Posted on 11/08/2006 12:38:31 PM PST by cogitator
Saw a picture of Wave Rock the other day, and couldn't believe it was real. It doesn't get the same recognition as Ayers Rock, but it's pretty neat.
You may not believe this is real, either: I read in the Travel section about Gocta Falls, declared to be the third-highest waterfall in the world (depending on how you define it). Basically, if you define a falls as a free-falling stream of water, the lower falls is third. If you define falls as a stream of water falling down, there are two long fjord-side falls in Norway that are taller, placing it fifth.
The note below is from the World WaterFalls Blog, framing the issue a bit:
"1. UNINTERRUPTED (CONTINUOUS) VERTICAL DROPS OF 180 DEGREES: According to this criteria, the Salto Ángel (Venezuela) is the tallest waterfall reaching a height of 807 metres; the second tallest is the Kukenan (Venezuela) with a measured 610 metres, leaving the third position to Gocta (Peru) with 540 metres at the second drop.
2. INTERRUPTED VERTICAL DROPS OF 180 DEGREES: This criteria seems to be applied by the National Geographic Society. It calls the Santo Ángel again the tallest, this time with a considered height of 979 metres (it varies according to source); the second talles are the Tugela Falls in South Africa with 948 metres (even though not all drops are 180 degrees); as the third tallest fall remains Gocta (Peru) with a total 771 metres.
3. DROPS OF VARYING INCLINATION, INTERRUPTED OR UNINTERRUPTED: This is the criteria of the website “World Waterfall Database”; On this site, also those falls are listed where most of the sections are in constant contact with the rocks, such as Utigardfossen (also called Ramnefjellsfossen) and Mongefossen. For some database, this could be a crateria [sic], but nevertheless it is completely contrary to the global general sense of what is a waterfall is: free, vertical drops!
Which hardly matters; it's impressive. There aren't many pictures of it on the Web (perhaps understandably). If you go to the link below the article and click "Images", you can see images from a video. I spend a short time searching and couldn't find the full video -- feel free to search for it and post the link here if you find it. The image below is found on many different sites.
World's third highest waterfall caught on video
** ping ** PING **
I can as that part of Peru is hard for satellites to make good pictures and the terrain is so rugged that building a road would be a serious challenge (even with unlimited budgets). Remember that they are still finding Incan and pre-Incan cities that have been uninhabited for over 400 years!
I guess I partly find it somewhat enjoyable that some places in the world are still so remote and poorly explored that a waterfall of this magnitude could be widely unknown. A couple of years ago an immensely powerful (though not nearly as high) waterfall was discovered in the Himalayas; surveying of the river it's on indicated that it had to be there somewhere, but it was very difficult to actually find it.
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