WEEKEND WONDERS
KAIERTEUR FALLS
This trip wasn’t all work… one weekend I had the opportunity of a lifetime and visited Kaierteur Falls. This is the world's largest single drop waterfall with a total height of 822 feet! Kaieteur is also among the most powerful waterfalls in the world with an average flow rate of 23,400 cubic feet per second.
Getting to the waterfall required an hour flight on a small 12 seater plane. We flew from Georgetown, over the Amazon rainforest, and over the Guyana Shield - which is roughly 2 billion years old and the earth's oldest surface. The Shield covers north-eastern South America and includes a large mountain plateau and rainforest system that is part of a vast watershed between the Amazon and the Orinoco rivers. It covers 30,000 square miles and features distinctive plateaus, or table-top mountains, called ‘tepuis’ by the Indians.
A cool discovery - the location of the waterfall is not touristy at all! There is a simple lodge, where we landed and had a pre-prepared lunch, that had been brought on the airplane. We walked through the woods and could hear the roar of the water before we saw the falls. We walked right up to the edge of the precipice - no guardrails here!
ORINDUIK FALLS
The next stop on the plane ride was Orinduik Falls, a half hour away on the border with Brazil.
This waterfall is user friendly! Here you can change into bathing suits and get soaked, or just wade through the water.
THE VIEW FROM ABOVE
The view from the airplane on the first leg was over a vast expanse of forest. The second leg was mostly barren of trees where we could see the soft undulating shapes of the mountains.
Back on the ground…