Inaccessible and mysterious Tepuis! Canaima National Park in Venezuela

Tepuis have very interesting structure– the plateaus of many of them have many karst sinkholes with a diameter of up to 300 meters, formed as a result of the collapse of tunnel arches underground rivers, as well as caves eroded by water, the most famous of which, Abismo Guy Collet, reaches a depth of 672 meters.

Descent into the karst sinkhole:

Small sinkhole on the Roraima plateau:

From the language of the Pemon Indians, “tepui” is translated as “house of the gods,” which is not strange, because high mountains, shrouded in fluffy clouds, may well serve as a habitat for such important people. Tepuis, for the most part standing far from each other, rise above the jungle with varied, inaccessible cliffs, which makes them a unique refuge for endemic flora and fauna.

The highest tepuis include Piso de Neblina (3,014 meters), Pico Phelps (2,992 meters), Roraima (2,810 meters) and Cerro Marahuaca (2,800 meters).

The most famous South American mesas are Auyantepui, Autana and Roraima.

Auyantepui:

On the surface of Auyantepui:

Auyantepui has the status of the largest of the tepuis, the surface area of its plateau reaches 715 km². In addition, the tallest waterfall in the world, Angel, begins its spectacular fall from the top of this mountain. High altitude drop - 979 meters - leads to the fact that, before reaching the surface of the earth, the water crumbles into tiny splashes and turns into a thick fog that envelops the surrounding area.

Angel Falls:

Evening view of Angel:

One of the most beautiful tepuis - Autana - rises 1300 meters above the forest and rocks. It is special in that it is permeated through and through by a cave that goes from one end to the other. The Autani plateau is decorated with dark gray rocks of the most bizarre shapes, and the surrounding sinkholes are filled with the purest water.

Tepui Autana:

– the highest tepui in Venezuela. Its height is 2810 meters, and the top - a plateau with an area of 34 km² - is completely covered with dense vegetation, fancy stones, steep depressions, caves, small lakes and swamps. Local Indians call Mount Roraima “the navel of the earth” and believe that the ancestor of the human race, the goddess Quinn, lives on its top.

Tepui Roraima:

These three, as well as many other lesser-known but equally beautiful tepuis, are located in canaima national park, lying in the southeastern part of Venezuela, at the junction of Brazil and Guyana. The reserve, which stores priceless natural resources on its territory, is included in the list World Heritage UNESCO.

Tepui Kukenan:

Night view of Kukenan:

The nature of Canaima National Park is extremely diverse and unique. In addition to the majestic mesas, hung with beautiful waterfalls, in the park you can see rare species of flora and fauna that are found exclusively in this area. For example, carnivorous plants lure insects into their beautiful fragrant traps and eat them. The foothills and slopes of the mountains are surrounded by cloud-covered forests, in which exquisite bromeliads and orchids stand out as bright spots. On the tops of the tepui, herbs and shrubs grow luxuriantly. No less rich animal world Venezuelan park - here you can find monkeys of various sizes and types, jaguars, giant ants and many small animals. But the world of birds, which in large quantities live on this rich land.

Local grasshopper, which is 15 cm long:

The biggest nature reserve Venezuela's Canaima National Park was founded in 1962 and is considered the oldest part of the Earth, more than 2 million years old. This lost world, seemingly preserved by chance as it was many millions of years ago, is visited daily by thousands of tourists. You can get to these places from the capital of Venezuela by bus.

View of the tourist camp in Canaima Park:

Canaima National Park offers vacationers exciting excursions canoe on a lagoon into which four waterfalls flow. Two of them - Golondrina and Ukaima - can be seen by canoeing, and under the other two - Acha and Sapo - there is a path along which you can walk inside the waterfall between the raging stream of water and the rock:

Lagoon in Canaima Park:

Acha Waterfall:

You can go to one of the most spectacular attractions of the park - Angel Falls, excursions to which are carried out either by boat or by plane. If you go on a boat excursion, you can see the picturesque Orchid Island along the way.

