Someday you have to travel to Salto del Angel-Venezuela, the highest fall in the world
Someday you have to travel to Salto del Angel-Venezuela, the highest fall in the world
The Salto Ángel waterfall measures 967 meters of altitude and is located in the Canaima National Park.
An enormous column of water that gushes furiously from the imposing rock wall of the Tepuy Auyantepuy falls with a deafening roar and disappears between a dense mist of pulverized water before reaching the Churún River. This is Angel Falls – in some guides it is also shown as Angel falls in English –, the highest waterfall in the world with its 979 meters of altitude, of which only 807 are continuous fall, while the rest are small jumps of water equally impressive.
The Salto Angel Waterfall is located in the Canaima National Park, declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1994. A whim of nature full of rivers, rainforests and 115 tepuys, high rocky plateaus of Precambrian origin, with almost geometric edges chiseled by erosion over millions of years. Geologists agree to date this place as before the outbreak of life on the planet, but there is not much unanimity about who discovered the Angel Falls. The Venezuelans attributed it to explorer Ernesto Sánchez, who in 1910 notified the finding to the Ministry of Mines and Hydrocarbons in Caracas. The story, however, he wanted to leave as his discoverer the American pilot Jimmy Angel, who in 1937 landed unusually on the top of the Tepuy becoming officially the first human to put his foot on the Auyantepuy, more than enough data to baptize the waterfall as Angel Falls in his honor.
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The Mountain of Hell
This huge cataract has always lived wrapped in a halo of magic. The Pemon Indians, natives of the earth and who in our days combine their ancestral traditions with their tasks as tour guides, already knew it before the aerial incident of Jimmy Angel. They called it Kerepakupai will see or Kerepakupai Merú, which means "jump from the deepest place", but they did it from the terror. For the Auyantepuy, for them mountain of hell, housed the Mawariton or "evil spirits", and especially Tramán-Chita, the Supreme Being of evil. Today we know that the rabies of this cataract is not due to any devil but to the force of the water of the intense tropical rains that concentrate and unload only on the Tepuy itself. That is why there is no river itself, but improvised streams that meander over the plain to converge on the hillside. The rain that gives life to the Angel Falls can also be a hindrance to the traveler: a greater precipitation, more chances to run into clouds that make completely his eyesight. On the contrary, in the dry season (between December and March) the sky is usually satin although the waterfall also falls more squalid. The virulence of the torrent, coupled with the sheerness of the Tepuy's walls, hinders the growth of plant life as well as animal migrations. Hence, at the top, species of endemic flora and fauna have been found, such as certain carnivorous plants that only inhabit the tops of these plateaus.
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Adventure Upstream
Access to Salto Angel is an adventure, as access to the national park is only possible by plane and, according to the whims of meteorology, rain and fog can turn the flight into a risky journey. A bath in the cold waters of Lake Canaima, surrounded by a thick vegetation of tropical trees and palm trees, will be a good baptism of emotions. First because in the lake there is enough current: the water enters with force by the jumps axe, swallow and Ucaima and leaves by the Salto Ara, a gap by which the river continues its course. But, in addition, the sandy beaches white contrast with the reddish waters and even full of foam. There is nothing to fear: it is not pollution but the effect of the tannins and saponin from the vegetation. In Canaima you can hire a flight of about 45 minutes by plane to fly over the canyon of the devil formed by the waters of the river Churún until the Angel Falls. The most intense option involves tracing upstream aboard a Curia (a type of indigenous canoe with outboard motor) and culminating the journey with an hour hike to the viewpoint facing the Angel Falls.
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The Journey to Angel Falls
Along the way, we will almost certainly visit some capricious rain and we will be able to aspire to the scent of wet forest, to discover how the lack of nutrients of the soil leads to the trees to unfold the roots by the surface in search of decaying organic matter, contemplate the colorful plumage of the macaws, feel at the mercy of the river in the rapids of Mayupa and hear the deafening roar of the falls falling from the Tepuys. For, though the Angel Falls Waterfall is the most famous, all along the cutting of the