Plaza Bolivar, Merida
We arrived in Merida
the next morning around 6:00 A.M., and when we stepped off the bus into
the bright, crisp morning air that only a mile-high city can provide, we
knew we were in the right place. At about 9 degrees of latitude north
of the equator, the temperatures are consistent all year round, and at
an altitude of a mile above sea level, they are also very agreeable.
Highs are typically in the mid-seventies Fahrenheit, and lows are around
60--like a New England summer--all year long!
After breakfast
at the bus station coffee shop, we caught a local bus to downtown Merida
and began the Great Posada Hunt. Posadas are like "Bed and Breakfast"
Inns in the U.S., but posadas typically don't serve food if restaurants
are available nearby. Armed with a book listing every posada in Venezuela,
we began the hunt. We picked a half dozen likely prospects out of
the 48 posadas listed in Merida, mapped them out, and set off. The
posadas varied drastically in quality: one had rooms that looked
literally like prison cells, with metal barred doors opening onto a lone
bed and lit by a naked bulb hanging from the ceiling; other posadas were
simple hotels with a front desk and basic rooms with a private bathroom;
still others were private houses offering spare bedrooms. We finally
chose one of the latter--a room with two double beds, three bunk beds,
a TV, and a private bath, all of which we shared with Michael and Kay.
We spent the rest of the day taking it easy, watching TV, snoozing, and
generally trying to recover from the long bus ride.
Merida is a beautiful
city. It sits on a sloping plateau in a long narrow valley, bordered
by two parallel rivers, and enclosed by two parallel mountain ranges, the
Sierra Nevada and Sierra La Culata, that reach high into the stunningly
clear blue sky. From many of the lovely parks or "plazas" in town,
one or more of the snow-capped peaks are usually visible, including Pico
Bolivar, the highest in Venezuela, which rises to 5007 meters (16,423 ft.).
The city is home to the Universidad de los Andes, and so it has a huge
population of young adults. Unlike most of Venezuela, the city is
clean, with no litter visible anywhere. Except for the churches,
the buildings in the city are typically low, usually two stories, and usually
are whitewashed with red tile roofs.
No other such grand
drama marked the next few days. Cathy and Kay explored the nooks
and crannies of the shops of Merida, and we hiked around the city and enjoyed
the sights and sounds. We basked in the sunny, cool and crisp weather,
and we adjusted to air much thinner than what we were accustomed to from
years of living exactly at sea level. Cathy met a young local girl,
Alejandra, who mentioned that there would be a celebration of the 442nd
anniversary of the founding of Merida the next day. Alejandra was
to dance at the celebration, and there would be music as well. So
we attended the celebration and were delighted to listen to the local music
and watch the folk dancing.
On Sunday, October 16,
we began our tour of the Pueblos del Sur. We waited in front
of our posada early in the morning to be picked up. The tour agent
warned us in advance that our guide, Diana, wore "a lot of makeup", which
we thought was an odd thing to warn us about. When she arrived in
her Toyota LandCruiser to pick us up, we suddenly understood. The
only way I can describe it is that she was done up in "stage makeup", with
broad swipes of brown around her lips, eyes, and eyebrows. It seemed
designed to be seen from 100 meters away, but it was very unusual in the
short distance across the cabin of a LandCruiser. Still, she was
well informed, friendly, and spoke perfect English with an American accent.
Diana first took
us up to the little village of Jaji (pronounced hah-hee). Like most
villages we saw, Jaji is built around a town square, always called Plaza
Bolivar, with a church fronting one side of the square. The streets
were of cobblestone. The houses and shops were typical whitewashed
buildings with red tile roofs. A few locals sat off at a corner of
the square strumming a guitar and singing in harmony, while others raced
around the streets on their horses. It was a stereotypical Latin
American village, just like you would see in the movies.
Leaving Jaji, we
met a "parade" coming the other way, consisting of a truck with a shrine
on it, decorated with tree boughs and loaded with people smiling and waving.
Behind them was another truck with about a dozen small children, dressed
up in grass skirts and headbands, in what was presumably native Indian
attire. (Since the conquistadors wiped out the native population
400 years ago, it's hard to say what an authentic native costume was.)
We decided to skip touring a coffee plantation and instead turned back
to Jaji to see what was up.
Our posada in San
Jose that night consisted of two private cabins set in a small valley by
a rushing stream. The owners of the posada served us a nice dinner
of grilled trout, with rice and local vegetables. As soon as it was
dark, we went back to our cabins and fell deeply asleep, snuggled up under
two (count 'em, two!) blankets, lulled by the rush of water in the nearby
streambed.
The next morning
we awoke to find another bright, beautiful day. We ate breakfast
at the posada, and then waited for the horses to arrive for our ride.
Cathy, having ridden only a few times before, was a little worried about
how she would do, but the caballero picked a nice, sedate mule for Cathy
instead of a horse, and everything was fine. We rode for about two
hours up into the mountains, down into valleys and across little streams.
