Photographic excursion to "El Picacho".
North coastline of Vargas, town of Galipán, Venezuela.
For those who doesn't know about this natural rocky formations to the west of the mountain and touristic town of Galipan, is part of the national park named El Avila, and also part of the mountain that divides the coastline of Vargas with the capital of Venezuela, Caracas. I have some pictures of our travel to that place and by "our travel" I mean a friend named Jeniffer, my girlfriend Ruby and I. We were the team and we did this excursion not knowing anything about the place, the route or anything, just in my case I heard "things" about the place. This is my story of how we ended there.
First of all, let's start with the location of the place:
Up there in the map, you can see the route we travel, it's not far from our home but it's really high. For the beginning of the adventure, we all lived near the International Airport Simon Bolivar and we departed early in the morning in public transport after we got all together. We wanted to seize the day at maximum and try to come back early because we were on a budget. We took two buses and a heavy-duty vehicle to the mountain, all necessary to arrive to the town of Galipan in the mountain. Once in the town that was our primal destination, we walked around, drank some hot chocolate and then we were a little dissapointed because we didn't felt fullfilled with the place, we wanted to be more connected with nature.
After some walk time, we remembered that when we were coming, the transport make a stop in a place where we could saw a gate and a dirt route, people stayed there, so we asked and they said it was the path to El Picacho. We decided to go there after being in the town, even without knowing anything, we took the risk. We bough some things that we needed to do the trip there and walked from the town to the entrance of the path. It's a creepy gate actually, and I said "this is how horror movies start", no one laughed. Entered the path and there our real trip started and it was amazing. None of us ever went to this place so we were impatient and careful.
On the way from Galipan to El Picacho's entrance.
Buying food for the trip.
The Terrible Looking Gate
The path is supposed to be for a single car, but I believe that the driver that dares to get a car in there has to be a crazy person. It's too small and in parts gets thinner for a car, but for people is a fine path. We didn't look other people nearby when we started our way, but once we get moving we crossed some hikers. Everything was really quiet until we reached the first slope steep and cried. We weren't prepare for this kind of terrain and less to get into the wilderness of the mountain, but we didn't care much and kept going in.
During our walk, a dog appeared from nowhere and started following us, he was friendly and looks like he was guiding us in some way. The walk was intense, up, down, a lot of trees and flora and sometimes the path had a clear sky, but the dog didn't left our side, he went to the end of the road with us.
We walked like 40 minutes before been able to see the prominent rock that everybody talks about as the final destination and the most common place of the zone, the amazing Rocky Formation of El Picacho appeared before us, with a fall of maybe one kilometer straigh down and an perfect view of some places of Galipan and the Coastline. As we approached to the huge rock at the top of a hill, we could see some people in there. We walked a little and took pictures every moment, more and more photos, it was a planned photographic outlet at the end.
We took our time as we were getting closer, stopping every time to make pictures of the landscape and portraits of ourselves, also making pictures of small things like flowers or insects. The landscape is mindblowing, we got to the place we wanted to go, even when we didn't knew anything of this place, we wanted to chill and have a gettaway from the crazy city and we got it, thanks to the adventure spirit that make us take that unknown trip.
There's the dog I told you before, in the picture at the left, he was our protector and guide or maybe he just wanted food, but I don't think so. When we saw the clouds from above we knew this was something else, we were tired but happy that we found this place. The final path leads to the most outstanding part of the rocky formation, a huge rock that goes out of the mountain and works easily as a viewpoint. Where you can see up to the Humbolt Hotel or down to the coastline, but in our case the coastline wasn't visible because of the clouds.
There was all kind of people in different places of the rock, talking, eating, meditating. They were all kind with each other even when you could notice that they weren't together, that's something strange at least for people of the city who walk fast immersed in paranoia of who is going to get you. Bad things apart, the place has a great energy, the old people said that this is a magical zone with many powers. When we left, I was convinced.
There were a lot of people trotting, hiking and walking. Some were leaving and some were coming. The wheater is cold, the mountain is near 2 km over the sea level, but the sun still burns and you can't feel it until is too late, if you're planing to come, take precautions bringing solar protection and lip balm. If you have some luck the day of your visit the sky will be clear, so you could see to the coastline and the town of Vargas.
