Salto Hacha is the largest and most photographed of the waterfalls that pour into Canaima Lagoon — a 20-metre curtain of brown water dropping over a low cliff at the southern end of the lake. The boat trips run by the village operators all land here at some point; the standard route is to walk a short forest path behind the falls and then through them, emerging on the far side soaked but exhilarated.
The cliff behind the falls forms a long curving cave that travellers can walk along with the water roaring centimetres from their shoulder. In the dry months the curtain narrows and the spray becomes manageable; in the wet season the noise alone is overwhelming. This is the everyone-goes-there moment of a Canaima visit and rightly so.