Earth’s Highest Waterfalls Deep in the Lost World
American bush pilot Jimmy Angel was searching for a fabled mountain of gold when he “discovered” these wondrous falls – the highest in the world – in 1935. At 3,212 feet, and with an uninterrupted drop of more than 2,600 feet, they are fifteen times taller than Niagara Falls and one and a half times higher than the Empire State Building. Angel Falls springs from the summit of Auyan Tepuy, one of the area’s mysterious tabletop tepuys (from a Pemón Indian word meaning “mountain”) that interrupt the jungles and savanna.
La Gran Sabana is populated by more than 100 of these massive sandstone mesas. They are some of the oldest and – with heights reaching 9,000 feet – some of the most impressive rock formations on earth, located within the Canaima National Park. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was inspired here to write about dinosaurs and other Jurassic creatures in his classic The Lost World. On the park’s lagoon side, Campamento Canaima is a rustic but comfortable jungle lodge of thatched-palm cabanas that offers flight-seeing tours and trips to the base of the falls by jeep, foot, and motorized dugout canoe.
