This is the most high waterfall on the ground. The height of the waterfall is 979 meters. Angel is so high that the water does not reach the bottom. While still in the air, it turns into fog, which can be felt several kilometers before the waterfall. Whatever reaches the bottom will end up in the Kerep River. The waterfall is located in wild places and can only be reached by river or air.

Angel on the map:

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The question may arise as to where the sheer cliff almost 1000 meters high came from. The waterfall falls from Auyantepui, which is the largest tepui in Venezuela. There are many tepuis between the Amazon, Orinoco and Rio Negro rivers. They are the remnants of a vast plateau and were formed as a result of its erosion. Typically, tepuis consist of a single block of Precambrian sandstone or quartzite. They rise above the surrounding jungle to a height of more than 2000 meters. It is thanks to this natural miracle It became possible to form the largest waterfall in the world - Angel.

Rainbow at Angel Falls, photo.

Anhal was named after its discoverer, pilot James Angel. He flew over the falls in 1933. The purpose of his flight over Auyantepuyeim was to search for diamonds. An attempt to land on the tepui ended in the plane breaking down. It took Angel 11 days to reach civilization. He didn’t find any diamonds, but he immortalized his name by giving it to the highest waterfall in the world.

Thus, Angel has nothing in common with the Angels, although the local Indians consider tepuis to be the home of the gods... It was named so simply in honor of its discoverer, although slightly twisted in the Spanish manner.

The waterfall is often difficult to see because of the clouds, so travelers are faced with a dilemma: visit the waterfall during the dry season (December-March), when it is not so full of water, but there is less chance of getting caught in fog, or take a risk, but see Angel in full more beautiful

Interesting Facts:

1) The plane remained at the crash site, only 33 years later it was lowered down using a helicopter. Today the plane stands in front of the airport in Ciudad Bolivar.

2) The height of the waterfall was determined only in 1949.

3) The waterfall is part world heritage UNESCO

4) The first ascent of the waterfall wall was made only in 2005. One of the seven climbers was Russian.

5) Angel Falls officially no longer exists. In 2009, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez renamed it Kerepakupai-meru.

How to get there: Angel Falls is in the middle of a wild jungle, so the best way to visit the falls is by air, just like Angel did, or by the Kerep River.

Kerep River

Video: “Angel Falls -Salto Angel”

Video: “Venezuela, flight over Angel Falls, Salto Angel, Venezuela.”

Angel Falls: luxurious and majestic

Angel Falls, also called Salto Angela, is known as the highest waterfall in the world. It differs significantly from its other famous “brothers” - Niagara, Victoria and Iguazu. Angel is much more modest than them in such an indicator as the volume of water passed through. But the height of her free fall - 978 meters - allows us to characterize Angel as the most big waterfall in the world.

Angel Falls - photo

Angel Falls - photo

History of discovery

Angel Falls received its name in honor of the American pilot James Angel, who in 1935 saw a stream of water falling from a height of more than a thousand meters from an airplane. James was not going to discover anything; he was looking for gold, but due to an accident he made an emergency landing in the jungle of the Guiana Highlands. The discovery of the waterfall became a kind of compensation for him for the plane, which had to be left to rot in a tropical swamp, and for the journey through the jungle to civilization. These eleven miles were not the most pleasant of his life.

Angel Falls - photo

Angel Falls - photo

But, as often happens, Angel was far from the first person to see this miracle of nature, and not even the first European. The Indians knew about it long before Columbus led his caravels through Atlantic Ocean. It was they who gave the name “tepui” to the mountains characteristic of the Guiana Highlands. They all have vertical slopes and flat tops, like Table Mountain near Cape Town. Tepuis are constantly subject to water erosion due to tropical rainfall, characteristic of the climate of this area. The name of the mountain from which the stream falls remains Indian. "Auyantepui" translated from one of the local dialects means "devil's mountain".

Aboriginal stories brought the Spanish conquistador Ernesto Sanchez La Cruz to these lands. But its discovery was safely forgotten until 1935.

