A hike to Quebrada Quintero at El Avila

Hello, Hivers and Wednesday walkers!

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, last Sunday I hiked in El Avila for the first time in about fifteen years. We chose an undemanding route to climb, and although I am far from having reached the top of the hill as my friend @tengolotodo suggested a couple of days ago, it was nice to get back on the trails of El Avila and left me wanting more.

El Avila, for those who are not familiar with the place, is the mountain range that surrounds Caracas on the north side of the valley in which the city is located.

The area is a National Park, and although a few years ago a presidential decree changed its name to Waraira Repano, for the inhabitants of the city is El Avila, and that will not change.

The hike I did with a friend was to a place called Quebrada Quintero.

To walk this trail we went to the entrance of the national park in the Altamira neighborhood by the Sabas Nieves park ranger post.

From there, you can go up to the second ranger station of Sabas Nieves by a fairly steep climb that takes between 45 minutes and an hour, depending on how trained you are, or you can climb as we did to Quebrada Quintero by a much less demanding trail.

Being Sunday, there were already a lot of people climbing when we got there.

One of the advantages of this route is that much of it is very wooded. So even on hot days, it is very easy to walk.

Also, thanks to the rains everything is very green and the mountain streams have water so everything feels very fresh.

Of course, the fact that it is raining so much these days is not all advantage because you can get some fallen trees on the road like this one.

There are some steep sections but the truth is that there are not too many.

In this route there is no viewpoint as such, but from some points you can see nice views of the city.

After about 25 minutes, a few narrow stretches of uphill and downhill, you start to hear the water of the waterfall.

Until finally you can see through the dense vegetation the stream of water falling from the mountain.

As I told you it was Sunday morning and the place was crowded and that was about 9:30 in the morning. I guess that throughout the day there would be even more affluence.

This was my best attempt to get close to the waterfall and take a picture where the people were not visible.

We opted to go down the ravine instead of approaching the cascade because there were too many people and because of the place you have to walk between the stones that were wet and slippery and with so many people we didn't want to trip and fall into the water.

The water here is clean and crystal clear. So we sat on one of the rocks and talked for a while.

And, of course, we did it with our feet in the icy water of the mountain, which left us revitalized.

After a while, as people were still arriving, we decided it was time to leave.

More views of the city on the way back.

I took this pic of wildflowers along the way and thought of #alwaysaflower. I was trying to take a pic of a beautiful black and transparent butterfly that was perched on it, but just when I was taking it, a girl passed by, and the butterfly flew away.

A sign telling you to avoid taking shortcuts. In this trail there is no loss, but in El Avila there are hundreds of trails and it is not difficult to get lost in the mountains. It is a good advice to follow the indications and for long routes go with an experienced guide.

This huge rock on the trail is impressive. When I saw it I could not help but remember what happened in 1999 when a series of landslides due to heavy rains on the mountain side facing the sea destroyed villages and thousands of people disappeared. Nature is precious but it must be respected, many of these villages and houses had been built in the beds of rivers and streams.

More of the very wooded trail.

Do you remember the fallen tree I mentioned at the beginning? Look how impressive are these roots near that site, totally uncovered. I would not want to go through this trail during a torrential downpour.

We are approaching the end of the route.

This small wooden building was once a juice and smoothie shop, but it was closed. However, there were other places selling food such as ice cream and smoothies, and all of them had lots of people.

It was a nice morning. I want to come back during the week with fewer people to enjoy the environment much more. And my intention is also to continue training to go to other routes.

This is my post for this week's #wednesdaywalk challenge hosted by @tattoodjay in collaboration with #makemesmile hosted by @elizacheng.

Thank you for reading.

_{All images and writing are my own unless otherwise stated.
Lead image edited with Canva}

© CoquiCoin

August 16, 2023

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