Choroni Paradise

Choroni is an old town with a few narrow streets lined with pastel houses. Puerto Colombia, just 2 km north of Choroni is the local port full of posadas and restaurants and the base for excursions to Venezuela´s oldest national park named for its founder, Swiss botanist Henri Pittier.

The park covers an extensive area of the Cordillera de la Costa, which can be considered the continuation of the Andes system. This mountainous region can be reached from the city of Maracay. 

You ascend steeply through a narrow road with many curves and can observe its extraordinary diversity of woods, rain forest and dense cloud forest almost unspoiled ( if you don´t feel sick). This will take almost an hour and then you start descending for another hour until you reach the coast. 

There is no road connection between the different coastal towns (pueblos) because of the rocky cliffs. The only way to get from one to the other is by boat. 

The only beach we can walk to is Playa Grande.

The original shower outside the bedroom

at Casa Mori

To avoid the huge weekend crowds we arrived on Monday. We stayed in a very cosy posada recommended by a friend and then let the adventure begin…

Playa Grande

Most excursions take you either east to the beaches of Valle Seco, Chuao and Cepe or west to La Cienaga (1 hour). The problem is that we wanted to mix Chuao, famous for its cacao, situated in the east, with the most beautiful beach, La Cienega, situated in the west. With the help of the posada manager we found someone who could take us to both places. For that we had to rent a boat for ourselves. What we didn´t know is that the sea is normally rough and sometimes I was “flying”. I forgot about back problems and tendonitis because all I wanted was to have fun. Now, as I write this I feel different. (I remember my grandmother saying, in a very enthusiastic spirit: “WE ARE GOING TO THE PARTY!!!”; And after, “We aree comiiing bback froomm the party”, in a very tired mood)

In Chuao we wanted to go to the town (5 km) and see the cacao plantations. As there were no taxis or cars we took the school bus full of children and to come back we found a truck and asked for a lift, after walking half of the way.

In La Cienega we enjoyed the surrounding bay and swam near the pelicans...

Chuao:

.

La Cienega:

Choroni, April 20, 21 and 22

More Beaches in Venezuela:

Higuerote:

Playa Chirere

Playa Caracolito

Playa Caiman


The national park of Morrocoy

Los Roques national park