El Tuparro

Declared in 1970 and a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve since 1979, El Tuparro protects the Maypures Rapids, a stretch of white water on the Orinoco described in detail by the Prussian naturalist Alexander von Humboldt on his American expedition of 1800, who documented there the acoustic phenomenon of a continuous roar of water which, by local accounts of the time, could be heard several kilometres away on quiet nights across the llanos.