Angel Falls - photo

Angel Falls - photo

Location and road to Angel

Angel Falls is located in Venezuela, in the Canaima Park. If Niagara and Victoria are easily accessible to tourists, they have convenient roads, and hotels are built nearby, then it is much more difficult to see the “Angel’s Flip”. Roads simply do not exist in the tropical jungle - movement is only possible by water or air. To see the largest waterfall with your own eyes, you need to travel by plane from the capital of Venezuela, Caracas. There is also regular flights from the city of Ciudad Bolivar to Canaima, and then you will have to make boat trip. The cost of the tour usually includes the necessary equipment, equipment and food costs.

Angel Falls - photo

Those who want to see this wonder of the world have to put up with the need to get wet from the fog. Water, falling from a great height, is dispersed into tiny particles and it is in this form that it enters the Kerep River.

Any schoolchild knows in which country Angel Falls is located. This natural object declared a national treasure of Venezuela. Its height was measured in 1949, and in 1968, James Angel's plane was removed from the jungle using a helicopter and solemnly placed in a museum. Those wishing to see this relic should go to the city of Maracay and visit the local aviation museum.

Angel (Spanish: Salto Ángel, in Pemonese - Kerepakupai vena, which means “Waterfall” deepest place") - the highest waterfall in the world, overall height 979 meters, continuous fall height 807 meters. Named after pilot James Angel, who flew over the falls in 1935.

Angel translated into Russian means “angel”. Although the names of waterfalls are usually very figurative and poetic, this waterfall is called an angel not in honor of the biblical angels and not because of its “proximity to heaven.” The 1st magnitude giant bears the name of its discoverer, the Venezuelan pilot Juan Angel, and the Indians called the waterfall Apemey or Maiden's Eyebrow. Angel Falls, more than a kilometer high, was discovered relatively recently - in 1935. This proves how much unknown our beautiful planet Earth still conceals.

How could such a phenomenal miracle of nature - a vertical stream of water a mile high - be hidden from humanity throughout history? The fact is that Angel is located in one of the most remote and inaccessible corners of the earth. Southeastern part of Venezuela – mountain range Auyan-Tepui (Devil's Mountain) is composed of porous sandstones, has a height of up to 2600 m, and ends abruptly with a sheer rock wall. The approaches to the wall are blocked by the selva - a dense tropical forest.

What was Angel looking for there? In the 1930s, a “diamond rush” broke out in Venezuela. Hundreds of adventurers, businessmen hungry for profit, and simply the poor rushed into the impenetrable jungle. Angel bought a small sports plane and flew to the Auyan Tepui massif. In those places, the tops of the table mountains are often covered with clouds. Angel was flying in clear weather and was the first to see a kilometer-long vertical water line.

It turned out that the waterfall does not fall from the very edge of the highland ledge. The Churumi River “cut through” the upper edge of the cliff and falls 80-100 m below its edge. Water consumption – 300 sq.m/s.

Juan Angel (Angel) did not discover diamond deposits or build sanatoriums. Others have done it. He had an accident and was saved literally by a miracle. He landed in the very place that Conan Doyle chose to unfold the events of his famous novel “ lost World" Having reached the nearest post office, Angel reported his discovery to the National Geographical Society United States, and his name is now on all maps of the world. On Latin American maps, the waterfall is often designated as Salto Angel, i.e. “angel's jump”. Last years The discoverer spent his life in Venezuela, in the state of Ciudad Bolivar, and died in 1956. According to Angel’s will, his ashes were scattered over a waterfall named after him.

The extent to which the term “miracle” in relation to the surviving pilot Angel is not an exaggeration can be judged by the fact that fourteen years later, in 1949, a group of five American and Venezuelan surveyors barely made their way through the jungle to the waterfall, as wild forest was completely intertwined with vines and lush shrubby vegetation. They had to continuously cut the road with machetes and axes. The expedition spent... nineteen days to cover the last 36 km! But the game was worth the candle. What the expedition members saw will not be forgotten by any of them until the end of their days.



