Exceedingly Wet

No journey to Venezuela is complete without visiting Angel Falls, the highest waterfall in the world (much in the same way that no trip to England is complete without trying Fish´n´Chips, the greasiest meal in the world). For some reason I thought it would be easy to get to. Park at the side of the road, walk for half an hour and there it is, showing off with it´s big stream of water. But no, it´s a right pain in the arse to get to. To get there you need to take a bus, a flight, followed by a train ride, then take an amphibious vehilce to the bottom of a mountain, which you ascend by cable car, then travel through the mountain on an old mining cart, then hike down for two days and finally take a canoe for a futher eight hours.

Actually, it´s not that bad. We first caught a flight in a small fixed-propellor plane. Just before the pilot started the engines, I was slightly alarmed to see a small man scuttle out with a fire extinguisher and stand near the plane. The rotors started, and after several minutes of intensive spinning, he was apparently satisfied that they weren´t going to explode and walked off. We then took off and landed an hour later in the wilderness. From here it was a 4-hour journey on the river, upstream like a salmon (but without the jumping). There were 14 of us in a long and exceedingly thin wooden boat, motoring UP the river and getting exceedingly wet. It´s terrible English to use the word "exceedingly" twice in one sentence, but it´s an exceedingly good word (as Mr Kipling will tell you). The final stage was a one hour scramble through jungle and over roots and boulders. And finally, there is was! In all it´s glory, a 985m high cascade of water. Almost a kilometre high. It takes you about 7 minutes to walk a kilometre. To fall it, I reckon about 7 seconds. After half an hour of going "ooh" and "aah", we headed back to an overnight jungle camp nearby.

And so my time in Venezuela was at an end. The others were heading to Brazil, but I had to get back to Caracas to be potentially robbed and hopefully catch a flight back to Ecuador. Whilst I was at the falls, one of our tour leaders, Aimar (who had stayed behind) was buying me an onward bus ticket. When I first asked him he said OK, and put a piece of bread in his pocket. When I asked him why, he said "when I wake up in the morning and find a piece of bread in my pocket, I will wonder what the bread is doing there. Then I will rememeber that I will need to book your bus ticket" He did indeed buy my bus ticket, so I cannot fault the logic. However, the problem arises when you have a list of things to remember, and wake up to find half a loaf in your pocket!

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