response?

A roll of the eyes, a very audible sigh of despair and a vehement shake of her fiery mane.

“We’ve not got time to drag this expedition into a ‘King and Son Fairytale’.” She pointed out how a good portion of the ‘comfort team’ come from Ye’kuana communities. Yet, none have volunteered breaking news about the former inhabitants of the mountain, whether man, woman or evil spirit.

Then she dismissed us.

Just like that. Just like the underlings, the servants of Empress McKinney that I realise now we are. It’s her way or the highway. And her way is to become the next Lara Croft and get her face plastered over book covers, Blu rays and anything else she can dig her claws into and suck the life from.

That was when I found this spot.

I’m breaking the rules, of course. In some weird attempt at translocating Western health and safety values to a mountain in the rainforest, not one but two safety cordons have been erected around the camp to ensure we don’t accidentally step off the cliff edge.

Something tells me it won’t be the first rule I break during my time here, nor the first run-in (academic or personal) with McKinney. But at least I’ve found this spot away from her, away from the camp. Away from it all.    

Benjamin King

My name is Dr Benjamin King, and I am an archaeologist working on the UNESCO Sarisariñama Expedition. Join me on my epic journey to one of the most remote places on the planet – a tabletop mountain towering above the Venezuelan rainforest. This will be my home for six months as my colleagues and I attempt to unravel the mystery of the ancient ruins that lie buried within an enormous sinkhole. Not only do I blog updates about the project, but also the trials and tribulations of life in the jungle. Something tells me that the danger of the jungle’s predators is nothing compared to the perils of being trapped with the same group of people for the next six months! Don’t miss out on a single moment of this extraordinary adventure - follow me on social media @benking1209 Benjamin King is also the fictional hero of the action-packed adventure series ‘The Xibalba Saga’ by James Richardson. Read it now https://amzn.to/3dD9wZW Stay up to date on new releases and exclusive free content at www.moonmask.net and @worldofmoonmask

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