Why?
- it is the tallest waterfall in the world
- it’s in the middle of the jungle
- if you’re lucky you can hear monkeys screaming
- you can swim right underneath
- it’s not easily accessible, so there are no crowds of tourists
- no gift shops or restaurants around
The waterfall drops over the edge of the Auyán-tepui mountain in the Canaima National Park (Spanish: Parque Nacional Canaima), a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Gran Sabana region of Bolívar State.
The height figure, 979 m (3,212 ft), mostly consists of the main plunge but also includes about 400 metres (1,300 ft) of sloped cascade and rapids below the drop and a 30-metre-high (100 ft) plunge downstream of the talus rapids.
The falls are along a fork of the Río Kerepacupai Merú which flows into the Churún River, a tributary of the Carrao River, itself a tributary of the Orinoco River.
With regard to overall height, a revisited validation of waterfall measurements is not available, and there is still uncertainty whether Angel Falls or South Africa’s Tugela Falls is the tallest (both measurements were taken at considerable distance from the two waterfalls).
