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Published: July 20th 2012
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Hello everyone,
this is my third blog from Venezuela!
I left Coro on a nightbus towards the southwest and arrived about 12 hours later in Merida.
Merida is a well known tourist destination in Venezuela. It lies in the Venezuelan Andes mountains, with its highest peak (Pico Bolivar, 5002m). The city has a bit more than 200.000 people and is cheaper compared to Caracas, Maracay and Valencia. It's very famous for having the world's highest cable car (teleferico) reaching a height of 4700m with various stations along the way. The cable car has been closed for over 4 years now as it's going through a mayor renovation. The system was built by dicator Marcos Perez Jimenez in the late 1950's. The city lies at approx. 1600m and has a nice, cool climate. During the day you won't need a jacket, but at night or in the morning you might need one. The city itself is a little bit chaotic (like most Latin American cities) but it has some interesting places and parks to visit, including the "Heladeria Coromoto" where they sell about 200 different flavours of ice-cream and it appears in the Guiness Book of World Records. Most
attractions are in the surroundings of the city.
I started with the so called "El Paramo". From Parque Heroínas they form groups of people in the morning and they'll take you with a bus around the area and you get back there later afternoon or early evening. The bus made various stops along the way. The first one was at a monument dedicated to the "Perro Nevado", a very big dogtype which is typical for this Andean region. Other stops were made to take pictures of the beautiful scenery and for lunch of course. We stopped at the well-known "Capilla de Piedras"...a nice, small chapel/church completely built with stones. Another stop included the Sierra de la Culata National Park, where they have a typical Andean condor in a cage. Here it was also possible to watch a video over these animals and how they were "brought back" into the Venezuelan Andes.
The beautiful Lake Mucubají was also included in the stops. It's located at a height of 3.500m. Here the vegetation starts to change drastically and you'll start feeling the colder temperature. You'll start seeing the "Frailejón" plants (Espeletia), which only grow at certain height. The most fascinating stop was
at Pico Aguila (station of the Andean condor), which is the highest roadpass in Venezuela at 4.118m. Too bad it didn't snow when I was there. There is a small chapel at the site and on the other side there is a tall pilar with a condor on top. Of course there are many different small stalls selling souveniers, drinks, snacks etc.
Another day I visited the "Chorros de Milla", a zoo located in Merida. It is nice and has also two waterfalls via a trail in the back of the zoo. My visit to "Venezuela de Antier" was also interesting. It's a theme park where they show you how the different parts of Venezuela used to look like in the past (1925). They explain a lot about the history, traditions, dances, cuisine etc.
From Merida I took a 4 day tour to
los Llanos. Llanos is a big, grassland plain that covers about 1/3 of Venezuela. Watching Venezuelan television for years, I always knew about this area with its abundant wildlife and I was always curious to visit. The tour took us to the
Apure state, heart of the Llanos. The state borders to the south with Colombia.
Here we stayed at a touristic camp called "Cañafistola". I got my own room but the toilet and shower where outside in another building. It was a very long drive to get to the camp and it's only accessible by four-wheel drive because the last 4 to 5 km is just mud. It is a very wet area and we've had some heavy rain here with thunder, which actually interrupted our schedule a little bit. There are people living at the camp and its surroundings. There is a small school just behind the camp where kids can study until their 2nd year of secondary school. After this they have to go to the nearest village (Mantecal). Besides the cattle on the Llanos, it's like a zoo with hundreds of bird species, crocodiles, ant-eaters (tapir's), anaconda's, piranhas, capybara's etc. And don't forget the mosquito's in the evening. All the rooms have fences against mosquito's and obviously everyone needs to bring their own repellent. They didn't bother me at all during my stay. On the camp and the other camps and houses they use generators to generate electricity. Remember, it's in the middle of nowhere! We went for a boat-trip on the
river where I saw a "different" kind of turtle they call "mata-mata" or "turtle with crocodile-head". We tried to go in the morning but had to abort it due the heavy rain. We also did horseback riding which was great, although my ass was hurting afterwards, hahaha. We even went through the water while on the horse, the water reaching my knees! Fishing for piranhas was another great thing we did. I almost got one twice, our guide got several ones and that night we had dinner with piranhas included on the table!
In my group there where two Polish and two Belgian tourists. After the tour we left them at Mantecal, where they went further to San Fernando de Apure and then they'd split towards Puerto Ayacucho and Ciudad Bolivar. I went back to Merida with our guide. I stopped near Hugo's house just before reaching the city of Merida. Hugo is my cousin, he's the father of Antarajú whom I spent time in Caracas with. Hugo was in the city so in the meantime I spent some time at a friend of him who lives just along the street. When he came, we walked up a hill
(steep!!!) to reach the house. It's a small and very simple house. His wife (Antaraju's mom), Marisol was there. She's a very nice, kind and hearty person. I felt home right away! Hugo is also a very nice person and I met him in Merida a week before for lunch at the market (Mercado Principal). He does art work, handcrafts etc. at home but works fulltime at a local radiostation. Marisol is teacher. In the past they both used to make art and handcrafts more often. We spoke a lot about everything while there: about Curacao, family, Venezuela, politics, teaching, work etc. and also about the boys Antaraju and the older Xaymaca, who is working in Maturin. Just like my family in Caracas, I was very welcome here and was treated extremely well. I'm one of the few of Hugo's family members (cousins, aunts, uncle's etc) that has visited him at his house in Merida which made me feel kind of special, hahaha! I also felt like I should have came here much earlier in the past during vacations when Antaraju and Xaymaca were still living there. For those who don't know, I never had any direct cousins of my
age in Curaçao.
I was actually very lucky because Hugo added me on Facebook about a week or two before I went to Venezuela. At first I thought that Carin told her that a cousin from Curacao was coming, but that wasn't the case. He saw my profile through Carin's profile and added me because he knew I must be family due to my lastname. I wrote him and told him who I was and asked him who he was. In the second message I asked him if he was the father of Antaraju and Xaymaca, which he confirmed. This is how I got in contact with Antaraju again after 11 years and I met Hugo and Marisol for the first time! If Hugo wouldn't have added me, maybe I wouldn't have met any of them!!
All right, that's all for now. There will be one last blog from Venezuela, hopefully by next week!
Regards and take care,
Elton
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anonymous
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Nice!
Nice landscape. Funny, the turtle with the "crocodile head"! Enjoy!