A very interesting excursion on a small plane to the Cavac Canyon, revealing all the beauties of Canaima from a bird's eye view.

Flying over Canaima:

After flying over the pristine land, the plane lands next to the Kavak Canyon, near which there is an Indian village of the same name.

Near Kavak Canyon:

Those wishing to get a closer look at the life of the aborigines of these lands can go to northern part Canaima, where the Pemon Indian settlement is located. It provides a unique opportunity to immerse yourself in an unknown culture, communicate with the natives, get acquainted with their rituals, traditions, legends and way of life, which has been preserved since ancient times.

Among other things, this area is shrouded in a halo of secrets and mysteries, which are told not only by ancient legends and myths, but also by the reports of several expeditions organized by brave explorers. The last major official expedition to these hard-to-reach places, namely Mount Roraima, was formed in 1965 by the son of the famous Juan Angel, the discoverer of the world's highest waterfall.

The expedition diary describes wonderful world, in which the flat surface of the mountain top is covered with bizarre hills shaped like mushrooms, unusual depressions filled with water are scattered everywhere, and besides known to science animals, an unusual creature was discovered, which was named Cadborosaurus. The previously unseen beast had the head of a horse and the body of a snake with humps on its back. Frogs hatching eggs, bloodsucking insects, which were not affected by any chemical means of protection, giant ants more than 5 cm long, capable of biting small tree branches with their steel teeth, were also found here.

The biggest discovery for scientists was the discovery of the remains of ancient animals that until recently lived in these places. There is an assumption that they died as a result of alien experiments. Scientists were led to such a guess by a large round area discovered by the expedition, devoid of vegetation and completely strewn with silvery powder of unknown origin. Later, laboratory studies showed that this is an alloy of the rarest metals, which is simply unrealistic to create under earthly conditions.

When examining the caves, researchers found a large number of rock paintings depicting fantastic animals and creatures vaguely similar to humans. The expedition members also discovered several crypts, inside of which there was thick fog and a sweet smell. Some members of the team, having inhaled this strange aroma, fell into a coma for several days, and when they woke up, they told their colleagues about incredible visions and trips to other worlds.

After this incident, the decision was made to return back, but then a new surprise awaited the travelers: they could not find a way out of this enchanted world, as if some mysterious forces were preventing this in every possible way.

Only a few months later, exhausted by the search for a way out, people managed to return home. They claim that they were helped by some unknown force that picked them up and slowly lowered them to central square one of the Indian settlements.

When the scientists finally reached civilization, it was discovered that the families had long ago given up hope of their return: after all, the expedition, which was scheduled to return after several months of work, had been absent for four years.

For a long time, no expeditions were organized to this region, but today this lost world, which previously instilled fear in people, is visited daily by several dozen adventurers. For safety reasons, it is advisable to climb accompanied by an experienced guide.

Tepui is the only place on Earth where no human has set foot. What animals live on Tepuis, what plants grow on Tepuis - all this is a dark forest for us, since people have visited only some Tepuis. A most of Tepui is completely unexplored! They become not only a source of legends and scary stories, but also a subject of creativity for science fiction artists.

Tepui, or tepui, are table mountains located in the Guiana Highlands in South America, mostly in Venezuela. Among the most famous tepuis are Autana, Auyantepui and Mount Roraima. Many tepuis are located in Venezuela's Canaima National Park, which has the status of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The word "tepui" in the language of the Pemon Indians, who inhabit the Gran Sabana region, means "house of the gods." Tepuis for the most part stand isolated from each other, rising above the jungle with inaccessible cliffs, which makes them carriers of unique sets of endemic plants and animals.

Typically, tepuis consist of a single block of Precambrian sandstone or quartzite that rises sharply above the surrounding jungle to heights of over 2000 m. Many tepuis contain water-washed caves, such as the 671 m deep Abismo Gai Collet cave, as well as sinkholes with a diameter of up to 300 m, formed when the arches of underground river tunnels collapsed.

