The
Venezuelan Andes
are a truly Mecca for almost every imaginable adventure
sport and outdoors recreation activity, including mountain
biking,
camping, climbing,
fishing,
hiking,
horseback
riding, kayaking,
paragliding,
trekking and whitewater rafting.
The rugged peaks and the surrounding alpine-like valleys
of the Sierra Nevada and Sierra de la Culata National
Parks cordilleras have the city of Merida as their heart
and provide the picture
perfect setting for that dreamt vacation and first class
attractions such as the world’s highest and longest cable
car system. Of these two Andean ranges, the Sierra Nevada
is the only place in Venezuela that has snow capped mountains
throughout the year. It is a natural highland area of
exceptional scenic beauty, ideal for organized individual
and group
travel, excursions trips and expeditions with 76 peaks
over 13,123 feet high and 424 glacial lakes. Birdwatching
is outstanding and includes the Andean condor and the
only high altitude hummingbird on earth, the bearded helmetcrest.
South
of the Orinoco River, the one of its kind Lost
World region houses a compound of eerie and mysterious
yet unique in the world and amazing mountains known as
tepuis. These are a particular kind of sandstone mesas
between 2,624 and 9,842 feet high that almost always have
vertical walls and flat tops with numerous specialized
ecosystems of highly diversified and endemic vegetal
and animal
communities in their slopes and summits. All tepuys are
located in the Guayana Shield, Venezuela being the country
with the major occurrence of this kind of mountain: 34
in the Lost World region and 20 in the Venezuelan Amazon.
Totally ignored by history and science
until slightly more than a hundred years ago and considered
religious and mythological symbols of great importance
by the indigenous people
that inhabit the savannahs and the rolling hills around
them, life atop the tepuys plateaus evolved undisturbed
for more than 1,500 millions of years. The flora
is well represented by nearly 3,000 species and this is
the only region of Venezuela that has two families of
endemic plants.
Bromeliads, orchids, small palms, heliconias, mosses,
ferns, vines, mushrooms and lichens all grow in this botanical
paradise, sharing a space with a small number of also
endemic amphibians, reptiles and birds.
Angel
Falls, the world’s highest waterfall drops 3,212 feet
to the dense jungle below from the Auyantepuy,
the largest one. Mount Roraima,
the highest one, inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic
novel “The Lost World”, as the region is known today and
was the first known tepuy to be explored and climbed.
Of particular interest atop Roraima (and very photographed)
are the insectivorous plants:
Heliamphoras, Droseras and Utricularias. We offer privately
guided treks with porters. In the Venezuelan Amazon,
the Piaroa Indians culture
consider the 4,265 feet high Autana Tepuy, now a natural
monument, sacred. Our 2 nights Autana
Tepuy River Venture tours the Venezuelan jungle
by boat
through the Orinoco, Sipapo and Autana Rivers visiting
indigenous communities.
Separating
Caracas,
Venezuela’s cosmopolitan capital, from the sunny central
Caribbean coast,
El Avila Mount National Park is a section of the so called
coastal range. This is the best place for interesting
day and overnight hikes
in the country’s most extended network of walking trails,
rides in the recently opened cable car and meals in one
of the selected gourmet restaurants located in the agricultural
hamlet of Galipan affording incredible views of the city
or the coast. The park is characterized by deciduous and
evergreen rain
and cloud
forests and sub paramos environment inhabited by a representative
number of birds,
plants
and wildlife.
Contact
us to include mountains
in a customized itinerary of travel to Venezuela.
