Angel Falls
Trip Start
May 01, 2006
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27
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Trip End
Apr 30, 2007
Canaima, Venezuela
Tuesday, July 4, 2006
First, we made the 12-hour overnight bus ride from Caracas to the city of Cuidad Bolivar. Next, we took a 1-hour flight to the village of Canaima, which is completely inaccessible by road (there isn't one!). As we were a little late in arriving at the airport, we took the last available flight for the day, which happened to be a six seater propellor plane filled with meat and Coca-cola.
Having arrived at Canaima and settling into our jungle lodge, the next phase is 4-5 hours of boat ride upstream, combined with sections of trekking to avoid the heaviest river rapids. Finally, a 1-hour trek takes you to the foot of the falls themselves.
We spent the night in hammocks in full view of the waterfall, which really is pretty unbeatable for a view! After a 3-night stay in total, we flew on to the border town of Santa Elena to cross into Brazil. Interestingly, our pilot made an unscheduled stop at a tiny village in the middle of the Gran Sabana half-way through the flight. This involved landing on and taking off from a rather short dirt run-way - definitely something everyone should do once... ;-)