The highest tepui, Pico de Neblina (3,014 m), is located in Brazil. The next three in height are Pico Phelps (2,992 m), Roraima (2,810 m), located at the meeting point of the borders of Brazil, Venezuela and Guyana, and Cerro Marahuaca (2,800 m).

Roraima is the tallest tepui in Venezuela. Its height is 2810 meters, and the top - a plateau with an area of 34 km² - is completely covered with dense vegetation, fancy stones, steep depressions, caves, small lakes and swamps. Local Indians call Mount Roraima “the navel of the earth” and believe that the ancestor of the human race, the goddess Quinn, lives on its top.

Venezuela's largest natural reserve, Canaima National Park, was founded in 1962 and is considered the oldest part of the Earth, more than 2 million years old. This lost world, seemingly preserved by chance as it was many millions of years ago, is visited daily by thousands of tourists.

On the tops of the tepui, herbs and shrubs grow luxuriantly. The fauna of the Venezuelan park is no less rich - there are monkeys of various sizes and species, jaguars, giant ants and many small animals. But the world of birds, which live in large numbers on this rich land, boasts the greatest diversity of species.

In the Canaima National Park, vacationers are offered exciting canoe excursions along the lagoon, into which four waterfalls flow. Two of them - Golondrina and Ukaima - can be seen by canoeing, and under the other two - Acha and Sapo - there is a path along which you can walk inside the waterfall between the raging stream of water and the rock.

Several dozen unique mountains with vertical slopes and flat tops are scattered across the Guiana Highlands in northeastern South America. These mountains are among the oldest in the world. They are composed of very hard sandstone and represent the remains of a long-destroyed plateau. These mountains are called tepui (the word is taken from the language of the local Pemon Indians).

Roraima Plateau, Venezuela

The land of tepuis is one of the most unusual and beautiful landscapes in the world. There is the world's highest waterfall (Angel on Ayan-tepui, or Auyantepui, about 1200 m high), many smaller waterfalls (the 250-meter Kaieteur and 70-meter Orinduik in Guyana are especially popular among tourists), giant caves and sinkholes. No human has yet set foot on the tops of some tepuis.

Beautiful landscapes of the country of tepui

The highest tepui is Mount Roraima (2810 m) at the junction of the borders of Venezuela, Guyana and Brazil. At one time, Roraima served as the prototype for the dinosaur-inhabited plateau in A. Conan Doyle's The Lost World. After many unsuccessful attempts, the mountain was conquered in 1884.

Sunset in the "lost world"

There were no dinosaurs there, but researchers discovered at the top many amazing animals and plants that are not found anywhere in the world except Roraima and neighboring Kukenan Tepui.

Orinoco crocodile - relative of dinosaurs

The peaks of the tepuis are like islands in the sky, where flora and fauna develop in isolation over millions of years. The nature of these cold “islands” is completely different from the tropical forests and savannas at the foot of the mountains.

Pink flamingos, Venezuela

The steep walls of Roraima seem impregnable.

The impregnable walls of Roraima

The heroes of The Lost World reached the summit plateau by climbing a separate cliff and cutting down a large tree that served as a bridge. There is indeed a “suitable” cliff on Roraima, but the gap between it and the plateau is too wide, and big trees not at that altitude. You can climb the mountain without the help of climbing equipment only in one place, along a narrow inclined ledge called the “Ramp”.

Picturesque cliffs of Tepui, Venezuela

These days, several dozen people climb Roraima every day. This is part of a national park and climbing is only permitted with a guide.

Capybara is the largest rodent

Almost all tourists buy organized tours lasting five or seven days (the second option is much better - participants in five-day tours can spend only a couple of hours on the plateau).

