Kaiteur Falls

Kaiteur means “Kai falls” and is named after a chief who sacrificed himself for peace. The way the guide told the story “the Amerindians were peaceful, loving people, but the Caribs were warring and carnivorous” so Kai decided canoeing over the waterfall was the best show of leadership in tough times.













The pilot flew us by the falls a few times on each side so we could get pictures.

When the plane landed we went to three different spots to see the falls. The first one gave us a distant view.

The next one was up closer.













I destroyed my clothes by laying down on my stomach off the cliff to get a better view—totally worth it.

While everyone else was taking pictures, a guy on my tour proposed to his girlfriend right in front of the falls. I saw him down on one knee and her sort of freaking out and managed to get a picture of the moment from afar.

And finally we were right next to the falls. I managed to get the guide to let me go down on the second ledge to look.

He then proceeded to take pictures of me from every angle…


This other guy on my tour was really into drinking the waterfall water (ew). He first drank some, and then encouraged his son to drink it and then filled up a water bottle, at which time the true brown color of the water was most apparent, and then drank that.