The mountains in this part of the Andes are mostly dry scrub, with some
agriculture where it was less hilly, and cattle grazing in the steeper
areas that couldn't be farmed. It reminded me of the high desert
mountains above Deep Springs, California, except that the Andes are even
higher and more beautiful. We arrived at a little farm that happened
to be owned by the tour guide, and just happened to be for sale.
We were tempted to take her up on her offer: even though the houses
were in bad shape, the location was spectacular and the price was very
reasonable. Another two-hour ride by different trails led us back
to the posada.
We had lunch at
the posada, and Diana surprised us with a cake in celebration of Michael's
50th birthday. After lunch, we had time to walk around a bit, but
the high altitude caused us to become winded quickly. Around 4 PM,
we loaded our gear into the LandCruiser for the drive down the mountain.
We reached a high promontory over the valley near San Juan and we stopped.
Michael and Kay had booked a paragliding trip as part of the tour, and
this was the jump site. Normally the winds are too strong early in
the day, so we had waited in San Jose before setting out. On this
day, however, the wind was light, and the pilot decided to take the lighter
of the two passengers (Kay) for the first ride. Kay was rushed into
the harness, strapped to the pilot, and hustled off the side of the cliff
before the wind could die any further. We watched and took pictures
as the paraglider slowly descended the thousands of feet to the valley
below. By the time Kay had landed and was driven back up the hill,
the wind had almost died. Michael was strapped in, but after one
aborted takeoff attempt, the pilot decided to scrub any further flights
for the day. We drove back to town in the dark and checked in to
yet another posada, this one next to the tour agency.
The next day we
waited around until mid-afternoon, when the paragliding guys picked us
up in their LandCruiser, and we went back to the jump site. This
time the conditions were perfect, and Michael had a great ride, catching
lots of thermals, and flying for an hour or more.
Feeling a little
better, we took the Teleférico, or cable car, up to the top of Pico
Espejo. The Teleférico in Merida is the longest and highest
in the world. It starts in the city at an altitude of 1,577 meters
(5,172 ft.) and climbs in four stages up to the top of Pico Espejo at 4,765
meters (15,629 ft.). It covers a horizontal distance of 12.5 kilometers
(7.5 miles). We had a fabulous view of the mountains during the first
three stages, and as we stopped at each station, we could venture outside
and walk around for about 10 minutes before we boarded the next car.
Each leg takes about 10 minutes, and we watched in awe as the ground dropped
away beneath us and we hung in mid air suspended by only three cables.
As the altitude changes, the ecosystems on the ground change as well, and
we watched the ground cover go from lush sub-tropical foliage, to sparse
dry scrub, to completely barren ground in just a few minutes. By
the time we reached the fourth stage of the ride the clouds had begun to
form for the day, and we didn't get to see any fantastic vistas from the
very top. (We did get to see what the inside of a cloud looks like.)
At the top, we
walked around a little and took pictures of each other by the statue of
the Virgin Mary that stands at the top of Pico Espejo. We were both
dizzy from lack of oxygen. The temperature was below freezing, which
I really liked. Unfortunately, my stomach was still having lots of
problems, and the rapid changes in altitude didn't help any, so we avoided
walking down the few hundred meters to the snow banks. Instead, we
went into the cable car station, sipped some hot chocolate, and waited
for the next cable car down. We went straight down, only stopping
at the intermediate cable car stations long enough to change cable cars,
and arrived back on "terra firma" a little after noon.
The next day we
took a tour with Gioia to see some of the villages to the north of Merida.
We drove out of town and up the Trans-Andean Highway, stopping at a few
small villages along the way. We stopped at Juan Felix Sanchez Chapel,
a church built of hundreds of thousands of small, odd shaped stones, placed
in such a way that it looked like it would collapse with just a good sneeze.
Its builder, described by Gioia as "a hermit", died in 1997 and is buried
inside along with his wife.
We took about
a two-hour horseback ride to Lago Negro, a glacially formed lake up in
the hills fed by waterfalls. The scenery was different from what
we'd seen on our other ride. Frailejones, the state flower of Merida,
bloomed in profusion, and later when we felt one, it felt like velvet.
For a while we rode through a beautiful forest that reminded us a little
of Maine. The rest of the time there were views of the valley and
mountains. After the horse ride, Gioia took us to lunch at a local
restaurant where the food was delicious. Then we visited a refuge
for the endangered Andean Condor, and saw one of the birds with a three
meter (nine foot) wingspan in a huge cage. On the way back to town,
we were fortunate enough to spot one of the seven wild condors still alive
in Venezuela.
Finally, about
2:00 PM on October 24th, we arrived in Puerto La Cruz. We stepped
off the bus and into the searing heat of early afternoon. We arrived
back at the boat hot, exhausted, and still a little sick, but glad to have
made the trip. In more than two weeks we had seen beautiful mountains,
rushing rivers, placid glacial lakes, and friendly people, all set in a
fantastic climate. But we had only seen a handful of foreign tourists.
We finally believe the travel posters: It really IS the best kept
secret in the Caribbean. Promise not to tell?