Bats in a national park, Venezuela

In the Venezuelan town of Santa Elena de Uairen on the Brazilian border (where you can get there in a day by evening bus from Caracas), a seven-day tour costs about one hundred dollars, in Caracas - about three hundred. You are given a warm sleeping bag and a sweater.

The wild beauty of the mountains beckons and, at the same time, alarms - the giant rocky peaks are fraught with an age-old secret. Among the many mountain ranges, the table mountains are especially mysterious, soaring alone above the landscape - they seem unreal, thrown to Earth from another galaxy, although their flat top and steep slopes formed as a result of completely understandable tectonic processes. Isolated from the earth's surface many millions of years ago, the high mountain plateaus are carriers of one-of-a-kind, amazing flora and fauna - this is a unique “lost” world, as if straight from the pages of a story by Arthur Conan Doyle.

Table Mountains: Origin
Table Mountain (mesa, tableland, tafelberg) is a mountain plateau with an absolutely flat, as if cut, surface supported by steep slopes - hence the origin of the name of lonely relief formations found on all continents of our planet. Flat-topped rocks owe their origin to tectonic activity that once raised them above the surface.

McKay, Ontario, Canada
The final touch to the formation of rocky plateaus was made by the processes of erosion and weathering - soft rocks were washed away, while harder rocks - sandstone, quartzite, basalt, limestone - remained. A separate group consists of table mountains formed as a result of volcanic eruptions - they are characterized by a peak made of igneous rocks.

Table Mountains of South America
On the Guiana Plateau Latin America- in Venezuela, Brazil and Guyana, there are rocks with flat peaks, called in the local indigenous dialect - Tepui, which means “home of the gods”. The Tepui rock formations are made up of vertical blocks of Precambrian quartz sandstone. Separated from the surrounding landscape, hanging in the form of islands 1-3 thousand meters above tropical forest, tepuis are the owners of endemic flora and fauna. Rare flowers grow on the high mountain plateaus - orchids and carnivorous plants, which is due to rocky soils, poor in nutrients and unsuitable for other plant species.

Tepui-Ujnaya-America

At one time, science adhered to the hypothesis that the biodiversity of the rocky hills of South America is relict, having not gone through the stage of mixing of species. However, recent research by scientists proves that tepuis were not as strictly isolated from the environment as previously thought - for example, the endemic tree frog Tepuihyla came to the top of Latin American tepuis after the mountain ridge was formed. In total, there are about 60 flat-topped formations in this region.

The most famous tepui mesas in South America are:

1. Roraima (Mount Roraima, 2810 m), peak area 31 km2. Inspired by Robert Schomburk's report on the rock mass of Latin America, which was presented to the Royal Geographical Society in 1844, Conan Doyle wrote his story “The Lost World” - it was Roraima that became the prototype of the mysterious mountainous country, inhabited by strange prehistoric animals.

Roraima Tepui, South America

2.Auantepui. This table mountain has the most high waterfall in the world - Angel (979 m), falling into a lake 807 m deep. In the language of the indigenous population - the Pemons, the waterfall was until recently called Kerepakupai Vena. His current name is Angel, he received it in honor of the American pilot Jimmy Angel, whose monoplane flew emergency landing at the top of the plateau in 1937. It took the angel and his three companions 11 days to descend from the mountain and return back to the civilized world. Only 33 years later, the legendary plane was raised from the top of the mountain, restored in the aviation museum and placed at the entrance to Ciudad Bolivar airport.

Auan Tepui, Angel Falls, Venezuela

3. Kukenan or Matawi Tepui , 2680 m), 3 km long. Local population- Pemon Indians consider the lonely table mountain to be the land of the dead; the Kukenan River originates here.

Kukenan Tepui, Venezuela, South America

4. Ptari (Ptari-Tepui, 2700 m ). The classic version of a table mountain in South America - with a perfectly cut top and absolutely vertical slopes.

