ANGEL FALLS

Angel Falls, the tallest waterfall in the world, drops nearly a kilometer (about 979m total drop with 807m freefall) from a table-top mountain (tepuy or tepui in the indigenous Pemón language) known as Auyantepuy (or Auyantepui meaning "Mountain of the God of Evil" or "Devil's Mountain"). Its existence seems like a paradox as it's neither fed by conventional drainage sources such as snow/glacier melt, lakes, nor a major river system. Indeed, the abundance of water responsible for the falls is practically all rainfall from equatorial rainfall condensing onto the cloud forest above plateau of Auyantepui. It's almost as if the clouds wring its water onto the tepui like a soaked rag.

Angel Falls is also called Salto Ángel or indigenously Kerepakupai-merú. I believe the indigenous name derived from the Pemón natives means "falls from the deepest place". Ironically, the more famous name of the falls has nothing to do with the connotation that water falls from the heavens. In fact, it just so happened to be the name of aviator Jimmy Angel who in 1937 landed his plane above Auyantepui near the falls in an effort to prove to the world of the existence of the falls (and to search for gold). Given the soggy terrain atop the tepuy, the plane was stuck so he, his wife, and two friends had no choice but to make the difficult trek down from the vertical cliffs of the tepui towards civilization (taking around 11 days). Only after successfully performing that feat did the falls become known to the rest of the world, and eventually the falls were named after him. Jimmy Angel's plane has since been moved, restored, and on display at the airport in Ciudad Bolívar.