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Published: August 6th 2007
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The Angel Falls
The Angel Falls - the highest waterfall in the World After we left Merida we first went north for a day. We will tell more about that in a later entry on the blogg. After that we went to a town called Ciudad Bolivar and from there we took a tour to Canaima and the Angel Falls.
Canaima is a small settlement that attracts thousands of tourists every year since it is the major starting point for people who want to visit the famous Angel Falls.
We have looked forward to visit the Angel Falls for several months. We therefor decided to visit them on a long tour taking three days rather than a shorter one. From Ciudad Bolivar we had to fly to Canaima, since there are no roads leading there.
The flights to and from Canaima are a somewhat different from most flights we have taken in our lives.
Already at the airport in Ciudad Bolivar we realised that this was going to be an odd experience. The security check was minimal. We doubt that the checked in luggage was checked at all and the carry on luggage was only checked manually and only very little. When Ake went through the metal detector it beeped
Unusual flight
The pilot is reading a newspaper during the flight and one of the passengers is sitting in the cockpit but nobody bothered to check why. When we boarded the flight the checked in luggage was stored in the back of the cabin. At least one of the bags there contained a knife that anyone could have taken out during the flight!
The plane only had five passenger seats, and one of those seats were in the cockpit. Where else can a passenger fly in the cockpit?!
The flight took maybe an hour. After 20 minutes or so the pilot got bored and picked up a newspaper and started to read!
When we flew back to Ciudad Bolivar they didn´t have any security check at all and they didn´t bother to check our identities either.
Well, we weren´t really bothered with the lack of security or the fact that the pilots were more relaxed than we expected. It was more surprising and interesting than scary. Hey, we survived the flight between Addis Ababa and Jinka in Ethiopia and since then nothing can scare us...
On the first day of the tour we stayed in Canaima and we visited the Canaima Lagoon Waterfalls just outside Canaima.
These waterfalls, there are four or five of them,
View from the plane
In a small aircraft on low altitude the views can be really nice have a hight of between 30 and 40 meters, not even near the height of the Angel Falls. But what they lack in height they have in width. The combined width of all the Canaima Lagoon Waterfalls is more than one hundred meters. But what makes these waterfalls special is the fact that you can walk behind one of them.
The waterfall is only a thin screen of water and behind it there is a natural path. This path is fitted with ropes for security and is therefor relatively safe to take even in the wet season. The walk behind the waterfall was an amazing and very wet experience. In places the path was drenched with water. To walk there was like being washed by 10 pressure washers simultanously.
On the way back from Canaima Lagoon Waterfalls Emma fell on a slippery slope along the path and hurt her foot and shoulder. Fortunately nothing was broken but it caused her to walk with a limp a few days.
In the morning the next day we were transported by speedboat from Canaima to the Angel Falls campsite. This journey was both an exciting and a wonderful experience. The
View from the plane
In a small aircraft on low altitude the views can be really nice excitement lay in the passage of several rapids along the way. Sometimes it felt like the boat might overturn at any second. But we believe it was safe because we know that these tours are running all through the wet season and the water level is often much higher later in the season than it was when we went.
In the afternoon we walked from the camp to the waterfall and there it was - the Angel Falls. The highlight of this tour and one of the things we will remember the longest from this journey in Venezuela. They are truly a natural wonder! We feel privileged to have been able to see them.
The Angel Falls is the highest waterfall in the World and is one of Venezuela´s best known attractions. The Angel Falls consists of several steps. The highest of the steps is 807 meters and the total height of the entire falls is 979 meters. During the wet season, when there is plenty of water, the falls are an amazing sight. The water tumbles out over a cliff face almost one kilometer above the lookout and half way down the water turns into a thick
View from the plane
In a small aircraft on low altitude the views can be really nice. Note the waterfall on this tepui. mist, due to the large height of the fall. This makes the Angel Falls very different from most other waterfalls.
During the night after our visit to the Angel Falls it rained heavily for several hours. When we woke up the water level in the river had risen about one meter and the width of Angel Falls had doubled! But to our great surprise the height of the fall seemed to be unchanged...
The Angel Falls are named after the pilot and adventurer Jimmy Angel. Jimmy Angel was not the first one to see the falls, not even the first Westerner. But he was the first one to spread the news about the falls and therefor they are today named after him.
A few years after Jimmy Angel discovered the Angel Falls he revisited the place and crashed his plane on top of the mountain. He survived the crash and was able to return to civilisation on foot. His plane was later recovered and is today restored and displayed outside the airport in Ciudad Bolivar.
The natural wonder of the Angel Falls is actually a "spin-off", if that term can be used here, of another natural
The plane
This is the not so very big plane that took us from Ciudad Bolivar to Canaima. wonder - the tepuis. The tepuis are a spectacular kind of mountain that can be found in the central of Venezuela. The tepuis rise very steeply from the more or less flat surrounding area. The mountains rise several hundred meters, sometimes even as much as a kilometer and more, from the surrounding area. It is an almost overwhelming sight to see the tepuis.
The tepuis are special in many ways. They are more or less flat on the top to start with. The tepuis get a lot of rain all year around which makes the flora and fauna on the top very different from the lowlands below.
For a while we had plans to climb one of the tepuis, Roraima in the southeast of Venezuela, but those plans had to be cancelled due to Emmas injury. It was in a way probably good that we had to cancel those plans. To hike to the top of the Roraima takes 6 days. To do that during the rainy season would probably have been a very wet experience.
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Harvey Follender
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We survived the flight between Addis Ababa and Jinka
Hey, we survived the flight between Addis Ababa and Jinka in Ethiopia and since then nothing can scare us... I KNOW what you mean !!!!! I was with you.