The most vivid description of the waterfall - perhaps the best in world literature - belongs to the chairman of the Soviet Peace Committee, Yu. A. Zhukov, who viewed Angel Falls from an airplane in April 1971. “ The pilot is flying his plane very close to him. In front of us is an incredibly high one - a kilometer! - an elastic, foamy white column of water, - a tight stream of flow falls from the plateau into the abyss, at the bottom of which the river is reborn. Churumi, whose flow is interrupted by this crazy water jump... We have already heard and read that the height of the water fall here is so great that the stream, without reaching the bottom of the abyss, turns into water dust, which settles on the stones as rain. But you had to see this in order to imagine all the originality of the spectacle that presented itself: somewhere below, about three hundred meters from the bottom of the abyss, a powerful, elastic, boiling stream suddenly seemed to melt and break off in the fog. And even lower, as if born out of nothing, the river was seething... How I would like to approach the waterfall not by plane, but on the ground - to stand near it, listen to its roar, inhale the smell of water falling from the sky! But this is impossible…“.

To reach the ground, the stream flying from the top of the highest waterfall on our planet needs to travel about a kilometer. The speed of falling water is so high that, not reaching the ground about three hundred meters, it simply dissipates into dust, creating the impression that a seething, boiling and powerful stream of water disappears forever in the fog. And below, among the endless ocean of green jungle, as if born out of nothing, the marvelous Churun ​​River appears.

Angel Falls is located in the southeast of Venezuela, in the municipality of Gran Sabana in the state of Bolivar, among the jungle of the Guiana Plateau, which is located in the north of South America. Closest to the waterfall Big City, Ciudad Bolivar, is located 600 km to the north, and from the nearest village of Canaimi it is located 50 km in a southeast direction (at geographical map peace this unique phenomenon can be found at the following coordinates: 5° 58′ 3″ N. latitude, 62° 32′ 8″ W. d.).

Despite such remoteness from the civilized world, life near the waterfall is in full swing: people come from all over the world to see it. And this is not at all surprising, since Angel Falls is the highest waterfall on our planet (total height is 1054 m). It’s not for nothing that the Pemon Indians living here named it Kerepakupai-Mera, which means “Waterfall with the greatest depth.”

History of education

Angel Falls arose thanks to the Churun ​​River, which originates on one of the slopes located on the Guiana Plateau of South America. The plateau is notable for the fact that it consists of huge plateaus, the basis of which is red sandstone and hardened lava. They rise above each other in the form of huge staircases with steps, the height of which is several hundred meters.

One of these steps is the largest table mountain in Venezuela, Auyantepui (interestingly, the Pemon Indians interpret this name in two ways: one version says that it means “Mountain of the Devil”, the other means “Domain of the Thunder God”). Churun, descending in zigzags along the Guiana Plateau, ends up on a plateau, which is also the peak of Auyantepui, whose area is 700 km², and gradually approaches its cliff. The speed of the river increases, and with noise and roar it begins to fall (interestingly, the width water flow during the rainy season exceeds one hundred meters).

First, the water flies 807 meters, after which, when it hits an obstacle, it travels another 172 meters. One of the little-known facts is that the river, having made a notch in the upper edge of the cliff, begins its free fall not from the very edge of the plateau ledge, but 80-100 meters below. This is the immediate reason that geologists have still not been able to accurately determine the height of the waterfall: some claim that it is 979 m, others – 1054 m.

The flow of water erupting downwards during the rainy season, which lasts in South America from May to November, is extremely large: every second the waterfall passes through about 300 cubic meters. water. But when there are no showers, Angel Falls decreases somewhat and is divided into two smaller streams, and sometimes it even appears as a narrow trickle.

Lost in the jungle

Since the waterfall is located in a wild, sparsely populated area among the tropical jungle, for many millennia only the nearby Indians of the Pemon tribe knew about it. They were convinced that evil spirits lived at the top of the mountain, so they never climbed to the top of the steep cliff.

The civilized world learned about the existence of the waterfall only in the 30s. last century, when the Venezuelan pilot Juan Angel flew here in search of diamonds (the local Indians constantly talked about stones that could be mistaken for gems).

While flying around the area, the pilot noticed a number of tepuis located next to each other and assumed that deposits had been found. When Angel returned a few years later, while trying to land the plane on the top of the mountain, one of the landing gear burst, so he had to go down on his own. Despite the extremely difficult descent, the pilot, his wife and two other fellow travelers managed to descend without loss - and eleven days later they returned to the civilized world with a story about the huge waterfall and were able to attract public attention to it.

