Falls from paradise: Guyana's Kaieteur falls is a remote Yet accessible wilderness

Natural History, Dec, 2001 by Steve Fratello

About 150 miles inland from the coast of Guyana (formerly British Guiana), the Potaro River plunges 741 feet in one drop over a sandstone cliff. This is Kaieteur Falls, one of the molt spectacular cataracts in the world. According to a legend of the Patamona Indians, it was named for Kale, a chief who saved his people by paddling over the fails in an act of self-sacrifice to Makonaima, the great spirit. Upriver from the falls, the Potaro Plateau stretches out to a distant escarpment of the Pakaraima Mountains, while below yawns the great Kaieteur Gorge, swathed in luxuriant rainforest.

As a naturalist who has visited Guyana's interior many times, I have had the good fortune to linger in this wilderness on several occasions. Although hiking down into the gorge presents something of a challenge, an airstrip on the plateau enables anyone to see the falls, a one-and-a-half-hour flight by small plane from Georgetown, the nation's capital. A national park was established in 1929 to protect the area, and recent legislation expanded the total coverage to 242 square miles. Although the park exists more on paper than in reality, plans are being drawn up to conserve its unique community of plants and animals and to develop ecotourism.

The 1,500-foot-high Potaro Plateau lies within the eastern Guiana Highlands, which cover most of southeastern Venezuela as well as the bordering territory in northern Brazil and western Guyana. In this huge area, more ancient rock is largely overlain by the Roraima Formation--rock (mostly layers of sandstone) that erodes relatively easily. This has resulted, particularly in Venezuela, in the creation of the famous tepuis--sheer-sided, table-topped mountains that, like islands, bear distinctive vegetation.

On the plateau, patches of sandy soil near the falls support both scrubby forest and savanna that contains grasses, sedges, scattered shrubs, some small trees, and areas of exposed rock where vegetation appears during the rainy season. Right next to the savanna, at the brink of the gorge, is a patch of low-elevation cloud forest. Sustained by the mist from the falls, it drips with epiphytes--mosses, ferns, aroids, orchids. Farther upriver the alluvial forest is dominated by the large-buttressed mora tree, while the forest in the gorge below is mixed or dominated by species of wallaba.

A number of terrestrial orchids live on the savanna, but the most eye-catching plant is Brocchinia micrantha, a thick-stalked terrestrial bromeliad that can grow twelve feet high. Found here and at some nearby areas, this plant collects water in a "tank" formed by the base of its leaves. The tank is often home to the small golden frog (Colostethus beebei) and to the world's largest bladderwort, Utricularia humboldtii. The bladderwort's lavender flowers adorn a stalk that may rise six feet above the bromeliad's tank.

Among the animals on the plateau is the savanna fox, a species widespread in South America and only distantly related to the foxes of the Northern Hemisphere. It is better known as the crab-eating fox--only because the first specimen described had a crab in its stomach. While sightings of this and other mammals are apt to be rare on a short visit, by sitting at the edge of the escarpment one might observe a troop of red howler monkeys moving quietly through the canopy far below.

More likely to be seen or heard on the plateau is the little chachalaca, a gallinaceous bird named in part for its noisy call. The rocky forest and rock outcrops near the falls provide the perfect habitat for the Guianan cock-of-the-rock, a medium-sized, flaming orange bird. During the breeding season, small groups of males gather in leks (courting areas), where they display for the females. I have seen four or five males together in one small, scrubby tree close to Johnson's Lookout, a vantage point that affords a picture-postcard view of the falls.

From the escarpment, one can also see birds flying across the gorge--such as red-and-green macaws. I've observed a pair of orange-breasted falcons that nest on the cliff face next to the falls. They probably prey mainly on the white-collared and other swifts that make their home on the cliffs and behind the falls. These insect-eating birds fill the air at dawn and dusk, and as night falls they sweep down at amazing speed to settle in their roosts.

Butterflies, including glorious morphos, abound in the gorge. In one ravine, within a few minutes, I've spied nearly all the seven or eight species of morphos present, among them Morpho hecuba, South America's largest butterfly, with wings that span eight inches. The upper side of this majestic glider is a rich dark brown, with a flamelike burst of russet and pearl. Blue morphos include M. rhetenor, whose glittering royal-blue wings are among the most brilliant sights on earth.

Standing deep in the gorge on a white sand beach, with the dark waters of the Potaro roiling by, I've surveyed lush green glades of grasses and sedges that line rocky side channels of the river. I've watched as the Inga trees at the river's edge, their contorted branches heavily laden with epiphytes, attracted myriad butterflies and skippers to their delicate blossoms. Looking across the river to the billowing crowns of the mighty mora trees, I've let my gaze wander up the green slope to a smaller falls called Old Man's Beard, which cascades in tiers off the escarpment. All this plus Kaieteur Falls--if this isn't a paradise on earth, what is?