Countdown: 6

I'm leaving for Guyana August 8th.  Each weekday, I'll post some information about the country.

Kaieteur Falls

The world's tallest waterfall (source, click to enlarge).

Naturally, everyone wants a piece of "world's biggest."  Waterfalls are no different, and Kaieteur Falls in Guyana is no exception.  With a single drop of 741 feet and additional cascades adding to a total drop of 822 feet, Kaieteur has been called the "largest single drop" waterfall.   Apparently, this is different from "tallest single drop."  Reading between the Wikipedia lines, I think the former suggests some combination of volume of water and drop height, whereas the latter is pure unadulterated height.  According to the World Waterfall Database, Angel Falls in Venezuela has a single drop of 2,648 feet, so I'm not sure what all the debate is about.

Now that I've popped the bubble of Guyana's biggest natural tourist attraction, let's build it back up.  The numbers are quite impressive.  The waterfall is about 5 times taller than Niagra Falls.  The WWD rates Kaieteur the 26th most scenic waterfall worldwide*.   The falls have a WWD attributed 19th largest in volume at 23,400 cubic feet per second.  At that rate, enough water is tumbling off a cliff somewhere in the Guyanese wilderness to fill an Olympic-size pool every 3 seconds.  Some unscientific sampling of other high flow waterfalls on the WWD website reveals that Kaieteur is probably the tallest single-drop waterfall pumping out that much water.  It's too bad there's not a less awkward way to say "probably the tallest single-drop waterfall pumping out that much water."  Maybe if anyone has a brainstorm they could shoot the Guyanese tourism industry some rebranding help.

Anyway, I hope I'm lucky enough to be able to visit this waterfall during my time in Guyana.  Although if I ever get to stand on this ledge, the fear-of-heights part of my brain might self-destruct.

*Number 1? Langfoss, or Langfossen, in Norway.  Yosemite falls is #2 and Angel Falls checks in at #5.