The Natives in Venezuela
had known about the "Salto Angel" since the beginning of time.
Then United States pilot Jimmie Angel was flying over the area
in 1935 when he landed on the top of a lone mountain in search
of gold. His plane got stuck in the boggy jungle on top of the
mountain and he noticed a pretty impressive waterfall plunging
thousands of feet down. He wasn't too happy about the 11 mile
hike back to civilization, and his plane remained stuck and
rusting upon the mountain as a monument to his discovery. Soon
the whole world would know about the falls, which came to be
known as Angel Falls, after the pilot who "discovered" them.
Angel Falls plunges
from the top of a mesa, or what the natives call a Tepuyi. Named
"Auyantepui", the Angel Falls mesa is one of over a hundred
of its kind which are scattered about the Guiana Highlands of
southeast Venezuela. Like so many slumbering giants, what characterizes
these mesas (Tepuys) is their massive heights soaring up towards
the sky, each with a flat top and totally vertical sides (check
out the picture at left). Also called "table mountains" (which
accurately describes their shapes) these Tepuys were formed
out of sandstone billions of years ago. Their vertical sides
are continually being eroded by the action of water from the
heavy rainfall the Guiana Highlands gets.
