Hello, Hivers. Half of the weekend has already passed but I still have time to join this week's Weekend Engagement, Nature and you.
I'm a person who likes the beach. I love the sea, it fills me with positive energy. And one of my dreams is to live in a house by the sea. But if I have to choose the place where I feel more connected with nature, it would be the mountains. Maybe because I live in a city that is a valley and seeing the mountains gives me peace.
So to answer option one of this week's Weekend Engagement about the place where I have felt more connected to nature, I would say that place is Merida's Páramos in my country. Venezuela is known for its beaches and jungles but we also have beautiful mountains in the Andes.
The Páramos in the state of Merida has always made me feel how magnificent and great nature is. When I go to Merida by road and we start to climb the mountains of the Sierra Nevada National Park the feeling of reaching those mountains is joyful. And when you get to the part of the road where around you the vegetation becomes sparser and what abound are the Frailejones it seems that you are closer to the sky and that at any moment you can touch the clouds.
Frailejón is the common name of the Espeletias which are perennial shrubs that grow at more than 3000 meters of altitude in the Andean Páramos of Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador.
One of the places where you can walk and stroll among frailejones is in the Páramo of Mucubají where the lagoon of the same name is located.
The Mucubají Lagoon is one of the lagoons of glacial origin found in the state of Merida. This lagoon is the one that can be accessed easier from the road that runs through the Sierra Nevada National Park. Other lagoons in the area can be reached by hiking from Mucubají.
It's believed that the lagoon is about ten thousand years old. And its name Mucubají was given by the first indigenous settlers of the area and means "place of the big water".
My family started visiting this area when I was a teenager. My father loved these mountains. I remember hiking several times when I was younger from the Mucubaji Lagoon. There are many hiking trails in the area to visit Páramos and other lagoons such as Laguna Negra.
But it isn't necessary to go very far to take a walk among frailejones, and feel surrounded by the immensity of the mountainous landscape that most of the time has some mist.
If you like the mountains, have no problems being at a high altitude, and want to feel closer to the sky, I assure you that you will like this place and the mountains that surround it as much as I do.
If you made it this far, thank you very much for reading.
December 4, 2021
Beautiful images and words, @coquicoin! I can relate to the sense of closeness you felt with the paramo scapes. I was born in the small town of Niquitao, Trujillo, and the nature there is simply stunning. I spent my first days in a little cabin in the mountains, surrounded by haze. Every day I feel like going back and getting lost, or rather found, in that natural heaven.
My father loved the Andes and when I was a teenager he bought a small cabin with his brothers in Mucuruba. The Andean mountains are so special to me and they are full of fond memories. Now because country's situation and the shortage of fuel it's difficult to go. But I would love to come back anytime soon.
Oh sis, that is one beautiful place! The Frailejón are like succulents, or are they not? And the water on that lagoon is very serene. I could spend a day there!
Frailejones aren't succulents. They are of the family of sunflowers. And when they bloom the give beautiful yellow flowers.
Oh wow! I can imagine the mountain will be even more beautiful when they bloom!
At least where I've seen them, they don't bloom frequently. But yes when they do, the flowers are beautiful.
Glad you've seen them bloom :)
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