Ptari Tepui, Venezuela, Latin America

Carnivorous Heliamphora flower on Ptari Tepui

5. Autana Tepui, 1300 m ). This plateau is notable for the fact that a horizontally oriented cave runs through its thickness, piercing right through the rock.

Tepui Autana, South America

6. Sarisarinama. Exploration of the mountain plateau began in 1961, when pilot Harry Gibson noticed unique holes on its flat top natural origin. Vertical cave-wells go far into the rock - the longest of them is 1.35 km long.

Tepui Sarissarinama, Venezuela
Table Mountain Tucumcari Mountain in Mexico is not much different from the tepuis of the Guiana Massif - it rises 1517 meters above the South American savanna. Discovered in 1793, the hermit peak caused a lot of controversy in scientific circles on the topic of age: at first it was assumed that the table mountain was formed during the Jurassic period, then it turned out that the rock formation is younger and dates back to the Cretaceous period.

Tucumcari, Mexico
Nature has not spared Argentina either - its territory also has lonely mountains with a horizontal end - the duo of peaks of the Sierra Negra massif is located near the city of Zapala, famous for its coffee plantations. In addition to coffee, this region of South America is rich in deposits of precious metals. In the depths of the mountain ridge there are gold mines, which have recently been run by the Canadian company Goldcorp - according to experts, over the next 9 years, the mine will produce about 0.5 million ounces of gold per year; in July 2014, the first 100 kg were removed from the rocky depths.

Sierra Negra, Argentina

Mesa of North America
National Park Canyonlands (Canyonlands National Park) in Utah, near the city of Moab - shining example eroded lands with multiple canyons, hills and mesas, between which the Colorado River and Green River flow. The park is divided into three zones: Island in the Sky, Needles and Maze, each of which is remarkable in its own way. “Island in the Sky” is a long plateau 366 m high, cut by the Colorado River 305 m deep, with highest point White Rim, Needles Area is famous for its well-preserved adobe dwellings of American aborigines and the “rock newspaper” - Newspaper Rock - with petroglyphs carved into the rocks. In the Maze zone is the Barrier Canyon - the most inaccessible part of the plateau, where rock paintings and pictographs of ancient hunter-gatherers dating back to 2 thousand years BC were found.

Canyon Land, Utah, USA
On the border of Utah and Arizona lies Monument Valley with lonely flat-topped peaks, sometimes reaching 300 meters. Local Navajo Indians call this area of the Colorado Plateau the Valley of the Rocks. The terracotta color of the mountains is caused by the presence of iron oxide in the rock, and the darker, gray-orange hue of some rocks is caused by manganese oxide. In the 1950s, uranium, vanadium and copper were mined in Monument Valley.

Monument Valley, Utah, USA
In the state of Colorado, on the green Mesa Verde plateau, there is a national park - this is the country of Montezuma - ancient city, built by the Pueblo people (Anasazi Indians) many centuries ago. More than 600 rock dwellings were erected from 400 to 1200 AD. at the foot of the emerald table mountains and in their thickness, but after a 25-year drought, people were forced to leave their habitable place.

City of Montezuma, Mesa Verde, Colorado, USA
Glass Mountains or Gloss Hills - table mountains in western region Oklahoma State (USA), rise above ground level from 46 to 61 meters. The massif of flat-topped hills received its name back in 1820 from the first explorers of America due to sparkling inclusions of selenite.

Glass Mesa, Oklahoma, USA
In Oklahoma, on the Great Plains, there is another similar natural formation - the Black Mesa plateau (Black Mesa, 1516 m) with a length of 270 km - on the top of this table mountain, indigenous Indians have set up their camps for centuries.

Black Mesa, Oklahoma, USA
Over the coast of Cuba, in the province of Guantanamo, hangs the high mountain plateau El Yunque (El Yunque, 575 m), reminiscent of a blacksmith's table in outline - this feature of the mountain served as the impetus for choosing its name: “yunque” is translated from Spanish as an anvil.

