Mount Roraima is considered a lost world and a unique place, home to rare plants and animals. It managed to preserve all this thanks to its long isolation from the outside world. It was surrounded by impenetrable jungle, rivers, and swamps. Being a table mountain, it is inaccessible to humans.
The first major expedition to Roraima took place in 1960. Subsequently, there have been further attempts to explore it. To this day, the mountain remains unexplored and still holds many secrets. Roraima inspired Arthur Conan Doyle to write “The Lost World,” and director Steven Spielberg to film “Jurassic Park.” 
Mount Roraima is the most famous and also the highest Venezuelan tepui (table mountain), reaching a height of 2,810 meters. It is located at the junction of Brazil (Roraima State), Venezuela (Canaima National Park), and Guyana (the country’s highest point). The plateau of the “great blue-green mountain,” as it is also known, covers an area of 30 square kilometers. 
Local indigenous people call it the “navel of the earth” and believe that the goddess Queen, the progenitor of all people, lives at the very summit. Although all tepuis are the homes of the gods, Roraima is considered a sacred place. 
Mount Roraima is almost always surrounded by whitish clouds, lending it an air of mystery that inevitably attracts adventurers and lovers of beauty. For a long time, South America’s most beautiful mountain remained inaccessible and unexplored. Only the bravest indigenous people traversed the arduous path through virtually impassable swamps and forests to these believed-to-be-enchanted lands. 
Mount Roraima is surrounded by three different countries (Venezuela, Brazil, and Guyana), whose borders intersect on a massive shelf, all four sides of which are sheer cliffs rising 400 meters. While only the most experienced climbers scale its rocky walls, there is a hiking route (usually a two-day trek). 
Today, several dozen people climb Mount Roraima daily. Climbing is usually done from the Venezuelan side, which controls three-quarters of the mountain, as this side has the gentlest slope. 
The mountain is worth visiting for several reasons beyond its impressive cliffs. Mount Roraima is part of Venezuela’s 30,000-square-kilometer Canaima National Park and is home to the highest peak of the Guyana mountain range. The mountains of this range, including Roraima, are considered some of the oldest geological formations, some dating back over 2 billion years. 
Nearly daily rainfall has also created a unique ecosystem, home to several endemic species, such as unique carnivorous insectivorous plants. Some of the world’s highest waterfalls are located here.
Mount Roraima has another unusual feature: it attracts numerous lightning bolts, striking its summit almost daily, to the point that it’s difficult to find a tree undamaged by thunderstorm activity. 
The constant cloud cover around the mountain is attributed to the fact that the Amazon, Orinoco, and Essequibo rivers originate at the foot of Roraima. 
The surrounding landscapes truly resemble a fantasy world, with black cliffs draped with cascading waterfalls, multicolored pools, exotic flora, and rare animals. 
Almost the entire surface of the mountain plateau is black from a “desert tan” and microscopic algae inhabiting the upper layers of the rock. Only in areas unexposed to sun and rain, or regularly washed by water, does the sandstone’s true color—bright pink—reveal itself. 
The varying rates of erosion of the sandstone layers have contributed to the formation of numerous bizarre rock formations on the plateau. In places, the rock is cut by enormous cracks, into which several rivers flow, later bursting from the cliffs as roaring waterfalls. Water covers approximately a fifth of the plateau: peat bogs, bright pink puddles, crystal-clear lakes, and fast-flowing rivers whose beds are strewn with rock crystals for several hundred meters. 
The most colorful corners of the plateau are the peat bogs – they are home to beautiful flowers, exotic carnivorous plants, and colorful carpets of club mosses and mosses. The local trees, reminiscent of bonsai, are represented by a very small number of species. 
The fauna of the Roraima plateau also cannot boast a rich diversity, but it does surprise with its unique representatives, most of which are endemic. Many inhabitants of this area are black, even dragonflies and butterflies. The plateau is also home to coatis, capybaras, mice, lizards, several species of birds, spiders, predatory leeches, and scorpions. 
In 1993, the valley at the foot of Mount Roraima served as the filming location for the famous sci-fi film “Jurassic Park,” directed by Steven Spielberg. 
In 2008, Griffin Productions released the educational documentary “The Original Lost World,” dedicated to Mount Roraima. It describes the fascinating adventures of a modern team of explorers who followed in the footsteps of the first to conquer the summit, Yma Thurn and Harry Perkins. 
Animation filmmakers have also not ignored the famous Venezuelan mountain. In 2009, Disney/Pixar released the animated film “Up,” which is set on Roraima. The disc also includes a short film, “Adventures Out There,” which follows the Pixar team on their journey to Roraima in search of creative ideas and inspiration for the animated film “Up.”
With its otherworldly landscape, Roraima is rightfully considered one of the region’s most important and most unusual natural attractions.
