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I've now scanned in some photos from my trips to Venezuela's Lost World in 1993 & 1995, and will try to load them here. The first is of Angel Falls from Ratoncito (Little Rat) island near the base where I camped for three nights, mainly in torrential rain all afternoons and nights as it was the rainy season. I had a fever and looking at the falls made me feel dizzier. They are one kilometre high which does give you vertigo, the way a channel falls then pauses, spirals then seems to rise back up before plunging down to become cloud long before hitting the plunge pool. When we hiked to the base the spray was like shrapnel or needle thin bullets. The cliff is sandstone and is translucent quartz in parts. It changes colour depending on the time of day and weather, from purple to rose-red to umber.
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Eimasensen the Pemon canoe navigator, amazing knowledge of each rapid and rock. This river was steep like a staircase. The Pemon live near the tepuyes but are afraid of them and would hardly even look up at the jagged tesselated summit as we rounded each butte. Their gods live up there and on this particular one, Devil's Mountain, are the evil spirits the mawari and they believe the quartz panes in the sandstone are their windows.
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