Fácil Engañado, my waterfalling friend in Venezuela, stole this image from government files. It’s a preliminary architectural rendering of the drilling infrastructure planned for the tepuis in Canaima National Park. In the foreground is Angel Falls, with the massive refinery at the summit.

Want to join me for the waterfalling adventure of a lifetime? Something that could change your life…if it doesn’t end it?

Have I ever got the trip for you! I’m planning an expedition to the now-closed and soon-to-be-destroyed Angel Falls for extensive photographic documentation and to measure its height accurately for the first time. I need four people to join me: Two single men and two single women. (I’ll explain the single requirement shortly.)

I’ve wanted to visit Angel Falls my entire life, but it has taken on extreme urgency over the past several months as I’ve learned some alarming facts about what’s going on in Venezuela.

Everyone knows about the removal of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and the ongoing issues involving oil in the country, but few people are aware of the actions by acting president Delcy Rodríguez in the wake of the operation. My Venezuelan waterfalling friend, Fácil Engañado (not his real name, for obvious reasons), who happens to work in the government, has kept me apprised of the situation.

Folks, it’s about to get bad. Rodríguez, who is known to have zero concern for nature or any living thing, is planning to destroy every waterfall in the Canaima National Park Region, which includes Angel Falls and dozens of other waterfalls that are over 2,000 feet high.

Why? Oil, of course. Venezuela is widely known to have the world’s largest oil reserves, with most of it very heavy crude that requires specialized and expensive refining. However, what most people don’t realize is that the oil in the Canaima region is light, sweet crude oil, the most valuable type. The only reason it hasn’t been exploited is because it’s in Canaima National Park.

Say what you want about Maduro, but at least he loved waterfalls and protected Angel Falls. Rodríguez, on the other hand, is preparing to turn the waterfall into a 3,000-foot-high pour of Texas Tea.

Fácil Engañado stole this image from government files. It’s a preliminary architectural rendering of the planned refinery on the summit of Angel Falls.

The oil is located within the country’s renowned tepuis, the massive, steep-walled tabletop mountains located primarily in the national park. To extract the oil, drilling rigs will be located on the summit of these mountains. The plan is to pipe the crude from all of them to a single, massive refinery on Auyán-tepui, which happens to be where Angle Falls is located.

It gets worse.

The crude oil is not pure, but rather a mix of light and heavy. The new refinery won’t be able to process the heavy crude, so the plan is to let it fall over Angel Falls, where it will be collected by special skimmer tankers and then shipped to the refineries in Caracas. 

First stages of the plan are already being implemented, with military stations being established along the perimeter of Canaima National Park and all public access prohibited. However, my contact has been able to secure passage through one of these stations.

It comes at a price, though.

This is where the strange request for single men and woman come in. It happens that the guard post we need to get through is operated by four people, two men and two women, who happen to have a thing for Americans. The only way they will allow us passage to Angel Falls is if we stay in their camp for a few days and provide “comfort.”

I asked Patricia if she would be okay with me doing this, and while she’s totally on board with the mission goals, she’s afraid that I’d have a heart attack at the guard post and never make it to the waterfall.

The expedition is planned to start on June 19 and will last six weeks—longer if things get really comfortable at the guard post. Expedition members must be in good shape, physically and aesthetically, and have lots of stamina.

My contact has secured financing, so there’s no cost. He did keep mumbling something in Spanish that I couldn’t understand. Pagarás con tu vida or something like that. I think he’s just expecting a tip or something.

Oh, if you’re wondering if anything can be done to stop the destruction of Angel Falls, I’m sad to say that I don’t think so. When I first heard about this, I helped my friend form a nonprofit called Waterfall Keepers of Venezuela, modeled after the Waterfall Keepers of North Carolina organization I founded.

After the group began protesting the drilling plan at a rally on the summit of Angel Falls, they abruptly disappeared. Supposedly, they were sent by Rodriguez on a fact-finding mission to Venezuale’s remote and largely unknown waterfalls along the border with Columbia, but for several days after the rally, locals noticed a distinctive reddish hue to the mist falling from Angel Falls. 

I’m not gonna sugar coat it. This adventure of a lifetime won’t be a walk in the park. I need people who aren’t afraid of a little adversity or coming home with a few STDs. If this is you, please contact me right away as it will take some time to get your travel papers together given the current situation between the US and Venezuela.

If you’d like to learn more about Delcy Rodríguez’ disastrous plan for Angel Falls, check out this info doc that Engañado and I created.