Day 98 - Angel Falls, Venezuela

CANAIMA NATIONAL PARK AND ANGEL FALLS (09/04/09)

An early breakfast and then a trek back up to the top of the lagoon waterfalls in order to start the long boat journey to Angel Falls.

Liz ready to fall in!

An hour in to the journey the rapids got too rough for a full canoe and we got out and walked for an hour while the boat with all our belongings sped through the rough water.

The river wound through many imposing Tepuys.

Our canoe that 12 of us travelled in for 4 hours upriver.

We stopped for lunch at these beautiful waterfalls flowing into the main river.

Many interesting plants lined the banks although we saw virtually no wildlife. This was probably due to the large number of tourist boats travelling along the river.

The scenery was so spectacular that most of the time it allowed us to forget the hard wooden benches of the canoe.

In some parts the Tepuys towered on both sides of the river.

Even without the dramatic backgrounds the river itself was extremly attractive.

The river was quite shallow in parts which caused the boat to scrape the bottom.

The boat captain and his assistant were very capable and managed to navigate us through these enormous boulders at speed. They only crashed into one!

As we rounded one of the many bends in the river we were greeted by our first view of the highest waterfall in the world, Angel Falls.

After five hours we were dropped off on this stoney outcrop in the river to start our hike into the jungle and ultimately to the base of the falls.

The dense jungle was very gloomy but was home to an amazing variety of plant species.

The path was very difficult to walk over since tree roots and rocks meant that you had to watch where you were putting your feet at all times.

The spectacular Angel Falls - 970 metres high making it about 16 times the height of Niagra Falls.

Tired but so happy to finally be there.

Once again we were very lucky since the top of the falls is often obscured by the clouds.

The much smaller bottom of the water fall was impressive enough on its own. Climbing up it is considered fairly dangerous although Miguel our guide clearly had experience. You can see him on the top left hand side.

After our exciting day we went back to our camp and got our hammocks ready for our night in the jungle. Suprisingly we managed to get a few hours sleep.

To finish off our almost perfect day we found a quiet spot in the jungle to view the bright full moon. Interestingly if you look directly above the moon near the top of the photograph you will see a small green dot - the light from a glow worm.