Puerto Colombia, Venezuela

From Mochima it’s a loooooong ride to Puerto Colombia. It’s about 550Km in fact, but on Northern Venezuelan highways and coastal roads that is a very long distance. The whole ride takes us nearly twelve hours!

There are some very beautiful bits on the way, but all in all it’s mostly highway, crossing through some cities along the way. We do a Southward loop to avoid entering Caracas, which is currently supposed to be the crime capital of the world. You need to watch out for potholes along the way and there’s a pretty bad section of mountain road between Santa Teresa and Charallave.

Life savers – these ladies pump tired drivers up with excellent Venezuelan coffee!

By the time we get to somewhere around Charallave I’m already tired and considering spending the night somewhere else – not a comfortable prospect. But then we encounter a bunch of sweet ladies selling coffee at the road side. We rest for a while there and their brew has what it takes to put me back in shape to continue. Thanks coffee ladies!

By the time we are heading North out of Maracay the sun is about to set. That means that we do the mountain crossing through Henry Pitter National Park, over to the coastal Puerto Colombia in the dark.

This crossing is one to write home about: it’s steep, twisty and in the dark, a pretty nerve-testing experience. However it does offer some beautiful night-time views of Maracay city. The descent on the other side is lush and green.

Puerto Colombia is a pretty little village at the sea. But there’s not much there to speak about. At least not while we’re there. The village is very quaint and colourful, and there seems to be work going on to restore more of the old colonial style houses. But the place is almost empty during this time so it’s like a ghost town. Most the food stalls which would normally be open are closed.

Much work going on restoring the colonial houses here, so it will definitely look very beautiful soon…

There’s a plaza facing the sea with some historical significance. And there are evidently a lot of boat rides available to visit other beaches and sites in the national park.

We visit one of the near-by beaches on foot. It’s beautiful. But no atmosphere here either. – Maybe that Venezuelan paranoia.

We stay in Posada Alfonso (150BF/dbl). It’s got parking and the rooms are ok.

Apparently there are many more places to visit in the national park by way of trekking and boat trips. But we opt for leaving and riding our motorbike back over the hill in the daylight. It’s a good ride!