At The Bottom of Angel Falls

Here we are. The end of the journey. And what an amazing journey it was! Was the end worth it?ABSOLUTELY!  Not much else to add here except to let you marvel at the pictures. After hiking through the forest for a few hours you come to a viewing point on a rocky outcrop. From here you get the full view of the world’s tallest waterfall; Angel Falls. It is spectacular and absurdly high! Almost 1km. Crazy. For all the time we spent tossing up whether or not to make the long, detour into this part of the continent, we can definitely recommend for anyone else heading that way, don’t miss it! It’s a massive adventure into a part of the world relatively few people make the trip for! Even amongst the many people we met who had travelled far more of South America, few had been to Angel Falls. We highly recommend Gekko Tours who answered all our questions and made organising the trip far less of a headache for two fools who don’t speak Spanish!

Angel Falls Expedition: Part 4

This is it. Onto the last leg towards Angel Falls. We have about five hours in one of these dugout canoes to take us up the river. So excited!

Angel Falls Expedition: Part 3

Canaima National Park

Angel Falls is the prize at the end of this adventure but Canaima definitely is a place worth visiting on its own merits. It is a small Indian village, it is inaccessible by any roads and the only way in or out is by those little planes we had just hopped off. The airport is basically a gift shop with toilets and some benches to sit and wait on until you are called up to board a plane, who gets chosen seems to be randomly selected.

Angel Falls Expedition: Part 2

Jimmy Angel's plane.

We were driven to the airport by our man from the Posada with an English couple who were also heading into see the Falls. Finally getting onto the plane to fly out didn’t unravel quite as any of us expected. Perhaps we were expecting too much to have any timetables or ETA’s, or anyone who could tell us what to do next. So with as much sign language as possible and as little information as we could gather we made it through a little security station, that didn’t seem too concerned with security, into a small waiting area. And we waited. After what seemed like a while a pilot came in and took the other couple and we were motioned to stay put, apparently we wouldn’t be taking the same flight.? We saw them board a largish plane through the window, and Nadi had some hope we wouldn’t be flying in a small tin can.

Angel Falls Expedition: Part 1

Making Cuidad Bolivar our first stop on our three month tour of South America was definitely jumping in the deep end. We had arrived in Caracas after a long flight from Madrid and had flew directly to Bolivar from there. As timing of these things always go, of course we arrived into the tiny little airport late in the night. The place was empty. There were a few men standing around, presumably taxi drivers and hotel operators, but having just arrived and being exhausted, your imagination runs away with them having much more sinister intentions. Also at the airport were a group of five or six soldiers wielding large automatic rifles. Having them there made us feel slightly safer but it was also slightly disconcerting to think that they may be necessary…
We had arranged to be picked up from the airport but were not surprised to find that our ride was not any of the people loitering around the airport in the middle of the night. Shortly all the other people off our flight had found their pick-ups waiting for them the airport was closed. Great.
So we were now locked outside the terminal, with the soldiers, and the taxi drivers, praying to God that our man arrived soon. We were starting to think we had bit of more than we could chew! So we waited and waited, sweaty and exhausted in tropical heat in the middle of nowhere. What the hell were we going to do if he didn’t show up?