Getting to know the best of Venezuela: Altamira de Cáceres

Hi Steemians. The last time, I showed you a beautiful place of Venezuela called Calderas. Today, I am sharing with you the second part of the trip, a town located 30 minutes approximately from Calderas called Altamira de Caceres in Barinas State. This village was the first one founded in Barinas (1577), and conserves a lot the architecture of that period. Very few people know about this place, and that makes it even more attractive. This town seems removed from a postcard. It has a central Bolivar square, surrounded by colorful houses with tile roofs, good, quiet and friendly people, and a perfect temperature product of its location at 900 m above sea level. The mountainous landscapes that surround the town are exceptional, and there are a lot of waterfalls, wells and rivers that pour their waters into the mighty Santo Domingo River. The Church is small and simple, but gorgeous.

The virgin nature invites you to explore it. So, we contacted the people of "Grados" who specializes in adventure tourism, including canyoning. I had never heard of that before, so I did my online research and informed my family to get ready because we were going to do it ! They already know that they have no choice, and they have to accompany me in all my craziness. They always joke about the next adventure that I can think of, and that they will have to undergo. They fear, for example, that one day I could ask them to fly from the top of any mountain with a wing suit (wing suit flying). I believe they exaggerate. Anyway, I read about canyoning, and chose this way to explore the area, because we have already done rafting on 2 occasions. The experience was extremely fun and beautiful. We stayed in the camp "Grados". To reach the camp you have to go down millions of stairs, many of them just natural steps, which is very fun except the day you arrive and the one you leave with your bags. It is attended by Gregorio Montilla and his family who take care of you in the inn, and take charge of everything concerning the canyoning. We decided to do it the second day. After a journey on foot from the village, and then on a path of low level of difficulty, we arrived to the first waterfall. There, they gave us a basic training in rappel, and guess who was the first to go… It was very exciting as to the rappelling adventure is added the descent over the waterfall, and the eventual fall into the well. We did everything without any difficulty and continue the descent. Sometimes, it was necessary to throw ourselves without harness, in free fall to the well. That feeling of emptiness has always attracted me. The final dip in the well and the triumphant rise from its depths is priceless. So, we went from waterfall to waterfall until we were exhausted but extremely happy.

We could not take pictures during the canyoning, because the whole family was involved in the adventure. I will show you a picture of one of the waterfalls where we did the canyoning taken from the web

The last day we did a day trip to the waterfall El Silencio (The Silence). After a walk of approximately 45 minutes we arrived at this marvel

Here ends our experience in Altamira de Cáceres y Calderas, a little explored and charming area in the Venezuelan Andean piedmont. When my country regains freedom, I invite you not to miss any of these places.