More breaking news, Angel: Falls.

6 seater Cessna to the right part of Cainama to start our boat trip up to the falls.

Our accommodation was a 5 minute walk from the airport.

Dropped of gear and went for a swim in the tea/coke coloured lagoon, edged by water falls and almost-jungle, with a healthy dose of palm trees out in the water, and some strong currents from the falls.

Day 1 saw us on a boat trip along the falls on the lagoon. There are three falls visible from the beach, and a fourth you can walk around to- which we did.
We saw frogs! cool yellow ones!
We walked behind a pretty large waterfall! Got wet but it was so exciting and fun and much cause for high fives and hilarity.
Then we got beind the barrier rope to look at the falls some more and- following the lead of our guide- scrambled down the wall, jumped off a rock, and swam to the side of the base of the waterfall.
I don't know how many times I jumped off the rocks at the bottom of the falls, swam back around, climbed up, and jumped off again but I can assure it DID NOT stop being fun. It did not stop feeling like contraband. And it did not stop being heart beatingly, gigglingly, awesome.
It is good to do some bombs, even if you are far from home and there is no ice cream.

We went back under the waterfall and by now it was raining. Saturated we walked back along to another of the falls- over a beautiful landscape reminiscent of some of the Galapagos. We went behind and back through the second waterfall and then waited for the boat. Which had forgotten us.

That evening the four of us went to the pub. After some confusing over whether we had to pay 5 bolivars to sit down, and then a general consensus that the "table" she referred to that attracted a charge was most likely the pool table and not any of the empty wooden tables with seats around them, we sat down to attempt to chat over the stereo.

Next morning (after an AMAZING breakfast including pancakes, cheese, egg, and ham) we were, as instructed, ready to go at 10am. There were the four of us and two very friendly Venezuelan ladies- one of whom was having her third or fourth time at the fals.
We knew Peyka (just call him piker. That's what I did) was picking up "one more tourist" from the airport and then we would be off on the boat to head up the valley to the falls!

Huzzah!

Huzzah?

Huh?

We waited for a while. We waited till the point where the aforemention Venezeuelan lady (I think her name is Mefelda, though I have probably spelt it wrong) decided to go to the airport and tell Peyka that we had come from other countries, that he could not make us wait any longer, and if we left much later we wouldn't be able to see anything when we got to our destination that night!
Mefelda was a legend.

We started out not long after that with a different guide, and one new tourist. Peyka was back in the game just before we got on the boat though. With another new tourist! no. Hang on. That is actually his girlfriend that we had been wasting our morning for. Awesome. And from that point on we only really had a guide in the loosest sense of the word.

It would take much more than that to put a downer on such a fantastic trip though (and Stevo and I* kind of made a game where it was our object to get Peyka out of his hammock, or interrupt their private time, as much as possible. Mwah ha ha.).

Heading along the river in the boat we saw turtles hanging out on logs (and invariably falling or jumping in to the water as we went past), had to walk a couple of times while the boat went up some rapids, but generally sat in the boat and became enveloped in the gorge and majestic mountains and jungle looming above and around us. Sheer cliff faces. Flat top Te Puy rocks. The occasional water fall. The further upstream we got the more bird life we could see (and more insect and fish, as the vegetation hadn't yet made the water quite so red and basic). We rode up staircases of rapids in that boat, we navigated between looming rocks- only occasionally ramming up against them or taking on water (given the speed and violence of the water in some parts this is really a testament to the skill of our driver). We rode past cute looking grassy hillocks that could well have been Dr Seuss characters or muppets once we were out of the way.
Now at this point the river was relatively low. Only the week before we had been concerned that there might not be enough water in the river to make the boat trip, nor enough water in the falls to make it worth seeing. The state of the water we sped up on the way there suggested that at best we were borderline when we went up.

We got to camp and could see the falls, the cloud even conveniently cleared so we could see the very top of the falls from camp. Too late to walk up, we set up our hammocks, went for a wee walk (Stevo had a wee swim and just about got washed away...), ate our dinner and listened to some 80s music.

Given that Ainsley wasn't with us, when I heard yelling in the middle of the night I thought that someone was robbing the camp, or someone had been injured. Turned out one of our group was a bit of a sleep talker. Actually, that's unfair. Sleep screamer.

It rained overnight. A lot. When we got up at 5 to evaluate whether any or all of us wanted to walk up to have a closer view of the falls it was still bucketing. Slim chance of us seeing anything but, not wanting Peyka to go back to bed, we decided to head up the hill.

We had to cross the river to start the walk. The river was now much wider, and about 2m higher. It had rained a lot.

The guide did his worst guiding at this point. He didn't wait to see if we were following, he wore green and black clothes (so you you barely see him even if right behind him, given we were in junle) and generally just didn't pay much attention. Luckily those of us that wanted to head up the hill all looked out for and after each other, and yelled Peyka down as and when necessary.

We were a wet bunch when we got to the view point. But it was worth it. The falls are massive, and due to the rain, were especially massive. And the rain also meant a ton of other falls had spung up near Angel and on the surrounding Te Puys. Some of them looked like sandbags that had been shot and were leaking from several places.

The down side of the rain (other than the wet boots) was that we couldn't go swimming in one of the pools in front of the falls as the amount of water meant it was much too dangerous. Still a cool trip and great views.

The guide awesomely told us to make our own way down. When he met us at the bottom he had to jump into the river and swim along to get the boat and driver.

The boat trip back was much faster and easier (being more water) and we followed the cessna trip back to Cuidad Bolivar with a pleasant 6 hours at the bus terminal.

Another overnight bus...

*mostly Stevo...