Overnight in Guaramacal

Hello esteemed readers of Steemit, today I bring you a new post, in which I will share my experience in Guaramacal National Park, if you want to know more about the characteristics of this park visit this link.

In the year 2016 in mid-March, a field internship was planned in one of the subjects I was studying at the time (Ecotourism), this field internship was attended by more than 32 colleagues who attended at that time to this sub-project, this visit, in order to know the park and update the data of the situation was at that time the park, also know the benefits of ecotourism and its practices.

After planning the logistics of the whole team, we proceeded to designate the food that each of them would take from Friday (day of arrival) to Sunday (day of return).

We met at the passenger terminal in the city of Guanare, Portuguese state (the spiritual capital of Venezuela) at 10 a.m., this was the time set for us to sail to our destination, but as everything in life never goes as expected, we were presented with a series of inconveniences, since the managed transport could not provide the service, and another transport was arranged to make the trip, a bus (Blue Bird) of 32 seats, once this was completed, we proceeded to accommodate the suitcases, tents and mattresses. After this we leave Guanare at 12 am, crossing part of the Portuguesa state (the Andean axis) and crossing part of the state of Trujillo, until we reach our destination, the city of Boconó, once in the city we continue to the recreation area of Guaramacal Park, moving food and luggage in Toyota vans, also in a Ford 350 we arrive at our destination at 6:30 pm.

Once we were at the park gates, we had to wait for the doors to open for our accommodation, as the park runs until 5:30 p.m., The expected time was between 20 and 40 minutes, finally when the park ranger in charge arrived, we were given a short talk about the rules and activities that we could do inside the facilities, as well as the system with which we could cook, this park gives us the facility to cook in adobe chimneys that are located in multiple points of the park taking advantage of the firewood that can be acquired in the adjacencies of the place. We settled in an area near the stream that crosses the park because we need a relatively large space due to the number of people.

A very notorious peculiarity to take into account if you decide to visit this park one day, is that it almost always rains, this time was no exception, so it is a cold weather that goes deep into the bones, more if they are like me (too cold), in addition to this characteristic of mine the altitude difference was more than 1000 meters above sea level so for someone who is used to live at an altitude of 200 meters above sea level this change is quite abrupt, However, that didn't let anything tarnish the great experience lived here, we had an odyssey because of the rain, all the things we carried had to be stored in tobito bags (plastic bags) to keep them dry and safe from the incessant humidity of Guaramacal, so it was a long sunrise of a lot of cold and careful.

At 5am we woke up, but not like any other day when our clock or cell phone alarm sounds, not this time, this time it was the sweet natural alarm clocks (birds) that made us glad to be alerted that a new day was about to begin, Once awake, the whole team was in charge of assembling the firewood to make the breakfast arepas, a ruble very used to our table, arepa with cheese and butter, accompanied by our tasty Creole coffee, that breakfast was in itself a breakfast - lunch if you have had to spend the night and go to the country you will know how difficult it is to use the time.

Giving continuity to the above ideas, after breakfast - lunch we started a walk better known as the transept method which consists of travelling a distance X taking into account the variables of the area to be characterized. It is worth mentioning that we were able to reach the altitudinal floor at 1200-1400 m.a.s.l., covering between 12 and 14 km on foot. During this uprising, we were able to observe the situation of the park due to anthropogenic pressure and the expansion of the agricultural frontiers that practice migratory agriculture. Also, above 1200 meters above sea level, we could observe how the species (Atelopus guaramacalensis) is an endemic toad of Guaramacal, this species is in danger, since it is affected by factors of the ecosystem where it lays its eggs in its reproductive stage, since due to the steep slopes factor, when floods occur in the streams, it exterminates them all without allowing them to complete their growth cycle.

As I mentioned earlier inside the park there is a body of water, which serves as a spa for tourists, my experience of bathing there was crazy if you stay in the water for more than 5 minutes, you literally felt needle-necks on your skin.