The Gran Sabana (Great Savanna), a 18.000 km² high plain, is located in the southeast of Venezuela, encircled by huge forest areas, at the border to British Guyana and Brazil.
About 10.000 km² belong to the Canaima National Park, which is with 30.000 km² the second largest in Venezuela.
Coming from the north on the only connecting road the ascent to the Gran Sabana begins shortly after the gold mining town of Las Claritas. On a length of 45km the road winds in a serpentine manner through the tropical humid cloud forest of Sierra Lema from 200 m to 1450 m above sea level. This large rain forest is a paradise for bird watchers. Once on the top of the high plateau, the scenery changes abruptly, the dense forest gives way to the open wide savannah landscape. Here begins another world, the high plateau is one of the oldest known rock formations of the earth, it is part of the Guayana Shield, which is estimated at about 1,7 billion years.