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| Cueva del Guachero |
A little mountain town is a nice destination for the weekend. Lucky me, I have one nearby. I and a friend took a trip up to Caripe, Venezuela for the day to check out the country side and a pretty spectacular cave called Cueva del Guácharo.
We also took a small trek to a waterfall near the cave which wasn't nearly as spectacular.
Our day started by trying to find a taxi from my apartment to the taxi terminal. However in my residential area it can be very difficult finding taxis but we lucked out and an old man who lives near me gave us a ride into town where we could easily find a taxi. Hoping into cars with strangers is something I try to be very careful about and use good judgment and ideally wouldn't do, but sometimes you have to take the kindness of a stranger for what it is, just kindness.
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| A vendor along our way making sugar water from cane. A tasty treat. |
Anyway, we did make it to the terminal and it only took us 20 or so minutes to find a ride to Caripe. So a little low down on how terminals work. They are usually two ways you can get from town to town via taxi. One you can go to a private company and wait at their offices to take a taxi or possibly rent out a whole taxi for yourself or second go to a terminal. At the terminals you can find taxis and buses. Usually you just take whatever has room available. On our way to Caripe we ended up riding in an SUV with three other people and so it wasn't overly crowded and would be much quicker than a bus. The taxi will usually take you to your stop if it is along the way and they are always more expensive than buses. Anyway, our trip up to Caripe was pleasant and uneventful.
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| These beautiful trees were dotting the mountain sides. |
When we first got into the town I immediately noticed that the fences around some of the houses were only waist high. This always immediately gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside. I really hate having to have tall fences around everything. The streets were clean and the buildings were all painted bright colors. The two was surrounded on both sides by mountains and there were trees blooming orange flowers that from a distance looked like fall leaves. The whole town seemed laid back.
The taxi driver dropped us off at the cave and bid us goodbye. Being Sunday there were many people at the cave enjoying the nice weather. We quickly got tickets and rented galoshes for the trip into the cave. The mouth of the cave was huge and if you listened closely you could hear the screeching birds lived inside. Our tour guide showed up with a lantern in hand gathered our group together and warned the little kids to behave or the birds might eat them. Our guide was one of those funny ones. The cave was cool and the tour was the typical job of pointing out different formations that looked like a face or showing our shadows dancing on the walls. It took maybe 1.5 hours for the total tour and I suggest checking it out for yourself if you enjoy caves with creepy sounding birds. We also walked to a waterfall nearby which was thoroughly underwhelming during dry season, but the walk was pleasant enough.
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| One look back before venturing into the darkness. |
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| Some of the nifty structures and our guide. |
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| Stopped for a mini photo shoot. |
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| Most of the cave was massive |
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| Lots of graffiti from the people who first explored the cave. |
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| Passing by another tour group. |
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| Can't leave without a selfie. |
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| I dub this baby angle falls. |
We finished with our exploring and caught a cab back to the taxi terminal in town. When we got to the terminal it had four people there and the food stand was closed. We waited there for a bit keeping our fingers crossed that a taxi would show up and one eventually did not have room for us. So then we waited by ourselves at the abandon terminal for maybe another hour. During that time a handful of people also showed up looking for a ride into Maturin and lucky for us a bus arrived to do just that. Our bus ride back was filled with many stops along the way in different towns to pick people up and drop people off. Once we got close to Maturin the bus started to get very crowded and I was glad that we had seats. By the time we arrived in Maturin there wasn't even standing room available on the bus even the steps were occupied with an open door allowing people to hang outside a little as we drove down the street. It took us about twice as long on the bus to get home but we did arrive back at my apartment safe and sound with a nice little adventure to write home about.
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| The places we go. |
