Canaima

Declared in 1962, it is the second largest national park in Venezuela and protects the Gran Sabana, a region dominated by more than a hundred tepuis — sandstone table mountains up to 2 billion years old, among the oldest geological formations on Earth. From the rim of the Auyán-tepui drops Angel Falls, the highest uninterrupted waterfall in the world at 979 metres, unknown to the outside world until 1933, when the American pilot and gold prospector Jimmie Angel flew over it by chance while searching the area for mineral deposits, and after whom the falls are named. Inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994, the park is the ancestral land of the Pemón people, who hold the tepuis to be the dwelling place of protective spirits called mawari.