Enough interesting fact says that they managed to get out of the jungle extremely quickly, since an expedition of five people, organized some time later, armed with a map, having precise coordinates, using machetes and axes, cutting a road through thickets of vines and bushes, spent more than twenty days on the road. When they arrived at the place, the discovery shocked them: it turned out that the found waterfall was 20 times higher than the famous one. Niagara Falls. As a result of this expedition it was given Full description waterfall, its height was determined, and it was named after the man who discovered it.


Interestingly, several years ago, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez wanted to name the waterfall as the tribe living in this area calls it - Kerepakupai-Meru, arguing that the waterfall appeared on Venezuelan territory long before Angel found it. But the name did not stick, and he backed down, saying that it was only a statement, the purpose of which was to protect the rights of the Indians to use the historical name.

How to get to the waterfall

Since Angel Falls is surrounded on all sides by many kilometers of jungle and there are no special roads to it, it is generally accepted that it is considered one of the most inaccessible waterfalls in the world. There is a positive aspect to this, since the nature around it has managed to preserve its pristine beauty: here you can often find anteaters, porcupines, sloths, deer, monkeys, and jaguars.

This made it possible to create National Park Canaimi, and then allowed UNESCO to include it, and with it the waterfall, on the World Heritage List.

You can get to the waterfall either by small plane or by canoe with a motor (it is not possible to travel by car). To do this, travelers first arrive in Canaimi, and only then choose the type of travel. Most tourists choose air transport, which is not the best solution, since it is not always possible to get a good look at the waterfall: the rock from which it falls is often shrouded in clouds, especially during the rainy season.

Therefore, travelers who want to get to know this amazing natural phenomenon as best as possible are advised to give preference to a boat. The tour usually lasts from one to five days, the journey takes about five hours one way, and the time allocated to explore the waterfall depends entirely on the desire of tourists. Interestingly, if the trip falls during a dry period and the flow of falling water is small, then at the foot of the waterfall you can even swim in a small pond.

Angel Falls (Spanish) Angel) or Salto Angel (Spanish) Salto Angel) is the world's tallest free-falling waterfall, 978 meters high. R It is located in the mountainous region of Guyana, one of the five topographic regions of Venezuela. It is located on the Carrao River. The Carrao River is a tributary of the Caroni River, which eventually flows into the Orinoco. Getting to the waterfall is not easy, as it is located in dense tropical forest. There are no roads leading to the waterfall.

The waterfall cascades from the top of a flat mountain called tepui by the aborigines. The flat mountain called Auyan Tepuy (Devil's Mountain) is one of more than a hundred similar ones scattered across the Guiana Highlands in southeastern Venezuela. These giants are characterized by their massive heights that soar into the sky, with flat tops and completely vertical sides. Tepuis, also called "table mountains" (which accurately describes their shape), were formed from sandstone billions of years ago. Their vertical slopes are continuously destroyed under the influence of heavy rains falling on the Guiana Highlands.

The Indians of Venezuela have known about "Salto Angel" since time immemorial. The falls were originally discovered in 1910 by a Spanish explorer named Ernesto Sanchez La Cruz. However, it was not known to the world until its official discovery by American aviator and gold prospector James Crawford Angel, after whom it was named. Angel was born in Springfield, Missouri in 1899.

This enterprising, experienced pilot, in 1935, flew over the area and landed on the top of a lonely mountain in search of gold. His Flamingo monoplane was stuck in the swampy jungle at the top, and he noticed a rather impressive waterfall extending down thousands of feet. He had little luck on the 11-mile excursion back to civilization, and his plane remained chained to the mountain, a rusting monument to his discovery. Soon the whole world learned about the waterfall, which became known as Angel Falls, in honor of the pilot who discovered it. Jimmy Angel's plane remained in the jungle for 33 years until it was recovered by helicopter. It is currently housed in the Aviation Museum in Maracay. The one you can now see on top of the tepui is its exact copy.