Kaieteur Falls

About this place

Kaieteur Falls is one of the most powerful single-drop waterfalls in the world, on the Potaro River in the rainforest of Guyana. The river pours off the edge of a sandstone cliff into a deep green gorge, spray rising from the bottom and forest stretching to the horizon. The first drop is 226 m high, and with the cascades below it 251 m, about four and a half times the height of Niagara Falls. The average flow is 663 cubic metres a second. Indigenous peoples long knew it, and the British geologist Charles Barrington Brown reached it in 1870. Below, the Potaro flows into the Essequibo, Guyana's longest river. Small planes land on a nearby airstrip, and you walk with a guide on a short trail through the plants to several lookouts. From them you see the whole fall into the gorge. There are no railings at the edge, so follow the guide. The falls are about 233 km in a straight line south-west of Georgetown, usually reached by small plane on a day trip. An older guide gives a park fee of 3,000 Guyanese dollars per person, often included in organised trips.