A video tour of Venezuela's top tourist spots

The latest tourism campaign in Venezuela tries to widen the scope from the usual Margarita, Merida and Angel Falls combination to take in some of the other top destinations in the country.

It's a great way to get a quick overview of the country and the subtitles in English give a fairly good description of the places featured.

Venezuela at top UK adventure tourism event

Showing off the new guide with Adrian Phillips, Bradt publishing director and guidebook author, at the Bradt book stall at the Adventure Travel Live show in London.


This Sunday, 30 January, from 15:00 till 15:45, I'll be giving a talk about travelling in Venezuela at the Adventure Travel Live tourism fair at the Royal Horticultural Halls in Victoria London. 
The event brings together all the major adventure travel companies, guidebook publishers and specialist magazines for a three-day bonanza aimed at publicizing off-the-beaten track destinations, specialist wildlife destinations and once-in-a-lifetime travel experiences.
This is a great opportunity for me to promote Venezuela as a travel destination, especially Los Llanos, Catatumbo, Angel Falls, Mount Roraima, Los Roques and cool places like Choroni.
It's also the perfect venue to talk about my new book - The Bradt Guide to Venezuela.
Here's the description of the talk from the Adventure Travel Live website:

Venezuela: Wildlife Wonderland - Russell Maddicks

One of the 17 most megadiverse countries in the world, Venezuela, perched at the top of South America, is hot, tropical and home to Caribbean beaches, dense rainforests, high Andean valleys, mysterious table-top tepui mountains, and seasonally-flooded plains that are literally teeming with birds, beasts and creepy-crawlies. 

From the anacondas, capybaras and crocodiles of Los Llanos, to the jaguars, monkeys and tarantulas of the jungle, a well-planned trip to this fascinating country can reap rich rewards for wildlife watchers. In this talk, Russell Maddicks, who has been adventuring in Venezuela for more than 20 years, will highlight the main wildlife areas to visit and what you can expect to see. He will also give practical tips on how to minimize your impact on these fragile environments, travel responsibly, and give something back to the local communities you stay with.

Special advance price:
Adults: £6. Under 16s free.Order online at adventuretravellive.com or call 0871 230 7159 and quote “PV4”.

On door price:
Adults: £10. Under 16s free.

Show opening times:
Friday 28 January 6pm to 9pm
Saturday 29 January 10am to 6pm
Sunday 30 January 10am to 5pm

Los Llanos, Roraima and Choroni in The Guardian

Four of Venezuela's hottest travel destinations - Los Llanos, Roraima, Angel Falls and Choroni/Puerto Colombia - made a welcome appearance in the UK press on Saturday, featuring in a travel piece by Grainne Mooney in the Guardian.

The author was blown away by the sheer abundance of wildlife at Hato Cedral in Los LLanos, although she doesn't mention the excellent evening entertainment, when the ranch hands tie up their horses for the night, pull out the harp and maracas and treat guests to the authentic sounds of Venezuela's cowboy country.

She also experienced the full arctic freeze of the air-conditioning on a Venezuelan coach, during a 24-hour trip from the Llanos to Santa Elena from where she trekked to the top of Roraima and marveled at the hopless frogs, carnivorous plants and weird rock formations on the plateau.

If I have a quibble it's that the article isn't entirely accurate about the name change for the world's highest waterfall, Angel Falls or Salto Angel in Spanish, which is currently named after US bush pilot Jimmie Angel.

President Chavez has suggested that the indigenous Pemon name for the falls, Kerepakupai-Meru, should replace Salto Angel, but for now it's still only a suggestion.

Additionally, I would advise anybody spending a few days in Choroni/Puerto Colombia to take a boat ride to the cacao plantation of Chuao and to trek up into the could forest of the Henri Pittier National Park, one of the best birding sites in Venezuela.

To read the Guardian article in full click here: The lost world of Venezuela

Make Angel Falls one of the 7 Wonders of Nature

Newsflash! The results are in and Angel Falls is one of the 28 finalists vying to become one of the New Seven Wonders of Nature. Read about it here:

After the success of the 7 New Wonders of the World campaign in 2007, the organizers have now launched a similar internet search for the Seven Wonders of Nature and Venezuela's Angel Falls could be one of them - if enough people vote for it.

Back in 2007 more than 100 million people from all over the world cast votes for hundreds of architechural gems.

The final seven Wonders of the World were Machu Picchu in Peru, the Pyramid of Chichen Itza in Mexico, Christ the Redeemer in Rio, Brazil, the Colosseum, in Rome, Italy, the Great Wall of China, the ancient city of Petra in Jordan, and the Taj Mahal in India.

This time it's all about natural treasures and, apart from Angel Falls, Venezuela has seven other candidates, including the Los Roques Archipelago, Auyantepui Mountain, Mount Roraima, Pico Bolivar, Sarisarinama Mountain, the Guacharo Cave, the Gran Sabana and Canaima National Park.

The voting system is simple, you just have to visit this page and introduce your email and a few details that they promise will not be used for any purposes apart from the voting.

Basically, every vote counts, so please get in there and give the Venezuelan candidates some votes.

Angel Falls, the highest waterfall in the world, has a good chance of making it into the final 21 if we all mobilize our friends and families to make their votes count.

On 29 September, Angel Falls was 29th on the the live ranking list of the 77 top candidates, with Asia dominating all the spots in the top 10. That's a pretty cool result, considering that Mount Everest is at number 12.

And there's a long way still to go.

Voting for the nominees will continue through to 31 December 2008, when the candidates will be whittled down to one per country, with only the top candidate from each country being allowed to proceed.

Then on 7 July, 2009 the New7Wonders of Nature panel led by Professor Federico Mayor, former Director-General of UNESCO, will review the top 77 nominees and choose 28 finalists, to be announced on 21 July 2009.

Those 28 finalists will then be put to the popular vote.

But before that it's important that the Venezuelan entries get official support. Angel Falls has support from a sponsoring body in Venezuela but it has not been officially recognized yet.

Meanwhile, Iguazu Falls has the full backing of Brazil and Argentina.

Rather ominously, a note on the new7Wonders website for Angel Falls says that unless the issue of sponsorship is resolved Angel Falls "will be eliminated from the finalist section".

But don't despair. Get voting. And lets get all the Venezuelan entries high on that top 77 list, where they deserve to be.

By Russell Maddicks

Report on Jimmie Angel and the "Discovery" of Angel Falls

Video clip of Angel Falls from David Attenborough's BBC series "Planet Earth"

Spectacular video clip of oldest base Jumper to leap from the top of Angel Falls

Travel article: Cueva del Guacharo - Oilbirds and Elephant Ears