The anticipation of going to the tallest waterfall in the world with two of my best friends was unbearable.  For years I have waited to see this waterfall and the surrounding areas.  We took off from the Maracaibo Airport, spent a few days with some friends in Caracas, went to the German Town there (Colonia Tovar).

Caracas and Colonia Tovar:

We boarded a plane to Puerto Ordaz, then caught a taxi to take us to Ciudad Bolivar where we stayed over night for our anticipatory visit to this majestic falls.  As we got to the Ciudad Bolivar Airport, we noticed that we were on a tiny propeller plane (which made a person who we were with sick) for about an hour.

As we arrived to our small little airport in Canaima National Park, we came to find out that because of the recent drought in Venezuela, that we were not able to take the regular river boat to visit the falls and instead had to rent a plane to take us looping around the falls.  But what the hell, we were there and we had paid our money to see it.

We stayed in the tiny town of Canaima in a posada (Venezuelan term for Bungalow).  The town was small an serene with most of the population being tourists.  There were no large restaurants.  We instead ate at our little posada.  there were no bars as if you wanted alcohol, you usually went to a house to buy it from the people there for an inflated price.

Pictures of Canaima Town:

We stayed in the town for a few nights and saw the surrounding sites (beach and mini waterfalls), a nice camping excursion up the river where we slept in hammocks and ate lovely rotisserie chicken.

The anticlimactic highlight of the trip was renting a plane to see Angel Falls.  As we got closer and looped around, it should of looked something like this:

Instead to our dismay, we got something that looked like this (because of the drought), and to top it all off the plane had dirty windows and the person next to me (in the prop plane puked :

I guess all the excitement from the trip was when we returned to the town and it was somehow set on fire (probably from someone burning their trash), so we were able help the National Guard fight this fire!!!!!

Overall I am very happy I took this trip.  The waterfall was nothing more than a leaky faucet shell of its former self, but the experiences of seeing this place and meeting new people is something that will stay etched in my mind forever….