Nearly a 1km drop!
Trip Start
Dec 03, 2010
1
8
9
Trip End
Jan 04, 2011
Canaima National Park, Guayana Highlands, Venezuela
Friday, December 10, 2010
When we arrive at Canaima, we have to buy an entrance ticket to the National Park and with that the airport formalities have been finished. Our tourleader awaits us there and needs one more flight to arrive after ours. So we wait for about 15 minutes.
Then we start walking and Frederiquo, who wants to be called Freddy, tells us who he is and what the plan is for the next 3 days. After the short walk to the posada we get 5 minutes to change into swimming gear and pack walking shoes, long pants, a shirt with sleeves, musquito repellent and sunblock. We're supposed to bring one backpack for 2 persons. And everything that you want with you in the boat, but needs to be protected from the water, needs to go in little plasticbags. So my camera goes in there and I fix a hole in the back where I can look through. This way my camera is still protected from the splashes, but I can take pictures without completely taking the camera out.
Then we start a walk. It's supposed to be 30 minutes, but that is Venezuelian minutes. Which means it could take somewhere between 30 minutes and 1,5 hours. After that we reach the canoe and load our lugagge in and then enter ourselves. The group is about 20 people. The boattrip takes around 5 hours upstream to reach the camp. In that time we'll go through quite a lot "rapido's" (rapids). For one we even have to get out of the boat and walk around it, because too many accidents happened there in the past. The others are quite a thrill to be in the boat while going up the rapids!!
Finally we arrive at our camp. But we don't go there! We have to put on our walking shoes and start walking up the hill, to go for a view of Salto Angel! It's about 1,5 hour walking, but then we reach the viewpoint. The view is amazing!! The drop is nearly a kilometer high and it looks astonishing! We walk on for about 10 more minutes and there we reach the pool at the bottom of the fall. We can swim here and glide of the rocks :)
When it starts to get dark, we start on our return walk, down to the river. The slapping of musquitos also starts around now. Halfway during our walk it's completely dark and we start to be grateful for the people who have flashlights with them. We reach the river without any incidents and there the canoe is waiting to bring us to the other side of the river.
The two guys that were steering our boat earlier that day, now have prepared our dinner. And we can freshen up and than dinner is served. The meal consists of roasted chicken with rice and a bit of salat. This appears to be the national food, as one girl complains that this her 6th day in a row with the same dinner :)
After dinner our guide Freddy shares stories about the indigenous people and the history of Parque Nacional Canaima. Then it's time for our night in the hammocks. The next morning some of the group will go on a morning walk to see the Salto Angel once more before breakfast! This means getting up around 4 am and making the hike in the dark up!
The next morning I'm really glad Eveline and I went along! The view in the morning sun is amazing!! And I have my morning bath in the pool underneath the highest waterfall in the world!
When we return to the camp, breakfast is almost ready and also the other people in the group are waking up. After breakfast we leave in the boat to go downstream again, back to Canaima for the rest of our tour. The returntrip only takes us little over 2 hours and again is quite awesome to go through the rapids in a canoe!
After our lunch (chicken with rice again) we get into another boat to take a hike and see 7 other waterfalls. These are beautifull and full of water. The best part about this part of the trip is the two waterfalls where we go behind them!! To go there we first need to walk through the falling water and then it becomes amazing!! Especially the last one, where a huge amount of water is coming down!! This is maybe an even better experience than seeing water drop for nearly a kilometer :)
Next we go back to the posada and have dinner. Of course chicken again, only this time with spaghetti ;). After dinner Freddy tells us it's his birthday today and because of that he would like us to come with him to a local bar and celebrate. We all put some money together and buy a bottle of rum. A lot of the people leave shortly after because they are tired. And with in total 6 people we finish the rum in another bar. Which ends with Freddy being a bit drunk, but very funny :)
Next day and last one is our resting day. So we have the morning to spend relaxing at the beach and swimming in the lagune with a view of the waterfalls we visited the day before. At around 1:30 pm it's time to fly back to Ciudad Bolivar!
What an amazing trip!!!