El Yunque, Cuba

Table mountains in Africa
Mountain fortress or Amba - the so-called table mountains in Africa - rocky plateaus in northern Ethiopia, made of basalt and sandstone. There are three ambas in the Amhara region: Amba Geshen or Amara, Wehni and Debre Damo. The Amba Mountains are known as a place of imprisonment for the brothers and male relatives of the King of Ethiopia, including his sons. The unfortunates ended up in a high-mountain dungeon immediately after the coronation of the heir to the throne and left it only after his death. When the sad tradition was annulled, in inaccessible mountainous areas - in temples on the tops of rocks, the treasures of the royal dynasty were kept. Mount Geshen is famous for its Orthodox Church Lalibela is in the shape of a cross carved into the rock, and the table mountain Debre Damo (2216 m) is a Christian monastery of the 6th century.

Table Mountain in Africa Debre Damo, Ethiopia

Lalibela Orthodox Monastery on Mesa Goshen, Ethiopia, Africa

African mesas in northern Ethiopia
There are many cliffs with vertical slopes and a flat top scattered throughout Ethiopia: Amba Aradam (2756 m), Amba Alagi (3438 m), Kundudo (3000 m). In 2008, a lost stalagmite cave with ancient rock paintings. This is also the habitat of the world's only surviving population of wild horses.

Table mountain Kundudo, Ethiopia, Africa

Ammonites on the Kundudo mesa, Ethiopia

Stalagmites-corals in a cave on Mount Kundudo, Ethiopia, Africa

The world's most famous African plateau is Table Mountain (1084 m) in Cape Town (South Africa), 3 km long. It is also the symbol of the city, depicted on its flag. A striking feature of the African mountain plateau is the orographic clouds that almost constantly envelop its top, forming, as it were, a tablecloth on a flat tabletop. Local aborigines attribute the unusual cloudiness to the devil smoking a pipe in the company of the pirate Van Hankey - this is ancient legend, associated with Table Mountain. The age of the South African Table Mountain, made of solid gray quartz sandstone, is about 500 million years. The 2,200 plant species growing on the high plateau are endemic and not found anywhere else in the world. The symbol of the country of South Africa is the rare protea flower, the unique species of which are presented in national park Table Mountain.

Table Mountain Cape Town, South Africa, Africa
In Namibia there are also several famous rocky hills with a cut end: Etjo (500 m) with a length of 10 km, Grutberg (1840 m), Waterberg and Gamsberg. The table mountains of Namibia received their strange names in the Aryan manner from the first German explorers.

Table Mountain Etjo, Namibia, Africa

Table Mountain Gamsberg, Africa

Waterberg Table Mountain, Africa

Table Mountains of Western Europe
An unusually beautiful rocky formation with a flat ending in Ireland (County Sligo) - the Benbulbin table mountain - is part of the array of green Darty mountains. The name comes from the Irish words Binn, which means "peak", and Ghulbain - "jaw". Table mountain Ben Balben was formed about 320 million years ago due to the movement of ice from the northeast to the southwest of the island, during the ice age. Once upon a time, the high mountain plateau was under the thickness ancient sea, as evidenced by fossilized marine organisms - shells and corals, found by scientists in all layers rock. Ben Balben is composed primarily of limestone and mudstone, a fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of petrified mud and clay.

Ben Bulben Table Mountain, Ireland, Europe

Table mountain Monte Santo (733 m), adjacent to the flat-topped rock of San Antonio in the Siligo region, is a landmark of the island of Sardinia (Italy).

Table mountain Monte Santo island Sardinia, Italy

Australian Table Mountains
Terracotta rock of Uluru (Ayers Rock, 348 m) is considered the “heart” of Australia. The Anangu tribe settled in this area 10 thousand years ago, after a spring was discovered flowing directly from the top of a stone hill. The table mountain Uluru, sacred to the Aborigines, is shrouded in an ominous haze - it is believed that it brings misfortune to those who try to climb it or take a piece of stone with them.

