The Land that Time Forgot

Roraima is the most famous of all the tepuys in Guayana, and for a good reason. Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel, ‘The Lost World’ was based on the accounts of Everard Im Thurn, who was the first explorer ever to climb to the summit of Roraima, in 1884. On his return, he gave a series of lectures, which inspired Conan Doyle to write of a strange and mysterious land lost in time and inhabited by prehistoric creatures.

But Conan Doyle’s imaginings may not be so far fetched. Scientists have called these tepuys ecological islands – or islands in time. These separated from the surrounding land two billion years ago and unique species of plants have been found on their wild, marshy summits. New sub species of fauna, too, have been discovered.

Indeed, one of the legendary old pioneers of Canaima, Alexander Laime, who lives in a hut below Auyán-Tepuy, claimed he had seen prehistoric creatures near the summit. He made a sketch, and it turned out that they looked uncannily like plesiosaurs, aquatic mammals of the Jurassic period, which were thought to have been extinct for nearly 100 million years.

It’s true that when you reach the top of Roraima, you do experience a strange, eerie sensation – almost as if you had traveled far back in time. So, perhaps a question you should be asking any potential guide is “how fast can dinosaurs run?”