El Ávila National Park

As I told you in my introduce yourself, I'm from Caracas, Venezuela. Therefore I'm able to enjoy an enormous treasure earth has given to our land, one that is irreplaceable, inimitable, perfect and unique, it is el Ávila National Park.

According to Wikipedia:

The El Ávila National Park (or Waraira Repano, from an indigenous name for the area) is located along the central section of the Cordillera de la Costa mountain system, in the Cordillera de la Costa Central mountain range. The area's highest elevation is Pico Naiguatá, at 2,765 meters (9,072 ft) above sea level.

Although there was indeed an imperious necessity in declaring it a national park that goes back to XIX century, it was only until 1958 that it was catalogued as such. Due to it becoming a National Park it was possible to protect the wooded areas around its perimeter, thus working as an ruling agent for the environment contamination as well as providing the population with a safe and also recreational space to hang out in.

The Ávila has always been an important reference for the inhabitants either of Caracas, the neighbouring cities, or the whole country itself. It can be used for plenty of activities which include hiking, camping, exercising, disconnecting among others. Nevertheless, quite a couple of them could be harmful to the park indeed, such as camping; in several occasions, campfires not done properly had led to wildfires. Or reckless campists that throw trash or lit up cigarettes to the vegetation cause a lot of damage to our park all year-round.

BeFunky Collage.jpg
source

In 1956 a hotel and a cable car were built to climb to the Avila peak (which seats at 2.135 m.a.s.l.) and to descend to Macuto, a city in the Caribbean Sea. The cable car has been inaugurated once again after being 20 years out of service due to a big amount of people using it without proper maintenance. Here is a cool video of the fifties when it first provided service to our citizens.

Humboldt's Hotel presents itself as an icon of modern Venezuelan architecture, and an iconic symbol of Caracas. The 14 floor's building sits in a gigantic park (78,000 acres) and looks like a lot like a lighthouse, open to a great view. It's privileged placement, 2.100 meter above sea level at the top of the hill, offers an astonishing 360° view to the coast and to the interior of the valle of Caracas too.

This magnificent work represents the effort done by its architect, Tomás José Sanabria, to generate and integral architecture that merges the relationship between architecture, nature and city.

Nevertheless, this magnificent building has not withstand the ravages of time, and is under reconstruction from a long time ago. Here you can see a bunch of images from 2013 when it was first announced that it was gonna be rebuilt. Years have gone by and it is still not finished; I went there a few weeks ago and met an engineer who works there, and he told me it's still to be finished, promising me it'd be ready for late 2019 at the most.

BeFunky Collageasd.jpg
Photos of my authorship taken from my Smartphone.

Biodiversity

The park has a great diversity of fauna and flora. It's been documented more than 100 species of butterflies, approximately 120 mammal species, 20 amphibians, 30 reptiles and about 500 bird species, which represents an amazing 36% of all bird species in Venezuela.
The vegetation is mainly wooded and is distributed according to the height. Savanna ecosystems, gallery forests, trophophilous forests, xerophytic forest, cloud forests and subparas are observed.

Photo of my authorship taken to me by a friend from my Smartphone.

Trails

As mentioned above, there are plenty of hiking trails for the adventurers like me! I've hiked a couple of them myself and that's what made me fall in love with this amazing treasure. I haven't had the pleasure to camp yet, but one day I will, and I'll come here and tell you all about it. So far, I'll just give you a couple of photos taken by me of my hiking trips, and that'll be it for this post.