Merida Cable Car to Re-Open Mid-2014 as Mukumbari

This short but enlightening film, "En lo Mas Alto", shows exactly the working conditions I encountered on my trip on the cable car at the end of October as part of the FITVen2013 press trip with the Tourism Ministry (MinTur). 

It used to be known simply as the teleferico (cable car) but in mid-2014 when work finishes in the Andean city of Merida on a huge project to completely rebuild the longest and highest cable car in the world, the teleferico will be known as Mukumbari.

This is a major moment for the people of Merida who relied on the cable car to attract tourists to the so-called  Ciudad de los Caballeros (City of Gentleman) ever since the first cable car system opened to the public in 1960.

Back in the 1950s it took some 25 European companies three years to put together the towers, winches and wires that took cable cars from Barinitas in Merida (at 1,640 metres above sea level) to the stations at La Montaña (2,436 metres), La Aguada (3,452 metres), Loma Redonda (4,045 metres), and finally Pico Espejo (4,765 metres).

This time, the work is being undertaken by the Austrian firm Doppelmayr in conjunction with the Venezuelan government and the project is much more ambitious, not just replacing the old infrastructure but creating a completely new cable car system with completely new installations that will offer greater access to the mountain and allow wheelchair access.

The work has not been easy, and the dismantling of large concrete buildings at such a high altitude while respecting environmental concerns has proved difficult, It also represents a physical challenge to the more than 500 local men and women who have been toiling away on the project over the last few years, sometimes in severe weather conditions that include high winds, freezing mist and snow.

The video shows the conditions the workers have had to endure better than I can ever describe them, as well as the investment that local people have made in the success of this project.

For the local guides, known as baquianos, who take travelers on horses and mules from the Loma Redonda station on the four-hour trip through classic paramo vegetation to the picturesque mountain town of Los Venados, the reopening of the cable car cannot come soon enough.

As one of the Austrian supervisors told me when I traveled to Pico Espejo "this is the highest and longest cable car in the world, by it's very nature it's a challenge to achieve this but we have the cables in place, you can travel to the top now, and we just have to finish the buildings. It will be ready in June 2014, trust me".

Riding with the workers in an open-sided car that left nobody in any doubt that we were suspended on a wire with a huge drop below us, I was able to corroborate that the cables do indeed take cars all the way to the top.

 I also had the privilege of traveling down the final stretch in one of the shiny new cable cars, decked out in the colors of the Venezuelan flag and with ample viewing room. The new cars can carry 60 passengers compared to the old cars that carried 40. Once fully functioning the system will be able to take 500,000 passengers a year to the top, explained Jose Gregorio Martinez, the head of the Merida Cablecar System.

That's why Mukumbari is such a fitting name for the rebirth of Merida's greatest tourist attraction. An indigenous name for Pico Bolivar, the highest peak in Venezuela, Mukumbari means "place where the sun is born".

FITVen2013 - Talking Tourism in Venezuela

After writing a tour guide and book about living in Venezuela it was good to spend time talking tourism at Venezuela's International Tourism Fair, FITVen 2013. I even got interviewed a few times by the local media. 

Venezuela is so blessed with natural treasures that it's hard to understand sometimes why more people aren't visiting the country. Where else can you find the world's highest waterfall, Angel Falls, which cascades down from a heart-shaped mountain in a jungle setting that is so lush and wild and untouched by man that it looks like it comes straight out of the movie Avatar? Where else can you sit on the porch of a stilt house surrounded by water and watch the night sky lit up by fiery arcs of electric lightning like you can in Catatumbo? 

With more Caribbean coast than any other country, Venezuela has more than its fair share of beautiful, unspoiled beaches, islands, mountains, lakes, waterfalls, and tropical rainforest.  

The seasonally flooded Llanos, or great plains, are so teeming with anacondas, capybaras, caymans and piranhas that getting up close to the wildlife is as easy as opening the door of your lodge and stepping outside. For birdwatchers' the ranches of Los LLanos are the best kind of paradise. 

Sure there are issues that affect tourism, some of them political, some social, some economic, and others that come down to how much marketing you do in what is a very competitive battle for the tourist dollar, but the raw material, the natural attractions, are all in place.  

And so when I was invited by the Venezuelan Tourism MInistry (MinTur) to attend FITVEN 2013, Venezuela's International Tourism Fair, I jumped at the chance to visit Venezuela again and to talk tourism with people in the industry. 

This year the even was held from 24-27 October in the Andean city of Merida, at the Cinco Aguilas Blancas Complex.

Merida is a great place to start any tour of Venezuela and an extreme sports and hiking destination that is worth a few days at least to explore.

It was good to hear Tourism Minister Andres Izarra began his inaugural speech  by emphasizing the importance of tourism to the Venezuelan economy.

After oil and the agro-industry, tourism comes in third place, he said, pledging greater resources for tourism promotion and a boost to tour operators and hotels with a scheme offering access to cheaper credit lines.

Minister Izarra was open enough with the international journalists to acknowledge that crime and insecurity and distortions to the economy created by the black market for dollars were problems that have to be overcome for Venezuela to become more attractive to foreign tourists.

