Im sorry that its been so long since my last post but i’ve been crazy busy and actually back home and working in the UK.
Be it at that… ill write of my final weeks in South America. In true Ted style, i lost my memory card with 90% of my Colombia photos on so ill just do my best..
From my last post, I was travelling through Venezuela with the Americans Sean and Christi. Myself and Sean had been playing with the Idea of taking a microlight to the world famous Angel falls. What many people dont know is that you cant simply driver or ride to the falls. They are in the middle of the bloody rainforest’s and even the closest town is somewhere you have to fly to.
So myself and Sean (Christi opted out so she could scrub her knickers), decided to head to the airport and charter a flight and day trip to the falls. We rode to the small airfield of Ciuidad Bolivar, fought our way though the hoards of people selling flights and agreed a price with the most reputable (ok the cheapest) operator there.
We paid our money in cash (A friggin pain in Venezuela where the cash machines don’t work) and agreed to be picked up the next day from our hostel in town..
We spent the night getting pretty dam drunk and listening to the Beatles on my MP3 player, completely forgetting that we had to take a microlight over the jungle in the early hours.
As promised the van picked us up and took us to the airport. We were immediately loaded into a little plane and away on our 1 hour flight to Caniema (the closest Jungle settlement to the falls)
We touched down after a choppy and pretty frightening flight. It probably only felt so bad because we were hungover and trying not the throw up !!
WOW, what a beautiful place. Caniema (spelled wrong), was just stunning. A huge lake surrounded by waterfalls and lake side shacks. Its probably only here for tourists but it doesnt take away from its beauty. If this place wasn’t only accessible by light plane, im sure there would be a Mcdonalds and Hilton hotel here !
After hanging about for a few hours visiting the smaller falls, it was time to take a second plane and do our “flyby” through the deep jungle and past the face of Angel falls. We were so excited and for good reason. The fly out into the Jungle is just phenomenal. Countless miles of beautiful open rain-forest, mountains, rivers and wildlife. We were jaw dropped for the whole flight and though life couldn’t get better until the pilot (crazy old dude who had watched too many Battle of Britain films) took us over the falls. We took photos and the pilot banked, rolled and dived his way over the rainforest trying to get us a good shot. I barely held onto my lunch when my memory card filled up.
These photos REALLY don’t do Angel falls justice. They are 1 kilometre high and the water is barely a mist when it reaches the bottom. A life time experience !