Venezuela | Small group holidays | Touring and wildlife - Venezuelan Odyssey

Small group touring and wildlife holiday

Venezuelan Odyssey

This small group tour visits many of Venezuela’s classic highlights in a trip combining a great variety of scenery, wildlife, picturesque towns and villages, and insights into Venezuela’s history and cultures.

We tour the mountains, villages and towns of the Andes, go on safari at a cowboy and wildlife ranch in the Llanos, visit historic Ciudad Bolívar, fly over the world’s tallest waterfall, Angel Falls, and explore the world of the Orinoco Delta.

We travel in comfortable style with lots to see and do each day.

Caracas

Day 1 You will be met on the arrival of the international flight of your choice and driven from the airport to a 4* hotel in the seaside town of Macuto. There is a small pool at the hotel. In the evening we meet for a welcome cocktail overlooking the Caribbean.

Mérida and the Andes

Day 2 This morning we take the morning commuter flight, with breakfast at the airport, to the Andean town of Mérida, set beneath the snow-capped peaks of the ‘Five White Eagles’.

Our base for the next 2 nights is one of our favourite posadas in Venezuela, a stylishly converted town house in colonial streets near the city centre. We spend the afternoon exploring Mérida and seeing its main sights including the Plaza Bolívar and the Cathedral. Dinner at a lively restaurant.

Day 3 There is a choice of activities today. Those who wish can ride on the world’s longest (nearly 8 miles) and highest (15,633ft) cable-car for spectacular views of the high mountains, passing many changes of vegetation from lush semi-tropical through to high páramo at the penultimate station opposite snow-covered Pico Espejo, where you can buy a ticket to the final station among the permanent snows if conditions are good. A picnic lunch is included. Alternatively, you can visit the lush coffee-growing region to the south of Mérida on a trip to the village of Jají. Founded in 1558, Jají is laid out according to colonial regulations with church, public buildings and the best private residences fronting the plaza, now restored. Continue onwards to visit a fine old coffee hacienda and take lunch. Both trips return to Mérida in the mid-afternoon with some time free for shopping or sightseeing, before meeting up for dinner in town.

Day 4 Today we tour the traditional villages and impressive scenery of the páramos region north of Mérida. We explore streets of traditional houses, and step into small churches—including a stone chapel created by sculptor Juan Félix Sánchez. To earn extra money children sell flowers by the road or hold up fat Mucuchíes puppies for sale—a local breed of giant-size mountain dog.

A short trail (an hour’s stroll on foot or horseback) leads us to Laguna Negra, a lake whose surface often forms such a perfect mirror that it disappears into a reflection of the mountainside above.

Our journey continues past Hotel Los Frailes, built to resemble a monastery, where we may stop for a coffee or hot chocolate, then down to stay at a more comfortable altitude at a good quality lodge in traditional Andean style buildings where we also have dinner.

Llanos

Day 5 Descending the slopes of the Andes by scenic road, we enter the flatlands of the Llanos and arrive in time for lunch at Hato Cedral, a wildlife conservation ranch that welcomes visitors, providing a good standard of accommodation, air-conditioned rooms, and even a small swimming pool.

Around the ranch and on safari by vehicle and boat over the next two days we will experience one of the most impressive arrays of easily-viewable wildlife in the South America continent from a species list of 349 birds, 86 mammals, 24 reptiles, and 21 amphibians. We will see countless capybara and caiman, and a good assortment of freshwater dolphin, giant otter, capuchin and howler monkeys, iguanas, armadillo, giant anteater, anaconda, river turtles, orinoco crocodile, and more. The birdlife is superb, with huge numbers of waterbirds in particular, from the enormous jabiru stork and the un-missable scarlet ibis, to beautiful but more reclusive birds such as zigzag and agami herons, and the ungainly but extraordinary hoatzin. There are macaws and parrots among a host of others.

It is usually possible to take a night drive to see some of the nocturnal mammals and birds.

Day 6-7 Wildlife safaris at Hato Cedral.

