Country Walks in the Andes

Arrive Caracas

Arrive Venezuela. Positioning night on the coast near the airport.

to the Andes - San Jose and the Tostos Valley

An early morning flight from Caracas the Andes area, where you are met and looked after throughout your stay by an experienced English-speaking local guide. First, you take a leisurely drive through varied countryside before taking a winding road up to 7,500 ft (with panoramic views) to arrive at the remote village of San José to stay 2 nights at a delightful chalet-style guest house.

Starting from San José, there is a fairly easy trail around the hills into the peaceful Tostos valley. Eucalyptus trees border fresh mountain rivers as the trail passes meadows with lilies, and fields where farmers plough with oxen. In the scattered hamlets corn is still ground by hand.

Cloud forest around La Mesa de Los Indios

A leisurely start before driving down into the Chama valley. Continue driving to a charming posada in a traditional courtyarded house in the village of La Mesa de los Indios for 2 nights. Here on a Saturday night you might stroll to the Plaza Bolívar to hear a recital by the local wind orchestra school.

to Merida

A morning walk in the local cloud forest to enjoy the luxuriant vegetation and perhaps bathe at a waterfall. Then transfer up to the university city of Merida. There will be time to visit the covered market to purchase snacks for your following days of trekking in the Sierra de La Culata.

Village to Village staying in Mucuposadas in Sierra La Culata National Park

You are collected from your hotel in Mérida by your English speaking local trekking guide and driven up to the high moors to limber up with a walk to Laguna Negra. Perhaps visit the nearby Astronomic Observatory before spending the night at your first mucuposada in the village of Mitibibó at 3,400m. This trek in the Sierra La Culata National Park supports a community-based rural project. You walk, with a mule to carry your pack, between mucuposadas—traditional adobe and stone houses renovated to offer food and lodging in a simple and warm manner.

A half day’s walk through the beautiful landscape of the Sierra La Culata through a changing scenery passing through the region of wheat and potato cultivation to the Valle de El Banco, then crossing the tree line and walking on the páramos moor. Spend the night in La Toma Alta.

A full day’s trek takes you through a glacial landscape of lakes, huge frailejónes and endemic plants up to a high point, the Alto de Muruzoque, at 4,264m. You then follow an old royal road to your final mucuposada at Misintá.

return via Merida to Caracas

A leisurely start to enjoy the tranquillity of the high mountains and Doña Rosa’s garden. In the mid-morning you will be collected from Misintá by 4WD and driven to a paved road, then back via Mérida, where you will be reunited with any stored luggage, and transferred down to El Vigia airport for a late afternoon flight back to Caracas. E.g. fly El Vigia/Caracas 17.00/18.15 You will be met on arrival and transferred back to a hotel on the coast near the airport for a positioning night. [Note: this would combine well with an optional extension to the Llanos - either as a nature excursion or as an additional multi-day village-village downhill hike, , or from Apr-Dec a visit to the southern shore of Lake Maracaibo for the Catatumbo Lightening display].

a.m. transfer to Caracas airport for an onwards flight to your next destination - perhaps add a beach extension to Margarita or Los Roques