Since leaving Brazil a little over a week ago, my awesome buddy Kate and I have had some pretty cool adventures in Venezuela and Colombia.
We left Manaus and travelled via bus (two 12 hour days, pretty gruelling but that's travel in South America) to Cuidad Bolivar in Venezuela. From there we´d arranged a tour to Angel falls, the highest waterfall in the world, set in the beautiful Canaima national park.
That morning we set off from the airport - the two of us along with three polish girls on our tour Ana, Marta and Ola -all of us piling into a tiny six seater Cessna, flying to Canaima. When we arriving we hopped in a little boat with an American and his Venezuelan son in law, and began travelling upstream to the falls.
As the scenery unfolded it was breathtaking. The park has a beautiful forest with these tabletop mountains called tepuis jutting up out of the trees, with cloud covered jagged peaks. So we sat in this little boat watching the landscape, occasionally getting splashed as we sped through some pretty fun rapids.
Once we arrived near our destination we began a hike to the base of the falls, through some absolutely gorgeous jungle. Green broad leaved plants and towering trees with winding root systems, it was just beautiful in there. After an hour or so of walking we arrived to the base of the falls and I had a swim - cold but so much fun. The top of the falls are so high up that the clouds obscured it for most of the time, but while floating in the pool beneath, the clouds cleared and I could see the whole height of it and it was spectacular.
That evening we camped in hammocks nearby and our local indigenous guide told us the legend of how the falls formed. A shaman had a vision of foreigners invading the land near the coast, so he sent his son to find a new place for their people to settle. With him the son was carrying a magic potion that could heal all wounds, and when he came across an injured falcon he gave it some of the potion and in return got to fly on the falcons back to explore the area, eventually reaching the top of a tall beautiful tepui. He was so excited to see the place that when he was running along the top of the mountain he tripped, spilling the potion and it turned into the waterfall.
It was lovely waking in such a place the next morning- fresh air, the raindrops quietly falling on the tin roof and the sounds of the forest. We got back in the boat, had a little swim in the tea coloured river, then moved to a new camp where we had a little siesta before exploring the waterfalls in that area. The first one we viewed initially from the top, then walked alongside it then got absolutely pounded by water and saturated walking behind it - SO much fun! The sheer force of the water was incredible, so fast and loud. Afterwards we had a swim at the little beach below, then walked through the trees to another waterfall, again walking behind that, getting saturated and giggling like silly. That night back at camp we had beers and a little rum with the polish girls, but after such a day it was early to bed.
I woke ridiculously early the next morning so decided to wander down to the little beach near our camp. I watched the moon set and sunrise there at the base of one of the waterfalls, a great start to the day. After breakfast Kate and I swam and lounged on the beach a little before it was time to leave beautiful Canaima, sigh.
We had a bit of travelling to do again to get to our next destination Taganga in Colombia: catching freezingly air conditioned planes, a big old taxi driven by a devout Catholic called Mercedes who cranked the Venezuelan music to the six of us piled inside (I think she was devout anyway, she crossed herself as we left Maracaibo but maybe that was in the hope that the ancient Lincoln she was driving would hold together for the journey!), a freezing bus that seemed to go in circles at one point, and finally a very helpful taxi man who dropped us at our hostel in Tangana - party town:) More on that later...
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