Tag Archives: Wonders of the world

Wonder of the Modern World: Itaipu Dam

8 May

“Don’t look down” the man next to me said just before I lent over the ledge and looked down. It resembled a giant 483 metre waterslide with H2O in abundance lining up to take the ride. The gigantic reinforced concrete gates, above which we stood, were holding back the World’s seventh largest river and when the doors slid open, millions of gallons of water hurtled down the curved ramp at 60 thousand cubic metres per second with a deafening roar.

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The Real Jurassic Park – Roraima

18 Jan

Welcome to Mount Roraima. A mystical table mountain cut off from civilisation with seemingly impenetrable four hundred metre sheer cliff faces from which tumble cascades of water. It looks like a floating island of rock ascending into the clouds. The mountain’s base is embraced by dense Amazonian jungle and beyond that golden savannah rolls into the distance. Its flat summit is a maze of unusual stone formations, caves, sandy beaches, coloured pools and valleys scattered with crystals. It’s a land that time forgot. A dream-like landscape with shifting mists and home to species of flora and animals found nowhere else on the planet. Thought to be the inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel “The Lost World” in which dinosaurs, cannibalistic plants and ape men still lived, this perfectly preserved ancient world remains to this day a real life ‘Jurassic Park’.

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Angel Falls – Cascade from the Sky

10 Dec

Flying through uncharted Venezuelan territory in 1934 while looking for gold, American bush pilot Jimmie Angel nearly crashed his 4-seater plane upon noticing a waterfall nearly one kilometre high freely flowing from the top of towering Auyantepui, one of the area’s biggest table mountains. Little did Jimmy know he had discovered what would become known as ‘Angel Falls’, by far and away the highest single drop waterfall in the world, which cascades a massive 979 metres, more than double the height of the Empire State Building and 16 times the height of Niagara Falls.

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