Uluru Table Mountain, Australia

Northern Table Mountains
In northern latitudes, tabletop or tabletop mountains have their own name - tuya. Tui are flat-topped rock formations formed by a volcanic eruption under ice, causing lava to come to the surface and transform into hard basaltic rocks after cooling.

Brown Bluff Table Mountain, Antarctica
Thuja Brown Bluff, about a million years old and about 1.5 km long, is located on the northern tip of Antarctica. The red-brown tuff at the foot of the mesa fades into the ash-gray top, rugged by erosion. Brown Bluff is a World Bird Sanctuary, home to an extensive bird colony: 20,000 pairs of Adélie penguins and 550 pairs of gentoos penguins.

Brown Bluff Table Mountain, Antarctica
In Canada, mainly in British Columbia, there are entire groups of high mountain plateaus. One of them is the 2021-meter table mountain Table Mountain, standing in the middle of Lake Garibaldi.

Dining room mountain The Table, Canada
In the northern regions of the United States, you can find thuja table mountains formed on the site of stratovolcanoes and as a result of the collapse of glaciers. In Oregon, there is the Hayrick Butte plateau (1683 m) - this is a type of subglacial volcano with absolutely vertical slopes. At a distance of 3 km from it there is another thuja volcano - Hogg Rock (1548 m). Unlike other table formations, Hogg Rock has one gentle slope along which the road to the top of the plateau is laid.

Hayrick Butte in Oregon, USA

Diomede Islands in the Coast Strait
The unusual Diomedes Islands, the smallest of which belongs to the United States, and greater Russia- these are subglacial dormant thuja volcanoes in Bering Strait with a flat top. At times cold war between the USSR and the USA Diomedes, between which passes state border, bore the symbolic name “ice curtain”.

Mesa on Mars
High-mountain plateaus in the form of mesas exist not only on Earth; in the solar system they are also found on Mars - in the transition zone between the highlands and the plain, and their height varies from 100 m to 2 km. Scientists believe that the Martian mesas were formed due to the movement of ice and its subsequent evaporation in the atmosphere.

Tepuis are flat mesas in the Guiana Highlands of South America, specifically Venezuela. In the language of the Pemon people who live in Gran Sabana, the word tepui means "House of the Gods" - because they are very tall. Tepuis are separate mountains, which means you can find big variety endemic species of plants and animals, some of which are found only on one tepui.

(Total 21 photos)

1. Rising above the surrounding forest, tepuis have almost vertical walls, and many of them rise more than 1000 m above the jungle.

2. The highest tepuis reach 3000 meters in height.

3. Almost vertical slopes and dense a tropical forest, on which these tepuis lie, make them inaccessible to foot conquerors.

4. Only three Gran Sabana mountains can be reached on foot, and among them is Mount Roraima at 2180 m in height.

5. Tepuis are the remains of a large sandstone plateau that once covered a layer of granite between northern border Amazon and Orinoco basins, between the coasts Atlantic Ocean and Rio Negro, during the Precambrian period.

6. Over millions of years, the plateaus have been eroded, and all that remains of them are flat-topped tepuis.

7. Although the tepuis seem deserted, their peaks are teeming with life.

8. Because high altitude The climate on Tepui is different from what prevails below.

9. It is often cooler at the top and rains more often, while the mountains below have a tropical, warm and humid climate.

10. Many unusual plants have adapted to this habitat and become unique species of tepui.

11. About 9,400 species of tall plants have been recorded in Venezuelan Guyana, of which 2,322 are recorded on tepuis.

12. About one third of these species are found nowhere else in the world.

13. There are 115 of these mesas in the Gran Sabana region. They are located in the southeast of Venezuela, where most of the tepuis are concentrated.

14. The most famous among them is Mount Roraima.

15. Roraima remained unexplored until 1884.