Teleferico
Trip Start
Nov 29, 2007
1
5
12
Trip End
Dec 30, 2007
Merida,
Venezuela
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Merida is a university town that has got big recently, and its 700,000 inhabitants sprawl out in a narrow wedge along a plateau above the beautiful river valley below.
But in the older district you would never know this. It feels like a small town, and its narrow cobbled streets, pretty plazas, and one spectacular old church (the most interesting I have seen so far) make it a very pleasant place to stay, with views to a 5000m peak, and others almost that high. We stayed at a nice little posada (Suiza) where all the numerous girls who worked there were nice. They even asked us out dancing on our last night there but we had to decline.
Merida also has what claims to be the world's highest and longest cable car
Pico Bolivar from Merida
. I believe it. The cable car leaves from Merida, at 1577m elevation. It terminates 12km later at Pico Espejo, 4765m high, where the thin air makes some people dizzy just getting off the car. And the view is spectacular to Picos Bolivar and Humboldt, the two highest in Venezuela. To give you some idea of how warm Venezuela is, the average temperature at one of the stations (I think at at 2400 not 3400m) was still 7 degrees, and even Pico Humboldt at almost 5000m has almost no permanent snow.A trail runs from the second to last station over the range and down to the 'touristified' mountain village Los Nevados. We thought it would be a nice walk, and it was, but it starts at 4045m (for kiwis: that's higher than Mt Cook) and gets up to 4300m, and then finishes with a 90 minute slog along a dirt road. The bit between the high point and the dirt road is delightful.
The only thing wrong with the initial climb is that it is really hard work. It wouldn't be at sea level, but this was my first encounter with altitude, and I didn't like it. Although I was climbing this hill in baby steps my heart was battering my rib cage and I could feel my pulse inside my skull, and yet I was exerting so little effort that I was not sweating. I stopped noticing the altitude the moment I wasn't trying to go up hill
Pico Bolivar
. But I begin to understand why people say the Inca trail is tough. On the other side, the path was above the vegetation line for a while but soon hit beautiful alpine meadows of browns and reds and followed a river valley down the mountain. Gradually, mountain grasses were replaced by increasingly large shrubs and bushes, many looking like some kind of hebe. The colour scheme was similar to the Central Plateau. I was surprised to see hummingbirds.
It took longer than we had thought but we finally got to Los Nevados and stayed at a very poorly built place with a beautiful view over a very steep valley (on which the tiny township perches precariously), and which included dinner and breakfast and - this rarest of things - a hot shower for $20. Hot water is fast moving to the top of my list of 'things I like about 'civilisation', and it is amazingly difficult to find even in Venezuela, and, when found, often means 'slightly warmer than the mountain stream we took it from'. In a climate like Venezuela's this is not really a problem but it helps you appreciate the hot water when you find it, especially when you are tired and sore.
The next day we caught the jeep back to Merida, a four hour trip, supposedly next to hair-raising cliffs, but it was so foggy that we couldn't tell.
