Hiking and Rock Climbing in Caripe

This past weekend was Thanksgiving break for school. All the other teachers headed to Angel Falls, but since I did that last year, I opted to stay with Dereek in Anaco until Friday when we was done with work and then we headed to Caripe. Caripe is one of my favorite places that I've been in Venezuela since I've been here. It is about three hours away in the mountains and much cooler than the majority of the rest of the country. The climate and mountains also make it the perfect place for outdoor adventures; one of my favorite things. Last time we were there we did the Guachero Cave and did an exhausting hike to Chorreron Falls. This time we opted for the less difficult, but still beautiful puertas de miraflores hike and then the next day some really awesome rock climbing.

We left Anaco at about 5pm on Friday and got into Caripe at around 8:30. We stayed on a small farm called Estancia Encantada. It was really pretty and our rooms were big and clean. We didn't do anything the first night since it was fairly late for a small town and we were getting up the next morning to go hiking.

The road leading up to where we stayed.

A view of part of the farm.

Entrance to La Encantada

Outside of the rooms.

We had a super comfortable hammock outside our room.

The building that all the rooms were in.

Inside the white tents they were growing green peppers.  

There were also lots of cats. 

Dereek was happy about that. 

When we got up the next morning we were picked up by our guide, Edgar. He was the same guide we had used last time we were in Caripe. Our plan for the day was to do the Puertas de Miraflores hike, but before we went there we stopped at a friend of his' property. Edgar wanted to get some GPS coordinates so he could track the sun and figure out when would be prime time for taking photos there. After walking around for a bit, you could see why. It was beautiful. This man also had TONS of produce. We got to see him drying coffee beans, growing pumpkins between pine trees, ginger plants, chirimoya, bananas, some fruit with a type of black pepper seed inside, and five very distinctly different types of oranges. He even gave us tons of stuff to take home! 

The view from his house.

Coffee beans drying outside.

House and view around it

A red orange. Hard to tell in the picture, but it was an orange that had an almost red inside. 

Those are some type of spicy pepper seeds. Dereek and I are excited to try cooking with them.

Chirimoya. They're super tasty.

Trying to get them down from the tree. The man who owned this land was a monkey and climbed really high into this tree.

Inside of the Chirimoya. 

A type of ginger plant. The ginger is obviously in the root.

Bananas!

I'm putting this up just because Dereek thinks it's funny. He got a picture at the exact second that I was trying to get a bug away from my face.

The picture we were originally trying to go for. 

Dereek and Edgar walking with our bag of goodies. 

After hanging out at this plantation type of place for a while, we continued to Puerta de Miraflores. It was a nice, easy hike pretty much the whole way. There was a paved path almost the whole way, but quite a few river crossings so our sneakers/boots got soaked. When you get to what is considered the "puerta" or door is a huge canyon. You have to walk in the water for this. After going through the canyon it opens into a nice swimming area at the bottom of some small waterfalls. We got there just before a huge group did. We got to swim in really nice (but cold) blue water and relax for a bit. The place is absolutely gorgeous. The group that came after us was a group of college kids, and after entering the water one girl passed out. It took a bunch of guys to help her up onto a rock, our guide gave her a blanket from his first aid kit and we told her to put her legs up. We also gave her snacks. We assume her body was hot from the hike (she wasn't in the best of shape) then when she swam into the freezing water she went into shock. We left them there and said keep her feet up we'll go alert the fire department. When we finally got to somewhere with service our guide called the equivalent of 911 here. We then went to the fire department, only to find out that 3 people are on duty and none of the vehicles work. Then we went and told the national guard who were on patrol and they sent us to another place and we told them too. We seemed to have told everyone we could've. Hopefully her fainting spell passed and she walked out or someone eventually went to help, we're still not sure. Made me feel a little nervous though knowing that I went to a fire department and they literally didn't have a working ambulance to do anything...  Other than that adventure though, the hike and Puertas de Miraflores are gorgeous and I would really recommend them to anyone. 

Right before you start the hike there is the shortest river in the world. It is 33 meters long. 

Starting our walk.

River crossing right before the canyon.

Las Puertas de Miraflores Canyon

Very pretty place

Pool of water after walking through the Puertas de Miraflores

It was really pretty.

We had a little bit of time alone there before all these people showed up.

Dereek enjoying one of our many oranges

Oh yeah, and there was this guy, he would soap up, shave, then dive into the water, climb up the rocks and do it again. Apparently jumping off rocks into this pool was his equivalent of taking a bath. 

After our hike Dereek and I went into the town for a little bit at night. We went up into the mountains and got some homemade liquors, passionfruit, cocoa, and coffee. All very delicious. Then we went to this little restaurant and had the best pasta I've had yet in Venezuela. There are very few pasta places, so it was nice to eat something a little different. We also went out and got some hot chocolate. After being in the town we laid in the hammock in front of our room and drank wine and ate cake, it was relaxing. 

On Sunday we got up, packed, had breakfast and walked with Edgar across the street and hiked for about 20 minutes up quite a large mountain/hill to get to where we were going rock climbing. The place was beautiful. There were two other people there two, one who was taking a sport climbing course. Our guide and the other instructor were the ones who climbed up and set up our top ropes since Dereek and I have not had proper sport climbing training, and honestly, that scares me. We climbed two different routes, one we got to the top of, and the other one we made it only about a third of the way. It was way harder then our guide made it look, as with most sports. Regardless, it was great exercise and tons of fun. Hopefully we'll work out a bit, go back, and get higher up next time. I'd love to be able to climb more often, I really enjoy it. It was Dereek's first time rock climbing and he enjoyed it to. Overall, it was a really really enjoyable weekend and I'm happy we got to do so many fun things and spend time together. =) 

Dereek looking up at what we're about to climb. 

I went first, made it!

Rappelling down. 

Dereek's turn.

He made it up, too. 

The wall we were climbing on and the beautiful view. 

Onto the harder wall. This is one of the guides climbing up like a monkey and making it look easy. 

Dereek went first this time.

He also really blends into the wall.

Looking super talented.

I really like this picture. 

The guy who was taking a course looking up at where we were climbing. 

Crazy looking bug. Sometimes things aka bugs, lizards, and birds come out of the cracks. I was kinda scared I'd stick my hand in and get bit by something.

My turn for the bigger wall.

It was really hard.

Doesn't look very high, but it was hard to get even just to there.

Can you find me? I was kinda in a crack in the wall.

Tiring but awesome.