We were there, at the rock. So hungry that we sat down there to bring out our food and recover energies to comeback later when we finish exploring. There were some communication antennas and I knew that was the reason for the path with tire trails.
Actually I don't have a clue about those antennas, but I guess those are booster antennas for communication reasons. After we ate, we explored all over the place and took a lot of pictures, so many that I don't know how to show you all we did.
The place takes your breath away with the landscapes and even when we had like two hours in there exploring, we couldn't stopped being impressed with the beauty of nature and this natural rock wall. After food, snacks and exploring we just relaxed over the rocks and stay there for like an hour or two, talking and thinking. Our objective was to make as many pictures as we could, but I also recorded a lot of video. The time passed fast while we were there, and we had to go back before sunset. When that moment came, we felt weird in our faces, like if we had dirt all over, but it was the sunburn that we didn't felt before because of the cold temperature.
We started our way back as we came, taking a lot of pictures. Before taking the walk seriously we took a series of photographs and then started going away, calculating to be in the town of Galipan at an hour were there still transport to the coastline, where we came from.
I think that the best pictures of the trip were taken just before we started coming back. Once again, the dog started following us, and this time was really weird because he await for us every instant we stopped to take pictures.
I have to make a picture gallery to be able to show you all the pictures, because I want you to see more of what we did. I think there are like 400 pictures for this trip, it was crazy. Check out by click:
I think this is my best photo.
They were happy.
Saying good bye to the mountain.
After realizing how toasted by the sun we were.
Under the most prominent rock.
The crew.
Ruby taking pictures.
Confusing perspective.
Ok! Finally we started walking back. We were sad because it was little time at the place, but it wasn't planned, so we didn't knew it was going to be this great. Promises of coming back that remains unfulfilled to this date. You can feel weird, amazed, confuse in this place, I think there is some power spot that irradiates energy to every living being nearby and something to think is that I kind of skeptical about those subjects. It's something you can feel, is a contact, not something that's on your mind.
When we were walking the fog began to came down a little, I was afraid that some rain hit us during the return, so we started going fast. There were places where a rain could make us fall because of the mud and the slope terrain. I recorded just video at this time until we arrive nearby the exit of the trail. Next I'm leaving another image gallery, take a look:
When we were coming.
Insect on a flower.
The Guardian Dog.
Some hostal of Galipan.
The Happy Jump.
On the rock.
Returning to Galipan.
Escorted by the guardian.
)
Back to the road and out of the dirt trail again, we kept our mission of taking as many pictures as we can. We were tired because the fast walk wasn't in the menu either, so we bought some supplies, water and fruits to move up to the truck stop, where they do the transport up to the Humbolt Hotel at the top of the mountain and down to the coastline.
The trail was longer on the way back, but maybe it was our fatigue playing with us. Plus from the entrance of the trail to the town of Galipan you have to add some 25 minutes of more walking, but on the road this time. It's recommended to go there in a planified trip, with mountain shoes or boots, water, food, snacks, sun block and sweater. There are many hostals with transport service and food. Lately I heard that the place has been invaded by delinquents, go as a group and take special view to the surroundings to take a look of who is watching you, following you when entering the trail. Maybe those were isolated events, but we never know. This has been a touristic site for decades and the people from the town protect the tourist because they are their source of income. What I think is that people from the coastline saw this lonely place and come up to ruin people's days by stealing their stuff and go down again. I heard about this once, but I don't know what's the reality of the place right now. Now I'm leaving the last image gallery:
The last slope.
Climbing.
She looks like Kenny from South Park.
And then she looked arabic.
The second best pic of the day.
The Sunflower.
Jeniffer with the Sunflower.
My favorite portrait.
After we kicked that road again, took the transport down to the coastline to go back to our regular life. Said good bye to Jeniffer and Ruby and I went to our house, were our son was waiting for us. With this last image gallery I'm ending this long post, for the good health of you all. But take a few last minutes to see what I love most of this beautiful day, the video I made where there is everything. I hope you enjoyed this trip as much as we did, it was a great experience. Take a look to it at maximum resolution as you can:
