🇻🇪 Venezuela · La Gran Sabana and Guayana
Picture a curtain of water peeling away from the edge of a plateau and falling almost a kilometer into the void, dissolving into mist before it touches the ground, in the middle of the deepest rainforest. That's Angel Falls, the highest waterfall in the world, dropping from the top of Auyantepui in the heart of Canaima National Park, in Venezuelan Guayana. To the Pemón, its original inhabitants, it's Kerepakupai Vená, and it's one of the most sacred and overwhelming places on Earth.
At a total height of around 979 meters, Angel Falls is the highest uninterrupted waterfall on the planet: so tall that, over part of its drop, the wind atomizes the water into mist before it reaches the bottom. It falls from Auyantepui, one of those colossal plateaus of ancient rock - the tepuis - that give Canaima its lost-world look. Reaching its base is a genuine expedition through rivers and jungle; seeing it is one of those experiences you remember for life.
This guide covers Angel Falls with a practical and respectful eye: what the river trip to its base involves, when it can be done, what it means to travel by dugout canoe and sleep in a hammock deep in the jungle, how to see the falls from the air if the rivers are low, real package prices, and everything worth knowing to plan a trip to the world's highest waterfall. It isn't an easy destination or one to improvise, but few landscapes repay the effort of getting there so generously.
Angel Falls (Kerepakupai Vená, 'waterfall of the deepest place' in Pemón) drops from Auyantepui, in Canaima National Park, with a total height of around 979 meters and a free fall of more than 800 meters, making it the waterfall with the greatest uninterrupted drop in the world. The Pemón people had known it since time immemorial, within a landscape of tepuis they consider sacred, the dwellings of spirits. Among non-Indigenous explorers, an early aerial sighting is attributed to the Spaniard Félix Cardona in the 1920s. But its worldwide fame came through the American aviator Jimmie Angel, who spotted it on one of his flights in November 1933 and, in 1937, tried to land his plane on the summit of Auyantepui, where the aircraft got stuck; he and his companions had to descend on foot over several days. The falls took their Western name from his surname, Angel. The height was officially measured in 1949 on an expedition linked to the National Geographic Society. Today Angel Falls is Venezuela's natural icon to the world, inside a park declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓Venezuela's largest state: home of the tepuis and Angel Falls — the world's tallest waterfall — of La Gran Sabana and the Pemón people, of Bolívar's Angostura Address, of Orinoco gold, of the Guri dam and the heavy industry of Ciudad Guayana.
Read the history of Bolívar →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Long before any European or aviator laid eyes on it, Angel Falls already had a name and a people: it belonged to the world of the Pemón, the original inhabitants of the Gran Sabana and Venezuelan Guayana. To them, the waterfall dropping from Auyantepui is Kerepakupai Vená, a phrase in their language usually translated as 'waterfall of the deepest place' (other spellings and names associated with the falls and the area also exist).
For the Pemón, Auyantepui and the other tepuis are not simply mountains but sacred places, the dwellings of spirits. The name 'Auyantepui' itself is usually linked to the idea of 'devil's mountain' or a place of spirits, reflecting the respect and reverent fear inspired by that colossal plateau with a river falling from its summit into the void. The waterfall and its surroundings were woven into a worldview rich in myths about the origin of the landscape, the spirits of nature and the relationship between people and this immense territory.
This Indigenous presence is the first and longest layer of Angel Falls' history. When, centuries later, the explorers and aviators who 'discovered' it for the Western world arrived, they were in fact reaching a place the Pemón had known, named and revered since time immemorial. Recognizing the name Kerepakupai Vená means recognizing that precedence and that deep bond between the Pemón people and the highest waterfall on the planet.
Angel Falls makes no sense without Auyantepui, the tepui it drops from. Auyantepui is one of the largest tepuis in Canaima National Park, an immense plateau of Precambrian sandstone - almost two billion years old - with sheer walls rising abruptly above the forest. On its surface, heavy rains feed watercourses that, on reaching the edge of the tepui, plunge into the void. The most spectacular of them forms Angel Falls.
The figures explain its fame: a total height of around 979 meters and a free fall of more than 800 meters, making it the waterfall with the greatest uninterrupted drop in the world, almost twenty times higher than Niagara Falls. It's so tall that, over part of the drop - especially when the flow is lower or the wind is strong - the water turns into fine mist before reaching the ground. The falls spring straight from the tepui wall, in a setting of forest and rock that heightens their grandeur.
That extreme geology - ancient plateaus, sheer walls, abundant rain on the summit - is what produces this unique phenomenon. The measured height of the falls was officially confirmed in 1949, during an expedition linked to the National Geographic Society, which established it as the highest waterfall on the planet. Angel Falls has been a world record and a natural symbol of Venezuela ever since.
Before Angel Falls took the name the world knows it by today, there were explorers who ventured into the remote region of the tepuis and who, according to the sources, saw it. The honor of being one of the first non-Indigenous observers is usually given to the Spanish explorer Félix Cardona Puig, who is said to have sighted the falls from the air in the 1920s, along with other explorers of the period.
Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the Guayana and Gran Sabana region, with its inaccessible tepuis and impenetrable forest, drew naturalists, geographers and adventurers fascinated by its mysteries. These were barely mapped territories, extraordinarily hard to reach, where every expedition was a heroic undertaking. In that context, the first sightings of the falls were episodes in the great saga of Guayana exploration, still little known outside specialist circles.
Exactly who saw the falls first, when and in what circumstances varies between sources, and it's best treated with the caution any account of exploration from a century ago deserves. What is certain is that when, shortly afterward, the aviator Jimmie Angel spotted it and then tried to set down on Auyantepui, the scene had already been reached - at least visually - by other explorers, and had always been known to the Pemón. But it would be Angel's name that stuck.
The name the world knows the waterfall by today comes from a fascinating character: James Crawford Angel, 'Jimmie' Angel, an American aviator with an adventurer's streak who flew the skies of Venezuelan Guayana in the 1930s. According to the legend that surrounds him, Angel was searching for a river of gold on top of the tepuis, drawn by tales of riches hidden on those unreachable plateaus.
In November 1933, on one of his solo flights over Auyantepui, Angel spotted the astonishing waterfall pouring off the plateau. He was so struck by it that he came back years later determined to land his plane on the summit. On 9 October 1937, his aircraft, the 'Río Caroní', managed to touch down on top of Auyantepui, but the ground turned out to be boggy and the plane got stuck and damaged, unable to take off again. Angel, his wife Marie and their companions had to descend from the tepui on foot over several days, an epic trek through hostile terrain, until they reached civilization.
That feat sealed the fame of both the aviator and the waterfall. The plane stayed on top of Auyantepui for decades as a relic of the adventure (it was removed years later). And the waterfall came to be called, in Spanish, Salto Ángel, after his surname - Angel - a name that caught on around the world. So a pilot in search of gold ended up giving his name to the highest waterfall on the planet, already sacred to the Pemón and known to them as Kerepakupai Vená.
After Jimmie Angel's feat and the official measurement of its height in 1949, Angel Falls became a global phenomenon. Its status as the highest waterfall on the planet, its lost-world setting and the drama of its story turned it into Venezuela's great natural icon abroad, reproduced in photographs, documentaries and, later, in global popular culture.
The falls were protected within Canaima National Park, created in 1962 and declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994 for the exceptional value of its tepuis, its ancient geology and its biodiversity. Angel Falls thus became part, along with Auyantepui and the park as a whole, of the natural heritage of all humanity. Today it is one of Venezuela's leading tourist destinations and a symbol of the country, present even in its national imagination.
In recent decades its Indigenous name, Kerepakupai Vená, has been strongly reclaimed in recognition of the Pemón people and their precedence over the place. There have even been official initiatives to highlight the original name. Names aside, Angel Falls remains what it has always been: one of the most overwhelming natural wonders on the planet, a column of water falling almost a kilometer from a sacred mountain almost two billion years old, in the heart of one of the last great wildernesses of South America.