Angel Falls and Canaima:
Sept. 3-5, 2008
One of the single most important inspirations for our trip was the sight of Angel Falls creeping towards the edge of Auyan-Tepui and then plummeting for one kilometer and turning to mist before it hits the ground. The inspiration came in the form the BBC’s Planet Earth series. If you have not seen it, I suggest you do.
We arranged a three day tour of the falls and surrounding area in Parque Nacional Canaima. First it was necessary to fly from Ciudad Bolivar to the tiny town of Canaima. We arrived in an 8 seater Cessna. Once in Canaima we boarded a large dugout canoe with an outboard motor and started up the rivers Carrao and Churrun. The boat ride took about 5 hours, with a stopover to swim near a small waterfall. Once back on the boat we had to leave the boat at one point and walk for an hour through savanna grasslands, as it was unsafe to take a full boat through the rapids. The boat ride provided great views of the many tepuis (flat topped table mountains). The river water is interesting in its own way too: in a bottle it’s yellow, in shallow water it ranges from pink to scarlet and in the deeper areas it shows up almost black. The rivers are inhabited by few species, some vegetarian piranhas, a tasty catfish and several small types of fish.
Our first view of the falls came suddenly as our boat came round a tepui. It was a brief glimpse, but it was magnificent. The closer we got to the falls the more frequent the appearances became. We stopped across the river from our camp, and began a short and relatively easy one hour hike inside the Devil’s Canyon. Several times the falls could be seen through the thick canopy of the jungle, anticipation was building steadily. We reached the Mirador (lookout) and stood in awe for several moments before being able to speak. The water level at the top the tepui was high so we were treated to two Angel Falls. In the dry season the falls can be reduced to a trickle, but the high volume of water meant a second cascade of water also poured over the edge of the cliff less than 100m to the left of the main falls. Clouds formed and disappeared in seconds, constantly changing the vista as the sun was either blocked out or allowed to peek in.
A very short hike further up river took us to a smaller waterfall and swimming hole. The water was black, cold and sweet. Twice different, strange aquatic insects took a nibble out of my foot, but they were tiny and not venomous. We hiked back to the drop off point and were taken again by boat across the river to our camp for the night. We stayed up with Roddy, a Belgian and Nora, a Venezuelan from Caracas, talking about the day’s experience. Ash and I wanted to see the falls, which faces east at sunrise. We talked to Oswaldo, our guide, about it and he agreed to bring Roddy, Ash and I across the river at dawn so we could hike back to the lookout and see the falls in a different light.
We woke at 4:30AM after a night of hard rain and had a look at the sky. It was overcast and soon a dense low fog blew in as well. We decided to take a chance and go anyways, how many times would we be at Angel Falls? We hopped into the boat, which had several inches of water in it from the night’s rain and we delivered to the other side of the river. It was barely light enough to see the trail and still foggy. Just as we arrived at the lookout, the fog began to lift and rays of sunlight illuminated the falls, which were swollen with the latest rain. The falls were so powerful it created a strong, steady blast of wind and mist which blew down the through the canyon soaking everything. The combination of the falls at sunrise and the moist wind was exhilarating. We had to be back at camp after only an hour as the boat was taking our group back to Canaima to see some more sights. We arrived back in camp just in time for breakfast and to show the rest of the group our great photographs on the tiny screen. For anyone interested in doing a Canaima tour, we highly recommend waking up early to experience the falls at sunrise. Soon we were back on the boat and back in Canaima in time for lunch and another tour of the lagoon and several other waterfalls.
In the afternoon we boated across the lagoon passing several short, but high volume waterfalls. On the opposite shore we docked and began an hour walk, again in savanna to the edge of Sapo Falls. From there we hiked down to the bottom of the highly volumous falls where we were able to walk underneath and behind the wide cascade of water. The sound of such a large volume of water crashing down into the lagoon just overhead is a totally deafening experience and it is impossible not be highly impressed, if not afraid of the shear power of it.
Once again we were walking in the savanna, plagued by tiny biting puri puris. Puri puris are little flying insects whose bite is far itchier than any mosquito and they seem to be unfazed by insect repellant. Back at camp in Canaima we got to talking with our guide Armstrong. He asked if we enjoyed the tour of Angel and Sapo Falls and where we wanted to go next. We told him that we really wanted to explore Mt. Roraima, the tallest of the tepuis and inspiration for Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World. Roraima would be a 6 day trek, with a large group and would be quite expensive. Out of curiosity we asked if it would be possible to hike Auyan-Tepui, the largest tepui and reach Angel Falls from above. He told us it is possible, but it is very difficult, would be more than twice as long as Roraima and we would have to bring everything we would need for the trek since it’s not an offered group tour. This began to sound more and more like our kind of adventure. We prefer to not be on guided tours with big groups that go up frequently. Armstrong was a porter on the first trek to the falls with a group from the University of Cambridge. The expedition took 23 days and they cut a large portion of the trail as they made their way to the falls. He had been up nine times in total, but only once to the falls. We talked all afternoon about it and in the morning we made a deal to go alone with him all the way to the falls and back. Some groups contract guides independently to hike to the top of Auyan-Tepui, a 6 day trek, but very few hike the additional 8 days on top of the tepui to reach the falls. We agreed to meet Oswaldo in Kavac, a town southeast of Auyan-Tepui to begin the expedition in 3 days time.
We flew out of Canaima that afternoon both excited and a little nervous about what we had signed on for. We also had a lot of work to do in the following days if we were going to be ready for 15 days of hiking. To add to the nerves, our pilot on the way back to Ciudad Bolivar nodded off several times during the flight and the fuel gauge in the Cessna was malfunctioning. Needless to say we were happy to touch ground after safely landing.
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