Angel Falls

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Angel Falls
My driver from the delta to the city of Ciudad Bolivar where I caught the flight to Cainama, was even more vocal than the last. We were stopped at a police checkpoint for 40 minutes while they went through the car and his papers with a fine tooth comb. He later explained that the police are paid the minimum wage, which is impossible to live on. They therefore routinely stop traffic and request payment in return for free passage. Failure to pay leads to the stop and search and 'fines' for anything that is out of order. I thought that Cainama would just be a place to catch the boat up to Angel Falls, but it's a great place. What is called the lagoon is really a wide section of river below a series of thundering waterfalls. I took a boat trip to see the falls close up and discovered that it is possible to walk behind two of the falls. The sound and power of the falls is truly awesome, despite getting drenched, it is so warm that I was happy to linger under the edge of the deluge. The next day we had an early start to head up the river to the falls, only to discover that our boat driver had not turned up. An hour and a half later we were finally underway, setting off only 100m above the falls. The boat was literally a dug out canoe, made from one large tree trunk, but powered by a 40 HP engine. The river has a lot of rapids, and the trip, while long and uncomfortable was quite an adventure, with the bonus of getting amazing views of the dramatic table mountains, or Tepuis, that dominate the landscape. Eventually we reached a point below the falls and walked up steeply through the bush until the falls are suddenly revealed. The sheer scale is impossible to describe. The waters fall almost a vertical kilometre and what starts as a plunging mass of water is a dense mist by the time it reaches the ground. The cliffs of the Tepui vary from pink and red to almost black, I spent around an hour exploring a couple of viewpoints and descending to the stream that flows from the falls. By the time we returned to the river it was almost dark. The canoe ferried us to the opposite bank where there was a small camp. Our crew fed us and I chatted with my fellow travellers (two German and two Swedes). We slept in hammocks which was more comfortable than I expected and in the morning got some photos of the morning sun hitting the falls before settling in for the long journey back. The two Germans and I agreed that we would pay for a flights over the falls, however, on arrival at the airfield we were told that they needed a minimum of four passengers and tried to bump up the price, we declined, and instead did things the Venezuelan way and bribed the pilot of our ancient islander plane that was to take us back to Ciudad Bolivar to take us over the falls. He readily accepted for half the cost of the official trip. The flight was amazing, up close the Tepuis are so big, with sheer cliffs on all sides,the summits are weathered into features similar to granite tors, although they are made of ancient sandstone over a billion years old.

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Photos

Our canoe
Notice the colour of the water. The rivers that flow from the Guyanan Shield carry very little sediment as the Rock is so hard it weathers very slowly. The colour comes from tannin from rotting leaves, these are known as black water rivers, while the rivers from the Andes that carry lots of sediment are the white water rivers.

Roots cover the ground in a dense mat
Because the old,hard rock weathers so slowly few minerals are released and the soil is infertile. The nutrients that are available are in the rotting leaves on the forest floor, so the trees have really shallow roots.