Hey friends how are you, a good day for walking and weekend we went to the hotel Hotel Antigua Mision, to the Exotic Flower Park, is a park where a collection of Magnolias, Araceae, malvaceae and others are exposed. This park is located 15 minutes from San Felipe, about 90km from my city, the road is rainforest style at the time of arrival, and the park is about 5km long.
The entrance to the park in walking style is 2.5$, and we can have a picnic here, but if we want a guide and a mini golf cart, it is worth 5$, the difference is that here they explain the history of the place, how it was founded and why, and the types of flora that are in the place and the tour is limited (40min).
Besides that there are other activities such as paintball, mini golf, zip line or zip line, also the hotel has a pool and all these activities have a cost of $ 5, but prior reservation is required, except the pool.
We entered the city of San Felipe to pick up a friend and from there the stretch is 15min of road, at the time of arriving almost to the place the vegetation abounds and makes a kind of umbrella on the road very cool, plus it is a humid state and smells like rainforest throughout the road.
The entrance is very visible and there is a person who takes the data of the people who are going to enter, the place where they come from and if it is the first time they visit this site, I guess to keep a record.
The entrance to the park is paid at the hotel, a receptionist writes down our ticket. However we can walk around the hotel before starting the tour, we can see the facilities, the animals present there, there are macaws and peacocks, the place is extremely beautiful and especially the pool area. There is a place where they have a very old wine and rum warehouse.
Although I did not take many pictures of the hotel, we began the tour of the park where the walk is about 1 hour or a little more depending on the pace, of course from the beginning you can already see the types of flowers that give the name to this place, and as my friend had already come here she told us a little about the history of the place.
There is a tree that is more than 400 years old, they call it the grandfather and emblem of this place, everyone has to take a picture here, even the construction of the forest revolves around this tree. There are only two trees of this size and age in the state of Yaracuy, of which there are known records.
Regarding the history it is said that this place was originally founded by Spanish settlers, the one in charge of everything was a Fray, and he with the help of the indigenous people of the area made a small settlement here, which lasted for many years, it is said that the hotel is built where the main building was and that the small church was formerly the chapel of the settlement.
For this reason there is a cross with the name of the Fray in the center of the forest, they say that the real body of the man was buried here and others say that it is simply to give him merit and it is only to give value to the visitors.
We continued our tour and found more flowers, zingiberaceae, among others, as well as coffee and cocoa plants, aquatic and semi-aquatic flowers, so the place is very complete in terms of species.
From here we did two things, we went out to eat in the city to return to Barquisimeto, we ate cachapas that were really good. And we still had time to go to another place, we went to the Guayabito river, which was another 30 min from San Felipe by another road, however I only have a picture of the place, because I ran out of battery and we crossed the river and left the phones in the car, but I will repeat this adventure another day.
And to finish with a golden bronze, some hamburgers at night with another group of friends, besides playing jenga, and another thing that happened to us, the rubber of the truck got sponged by a nail and at 2m we were changing the spare part to be able to go home.
See you next time, I hope it will be a weekend at the Guayabito River.