No part of Earth has more, high waterfalls than Guiana! Once one has seen one or some of the larger tepuis, one also will have seen the signature waterfalls descending from their summits, sometimes falling hundreds of meters without obstruction.
What might be the most magnificent and famous of all the waterfalls of the Guiana Highlands, and perhaps the best known of the region’s natural features, was discovered by American bush pilot Jimmie Angel on 14 November 1933. Whilst flying over Auyán Tepui, a great tableland massif in the north of Guiana, Angel observed an immense plume of water that cascaded over the side of the plateau “directly from the sky”. Angel estimated the cataract to be one mile in height. Few believed his accounts of the waterfall, but in 1949 an expedition to the site undertaken by the National Geographic Society determined the waterfall to be 979 meters (about 3212 feet) high, the tallest waterfall in the world. The falls was later named Angel Falls in Jimmie’s honour.