The minister also acknowledged that in recent years investment in tourism had been low, but said that a new plan is being developed to increase promotion and boost tourist numbers. This Plan Maestro (Master Plan), includes the development of Margarita as a central tourist hub, with more incoming flights and greater links with mainland destinations like Angel Falls, Merida and Barinas.

Other plans include the long-awaited termination in mid-2014 of the fully revamped cablecar in Merida, known locally as the teleferico. 

World-renowned for being the longest and highest cablecar system  in the world, the teleferico was always a key tourism magnet for the Andean city and Minister Izarra said that tourism had fallen from a million annual visitors to about 500,000 since it ceased to function in 2008.

The new system is being built by the Austrian firm Doppelmayr and is nearly 80% completed. When it is finished it will be able to transport 500,000 tourists a year to Pico Espejo (4,765 metres, 15,633 ft) at the foot of Venezuela's highest mountain Pico Bolivar (4,978 metres, 16,332 ft).

Luckily, as part of the trip to FitVen2013 I was allowed to travel up to the cablecar station at Pico Espejo with the other invited journalists, and it was amazing to ride with the workers in their open-sided cars and see them engaged in the backbreaking work of dismantling the old concrete infrastructure at such a high altitude.

More than one of the workers had the telltale stains on the teeth of the strong local chewing tobacco, called chimo, that has been used since ancient times in the Venezuelan Andes to keep out the cold and stave off hunger and exhaustion.

It was reassuring to see that the cable system is all in place and operational, leaving the construction of the concrete stations as the last major infrastructure task facing the workers.

Another plan announced by the minister is the completion of the cablecar system on the Caribbean side of the Avila mountain in Caracas, which would allow passengers to travel from Caracas up to the Humboldt Hotel (at 2,140 metres above sea level) and then down to the beaches of Macuto. The Caracas-Macuto journey time - on a day with no lines to wait in - is estimated at 45 minutes. 

The cablecar is expected to be operational by 2015, and in the meantime the government is planning to reopen key hotels, such as the former Melia Caribe, and Macuto Sheraton. 

This is the 8th edition of Venezuela's annual FitVen tourism fair, and it attracted large crowds to the three pavilions. One showcased tourism in Venezuela and the different regions and states were represented; another focused on International Destinations with stands from Germany, Ecuador, Spain, Bolivia, Brazil, China, Colombia, France, Japan and Russia; a third was for tour operators to hold business meetings and there was another area where food and handicrafts from Venezuela were on sale to visitors. 

It was certainly busy, final figures on the last day showed some 58,000 people passed through the doors of the Cinco Aguilas Blancas Complex. 

Having traveled so extensively in Venezuela to many places that my Venezuelan friends at the time considered to be no more than "monte and culebra" (scrubland and snakes), it was refreshing to see so many young Venezuelans eager to learn more about the tourism alternatives in their own country.

For more information about visit the official FitVen2013 website here:

FitVen2009 showcases Venezuela´s natural treasures

Caracas: Venezuelan Tourism Minister Pedro Morejon pledged a greater emphasis on promoting national and international tourism at the opening of the annual International Tourism Fair (FitVen 2009) in Caracas on 1 October.

The aim of the event, which was organized by the Ministry of Tourism (MINTUR), was to showcase Venezuela's most popular tourist attractions, including Angel Falls, the highest waterfall in the world, the crystalline waters and unspoilt beaches of Los Roques and the tranquil Andean mountain villages of Merida State.

This year, the tourism fair was held from 1 to 4 October in the spectacular setting of the Hotel Humboldt (2,105 metres above sea level), on the top of the Avila mountain, overlooking the Caracas valley on one side and the Caribbean sea on the other.

Visitors were able to wander among the colourful stands representing the different states of Venezuela at the installations of the Waraira-Repano cable car station, which houses an artificial ice-skating rink and a newly-inaugurated convention centre.

In total some 600 tour operators and airlines took part in the event and countries such as Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Mexico, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Japan had stands promoting their own tourist treasures.

The tourism minister made several important announcements at the opening of the fair, saying that the Venezuelan government is "running over 140 projects for the construction of hotels, guesthouses and tourist services."

He also said that the difficult problem of crime and insecurity will be tackled in part by a new tourist police, which is being set up within the framework of the National Police.

The Tourism Ministry also plans to refurbish the iconic Humboldt Hotel (see below), an architectural jewel built in 1955 that looks like the set of a James Bond movie with its sixties furnishings. Sadly, it hasn't operated as a hotel since the 1970s.

The project would see a complete overhaul of the defunct cable-car link to Macuto on the Caribbean side of the Avila, which would allow visitors from Caracas to reach the beaches there via the mountain.

Getting to the fair was an adventure in itself as all the visitors, exhibitors, performers and reporters who attended the four-day event arrived in one of the 70 new cable cars, which take no more than 18 minutes to travel the 3.5 kilometres from the base of the mountain in Mariperez, Caracas, to the Waraira-Repano station on the Avila.

Inaugurated in September 1955 by then Venezuelan president General Marcos Perez Jimenez, the cable car system fell into disuse in the 1970s and had to be completely overhauled in 2000 by a private concession called Avila Magica.

In 2008 the cable car system and the installations on the mountain returned to the state and are now run by the government tour operator Venetur.