Kaieteur Falls

 

(kīətʊr') , waterfall, 741 ft (226 m) high, in the Potaro River, W Guyana. It plunges over an escarpment of the Guyana Highlands. One of the most impressive falls in South America, it is included in a national park.

Kaieteur Falls is a waterfall on the Potaro River in central Guyana. It is located in the Kaieteur National Park, a region that is also claimed by Venezuela. It is 226 meters (741 feet) when measured from its plunge over a sandstone cliff to the first break. It then flows over a series of steep cascades that, when included in the measurements, bring the total height to 251 meters (822 feet).

Kaieteur Falls is about five times higher than the more well known Niagara Falls, located on the border between Canada and the United States and about two times the height of the Victoria Falls located on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe in Africa. It is a single drop waterfall which is the 122nd tallest (single and multi-drop waterfall) in the world according to the World Waterfalls Database. The same web site lists it as 19th largest waterfall in terms of volume [1], and in their estimation, Kaieteur is the 26th most scenic waterfall in the world [2].

Its distinction lies in the unique combination of great height and large volume, averaging 663 cubic meters per second (23,400 cubic feet per second). Thus it is one of the most powerful waterfalls in the world, rivaling even the Jog Falls of India's Karnataka state during the monsoon season.

Up river from the falls, the Potaro Plateau stretches out to the distant escarpment of the Pakaraima Mountains. The Potaro river empties in to the Essequibo River which is one the longest and widest rivers in South America.

Discovery

On 24 April 1870, Charles Barrington Brown, one of two British geologists appointed government surveyors to the colony of British Guiana (Guyana), became the first European to see Kaieteur Falls. The other surveyor was James Sawkins. Brown and James Sawkins arrived in Georgetown in 1867 and did some of their mapping and preparation of geological reports together, some in separate expeditions, but Sawkins had taken a break from his work when Brown came upon Kaieteur. After completing their surveys of thousands of miles of interior rivers during the heady days of gold discoveries, the surveyors left British Guiana in 1871.

Brown’s book Canoe and Camp life in British Guiana was published in 1876. Two years later, in 1878, he published Fifteen Thousand Miles on the Amazon and its tributaries.

According to a Patamona Indian legend, Kaieteur Falls was named for Kai, a chief, or Toshao who acted to save his people from an outbreak of chiggers by paddling over the falls in an act of self-sacrifice to Makonaima, the great spirit.

Tourism

Kaieteur Falls is a major tourist attraction in Guyana. Many people love the pristine rainforest that surrounds the falls. The falls is located in Kaieteur National Park and is in the centre of Guyana's rainforest. There are frequent flights between the falls' airstrip and Ogle Airport and Cheddi Jagan International Airport in Georgetown. Trekforce run many conservation expeditions and treks in the interior of Guyana, including to the base of Kaiteur Falls. In 2006 Trekforce led Ben Fogle and a documentary filming team to the base of the falls for the Extreme Dreams programmme.

Film expeditions

Werner Herzog's 2004 documentary film The White Diamond focuses on Graham Dorrington, a British aeronautical engineer, who builds a teardrop-shaped airship in order to study the canopies of the rainforest. The film depicts both Dorrington's craft's first flights as well as the falls themselves and the swifts that nest behind it.

In May 2006, Ben Fogle trekked to the falls with five English novice explorers for his Extreme Dreams series. The programme was aired in September 2006 on the BBC. The programme was criticised for trivialising local culture and over-playing the difficulty of the trek. It did help raise Guyana's international profile.

Each programme was prefaced with the statement that Kaieteur is the highest single-drop waterfall in the world, although the Angel Falls in Venezuela claim to be nearly four times higher.

External links

• Kaieteur National Park home to the Kaieteur Falls.
• Geographia.com - Places of interest in Guyana.
• Guyana's Kaieteur Falls - article on the falls.

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