The Laguna de Canaima is the still, tea-brown lake at the heart of the village — pink-sand beach on one side, a low cliff with seven waterfalls pouring over it on the other. Salto Hacha is the largest of the seven; Salto Wadaima, Salto Golondrina and the rest line up in a row that looks staged from the air. The lagoon is shallow enough to swim across, and almost every excursion in Canaima either begins on the water here or finishes with a swim in it.
A standard half-day boat trip rounds the lagoon, lands at the foot of Salto Hacha, then climbs a short trail behind the curtain of falling water — a strange experience standing in the spray-cave looking out through the falling sheet. Most arrivals stay one night beside the lagoon before flying out again; sunset over the falls, with the tepui rim glowing orange across the water, is the moment that turns a quick stopover into a memory.