El Avila

Once at the top of the mountain. You can go down a dirt road (very jumpy old road) to a near town called Gallipan. You pay 2,500 bolivars for a 15min ride in a 4×4 truck with 6 people more or walk the distance, about half and hour.

At the town you’ll find a big set of stores selling from flowers to preserved fruits and marmalades. Try the “Sandwich de Pernil”, you’ll have to wait for the trucks to pick you up, it was a long queue that saturday, the weather is nice, you can see the caribbean from Gallipan, is cold too, so take a jacket with you.

Pictures of Gallipan

Finally on saturday I got to go up there. You’ll need to go to the teleferic base, is called “Avila Magica”. They charge 39,000 bolivars for a two-way trip. The trip upwards take near 20 minutes, prepare the cameras because you’ll be able to snap shots of the city and the forests in the Avila’s sides. At the top there is a long walk with food and snacks stores, two restaurants and a plaza near the old Humboldt Hotel where there are shows for kids and adults.

El Avila Teleferic

El Avila Avila Magica

In my visit to Caracas on 2005 I got to hike El Avila to Sabas Nieves, a Forest guard post. It’s a trail that a lot of people from the city does over the weekend. It was full of people of all ages and even parents with their babies. The hike took about two hours and the view is impressive. You can check at my Journal Entries photoblog the pics I took that one time.

I want to go up but using the teleferic this time! I hope to find the time and a good sunny day. Caracas is cold this time of the year and there’s use to be mist and clouds covering the top of El Avila.

Caracas is a big Valley, one of the biggest mountain around it it´s a National Park Called “El Avila”, it´s huge, it has a Teleferico which take you for around US$10 to the top of the mountain, or you can go hiking, even on an SUV.
From the top you´ll get to see the whole City, an by turning around you´ll see the coast (La Guaira).
This National Park protects our city from bad weather coming from the caribean, it also helps in purifing our air, but it also suffer a lot. People are builing more each year houses close to it, and the dry season it sometimes very tuff on our mountain.
Going back to the Teleferico story, once up there you can do many things, besides from admiring the view, you can eat in the restaurants, visit an very old Hotel Called Humboldt, Ice saket in a small but fun ring, take amazing pics..
In the day time nice and warm, but at night you better take a sweater with you it get chilly, very romantic place to eat fondue and maybe drink a bottle of wine.
Any way… i´ll include some pics next time.
Chao