Rain Forests

This is a scenic road on which you're sure to discover, beautiful views, lovely sunsets, and lush flora that will command your attention. In the middle of the Paramo la Carbonera, you can find the quiet village of La Azulita, with exciting waterfalls and impressive forests. Here, you can see the coffee and banana plantations, and taste the traditional guava candies, made by the people of La Azulita. This town has been declared the first ecological town in Latin America, because of its great beauty and the ecological plans that experts are developing for the area. Near La Azulita is The Pirate’s Cave, where the pirates, which came in through the port of Gibraltar, at Lake Maracaibo, used to hide. If you keep going down this road, you’ll finally get to Palmarito Beach, on Lake Maracaibo, the northern most point in the State of Merida.

ROUTE OF THE SOUTHERN TOWNS
Along this route, you can find many villages of great beauty and charm, like: Pueblo Nuevo del Sur (New Town of the South), located 27 miles from Merida. This is a colonial town with many fine examples of traditional architecture, nice balconies with colorful flowers, ancient fronts on many houses, sidewalks made of hand-formed red bricks, and the beautiful church of this pueblo.

Other towns of importance on this route are Mucuchachi, founded in 1770, which even today contains a large number of original buildings. The area is known for its beautiful scenery and great waterfalls. Nearby is the Town of Acequia. Originally founded in 1620 as an Indian settlement, it has evolved through the years into a beautiful colonial style village of today.

The Southern Route is full of villages that you can visit like: Mucutuy, Chacanta, El Morro, San Jose del Sur and Aricagua. Each of them has many reasons to stop and visit. One of the most frequented and well known towns of these southern mountains is: Los Nevados.

A cable car ride, plus 7 hours of walking or 3 hours riding a horse , will take you to this remote, peaceful and quiet town, in the middle of the silent mountains. You’ll be able to see the plantations, surrounding the town, which produce a great variety of vegetables in addition to row crops such as wheat. The old church of this village, was built in 1630 and re-modeled in 1917 because of the earthquake of 1894. In this cold, but cozy little town, you’ll find kind people and a few colonial style lodging-houses where you can spend the night, or more, in front of a warm fireplace and witness the majesty of the mountains and her people.

Another popular town, Canagua, is 75 miles from Merida. Here you’ll be enchanted by the beautiful waterfalls of the Canagua River, located only a mile from town. If you take the road to Mucuchachi, you’ll observe strange calcareous formations, impressive deep gorges and waterfalls of great natural beauty.