This week’s featured UNESCO World Heritage Site is tucked away in the southeastern corner of Venezuela, near the borders with Brazil and Guyana. Canaima National Park is vast expanse of rugged wilderness so remote and unusual that it inspired the setting of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel The Lost World.

Here’s how UNESCO describes the park:

Canaima National Park is spread over 3 million ha in south-eastern Venezuela along the border between Guyana and Brazil. Roughly 65% of the park is covered by table mountain (tepui) formations. The tepuis constitute a unique biogeological entity and are of great geological interest. The sheer cliffs and waterfalls, including the world’s highest (1,000 m), form a spectacular landscape.

The unusual and unique tepuis really make Canaima National Park stand out. You can climb to the top of some of the tepuis, including Auyantepu, the formation from which Angel Falls, the highest waterfall in the world, plunges 3,212 feet. That’s almost a mile!

If you’d like to see Angel Falls, it’s best to visit Canaima National Park from June to December, when the water is deep enough to allow travel by boat. More likely than not, your guide will be a member of the native Pemon tribe who inhabit the park.

To visit Canaima National Park, you need a US passport valid for at least 6 months after you plan to enter Venezuela, as well as a Venezuelan visa or tourist card. You can get a tourist card on the plane if you are arriving by air and plan to stay for less than 90 days. However, backpackers and others entering Venezuela by land do need to arrange for a Venezuelan visa in advance.

For more information on getting a Venezuelan visa, see Venezuelan Visa Requirements for Tourists.

RushMyTravelVisa can help you apply for the necessary visas for your next trip. We’ll research requirements for your itinerary, help you with the paperwork and submit your application for the fastest possible processing.

Apply for your Venezuelan visa today!

Tags: UNESCO World Heritage Sites, Venezuela, Venezuela visa, Venezuelan visa

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 26th, 2010 at 11:12 pm and is filed under World Heritage Site of the Week. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.