Ciudad Bolívar

Day 8 Depending on changeable flight schedules we may spending part of the morning at the ranch, or start early to Barinas airport to fly via Caracas to Puerto Ordaz, and then on by road for an hour to Ciudad Bolívar, the historic capital of Bolívar state. Here we stay for 3 nights in a fine posada with a small pool, set in a restored grand house of the colonial period. Dinner tonight at the posada.

Day 9 Today we go on a walking tour of the city with its photogenic colonial streets leading down to the Orinoco waterfront. After lunch you are free to explore the city some more, visit the Jesus Soto museum, or just relax by the hotel pool. You are free for dinner tonight: your guide can suggest a choice of restaurants and the driver will drop you off and bring you home.

Angel Falls and Canaima

Day 10 From Ciudad Bolívar airport we take a morning sightseeing flight over Angel Falls (weather permitting), the plane crosses the top of the tepui mountain and enters the canyon to pass the falls in both directions: a very memorable sight if conditions are good. We land at Canaima in the Gran Sabana and stop for lunch and a boat ride on the beautiful Canaima lagoon, with time to relax by the shore with a view of Hacha Falls with a backdrop of impressive tepui table mountains, before taking off again for Ciudad Bolívar. Tonight we eat out together, usually at an open air churrasco restaurant popular with locals.

Puerto Ordaz

Day 11 This morning we drive the short distance to Puerto Ordaz where we pause to walk by the mighty rapids which forced Sir Walter Ralegh to turn back in his search for El Dorado. We then cross the Orinoco by ferry and continue onwards by road to a small landing stage on the edge of the Orinoco Delta.

Orinoco Delta

We are collected by boat and taken on a river journey into this extraordinary world. The Warao, the indigenous people of the Delta, can be traced back 6,000 years. They live in stilt villages to cope with changes in water level, with boardwalks between the houses instead of streets, everyone travels by dug-out boat, and the musical instrument of choice is the violin. Wildlife includes parrots and macaws, howler monkey, freshwater dolphin and river turtles. We stay for two nights in a rustic but comfortable tourist lodge, with private facilities, well inside the Delta.

Day 12 With the lodge as our base, we go on excursions to explore the Delta. Tonight is our farewell dinner, a chance to relive the events of the holiday in the most remote of surroundings.

Day 13 After breakfast we leave the lodge and make our way back by river, then by road to the town of Maturín where we say goodbye to our guide and board our plane for Caracas. We are met at the airport and you are helped to check-in for your chosen international overnight flight home. (You might choose to extend your stay with a few days at the beach, for example, before returning to Caracas and home.)

To book your place:

› Booking your place on a small group trip

See our travel guide to places you will visit on this tour:

› Mérida

› Andes

› Llanos

› Gran Sabana

We can arrange for you to extend your holiday in a wide variety of ways. For example to spend some time at the beach go to:

› Beaches - Margarita

› Beaches - Paria

› Beaches - Los Roques

13 days/12 nights. Starts and ends at Caracas airport.

GROUP SIZE: 2 to 12 people. A substantially similar 'reserve itinerary' applies if less than 4 people.

INCLUDED: all travel in Venezuela, services of English speaking local guides, accommodation (7 nights hotels, 5 nights tourist lodges), most meals (except for 2 lunches and 1 dinner - allow £25 spending money for these).

NOT INCLUDED: international flights (call us for latest fares), travel insurance, visa fees, vaccinations, Venezuela departure tax, items of a personal nature e.g. drinks, tips, laundry, room service, phone calls, optional excursions, hotel porterage, meals other than those stated as included, drinks other than those provided. Any meals and drinks you take in place of those provided are, of course, at your own expense.

SINGLE SUPPLEMENTS (and how to avoid them): Our standard tour prices for small group trips are per person based on two adults sharing twin-bed rooms where applicable. Hotels charge extra for single occupancy. We think this is unfair in the context of a group holiday and we will absorb this extra cost ourselves if you are willing to share with another person of the same sex in the group - regardless of whether there is another person to share with you. (If you prefer a room to yourself and are not willing to share then you do need to pay the single supplement.)

YOUR FINANCIAL SECURITY: This tour is ATOL protected by the Civil Aviation Authority.

Can't make these dates?

Please call us to discuss a tailor-made alternative.