Kaieteur

Declared in 1929, it is one of the oldest national parks in South America, protected from British colonial times specifically to preserve Kaieteur Falls, a waterfall with a single vertical drop of 226 metres — close to five times the height of Niagara in one fall — on the river Potaro. Local legend attributes the fall's name to the Patamona chief Kaie, who by oral tradition sacrificed himself by going over the falls in a canoe to appease the great spirit Makonaima and so save his people from an enemy attack. Its extreme isolation deep in the Guianan rainforest, reachable only by light aircraft or after several days' walk, has kept the park practically free of mass tourist infrastructure, unlike other great waterfalls of the world.