Rowan Castle - Travel & Photography
© Rowan Castle 2019
Venezuela 2000
Expedition to Angel Falls
In 1998 I was reading a copy of the UK’s TRAIL magazine that included a feature on the 'World's Ten Greatest Treks'. Most
of the epic routes in their list were the classic Himalayan circuits to be found in Nepal, India and the Karakoram
mountains of Northern Pakistan. However, one trek was radically different and leapt off the page at me. It was a two
week jungle odyssey by four wheel drive, dug out canoe and on foot through remote Venezuelan rainforest to Angel Falls,
the World's highest waterfall. The route had only first been attempted commercially in 1995 by a small travel firm called
Geodyssey and they were still the only operators running the trip. Their 'Expedition to Angel Falls' was immediately
appealing. I had always wanted to visit the rainforest of South America, and on this walk our guides and porters would be
the local Pemon Indians who would have unrivalled knowledge of the terrain, wildlife and of jungle survival.
Six days of walking and a further three by motorised dug out canoe took us through the area's unique scenery of table top
mountains (known as tepuis), and culminated at the sheer three thousand feet high rock face where Angel Falls spills
down into the jungle from the summit of Auyantepui. This was an unforgettable introduction to the rainforest and
Venezuela.
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Adventure Travel Magazine Article
This is my article that was published in Adventure
Travel Magazine* (PDF file, opens in a new tab).
* Reproduced with the kind permission of Adventure Travel Magazine.