Venezuela: Tepuis, Llanos and the Andes
Advisory — travel not recommended · checked 5 Aug 2026
Venezuela
Several foreign ministries advise against non-essential travel to Venezuela (supply constraints, security risks, limited consular assistance). Verify current advisories before planning.
Official advisory →Read the advisory first: several foreign ministries advise against non-essential travel to Venezuela, and consular help is limited. The country behind that warning holds the highest waterfall on earth, table mountains older than the Atlantic, and wildlife density in the Llanos that rivals East Africa. This is the route for when it is sensible to go.
Caracas
Arrive, and plan to leave quickly. Caracas sits in a valley under the Ávila with a cable car to the ridge and one of the highest crime rates in the hemisphere below it. Move between arranged points, keep nothing visible, and treat the first day as logistics: cash, a domestic flight confirmed, a local operator reachable.
The Ávila
The Warairarepano cable car climbs to 2,140 m (7,020 ft) and the city noise stops halfway up. From the ridge you see the Caribbean on one side and the whole valley on the other. It is the one relaxed half-day in the capital.
Into Canaima
A light aircraft south over the Gran Sabana to Canaima, a village on a lagoon fed by four waterfalls with no road connection to the rest of the country. The tepuis start appearing through the window an hour out — flat-topped sandstone islands, some of the oldest exposed rock on earth at around two billion years.
Up the Carrao and the Churún
A full day in a motorised curiara upriver, over rapids, with a walk through forest at the end. The trip only runs when the rivers are high enough, roughly June to December. The camp under Auyán-tepui is hammocks, and the night noise is the point.
Angel Falls
Salto Ángel drops 979 m (3,212 ft) off the side of Auyán-tepui, the tallest uninterrupted waterfall in the world, and most of the water turns to mist before it lands. The Pemon call it Kerepakupai Merú. An hour's climb reaches the Mirador Laime; the swim in the pool below is cold and short and worth it.
Canaima lagoon
Back downriver to the lagoon, where you can walk behind the curtain of Salto El Sapo — literally behind it, on a ledge, with the entire river coming down a metre from your shoulder. Pink-tinged sand from the tannins in the water. Evening flight or an extra night.
The Gran Sabana
Fly to Ciudad Bolívar and drive south on Route 10, which crosses savanna at 1,000 m (3,300 ft) with tepuis standing on the horizon in every direction. Quebrada de Jaspe runs over a bed of solid red jasper. This is Pemon land and visits go through their communities.
Roraima from below
The tepui that gave Conan Doyle The Lost World rises 2,810 m (9,220 ft) at the point where three countries meet. The full ascent is a six-day trek from Paraitepui with a mandatory Pemon guide; this route stops at the viewpoints along the road, which is the honest option in twelve days.
North to the Llanos
A long transfer to the flooded plains of Apure — flat, seasonal grassland that is under water half the year and cracked earth the other half. Hatos, the working cattle ranches, are where you stay, and several of them have run conservation programmes for decades.
Llanos wildlife
Dawn and dusk drives through water: capybara in the hundreds, spectacled caiman, scarlet ibis, jabiru storks, giant anteater if you are lucky and anaconda if you are luckier. In the dry season the animals concentrate around the remaining pools and the density is extraordinary.
Into the Andes
West and then up, to Mérida at 1,600 m (5,250 ft) — a university town with páramo above it and the highest and longest cable car system in the world, climbing to Pico Espejo at 4,765 m (15,633 ft). It has spent long stretches out of service; confirm before you count on it.
The páramo
Above the treeline the frailejón grows — a silver-leaved plant that gains a centimetre a year and stores the water the Andean cities drink. The road to Los Nevados or the loop through Apartaderos and the Laguna Mucubají is the last day, and it is the quietest one on the route.
Good to know
Start with the advisory. Several foreign ministries advise against all or non-essential travel to Venezuela: violent crime, unreliable fuel and power, medical supply shortages and limited consular assistance. Travelling against that advice usually voids travel insurance. Check your own ministry the week you go — this page does not replace it.
Money is the practical headache. Years of hyperinflation mean US dollars in cash are used for almost everything, foreign cards mostly do not work, and ATMs are not a plan. Bring more clean small-denomination dollars than you think you need, and split them.
Distances here are flown, not driven. Canaima has no road, the Llanos are a day from anywhere, and Mérida is at the far western end of the country. Domestic aviation is thin and schedules move, so build slack between the legs.
Season decides the route. Angel Falls needs high water — roughly June to December — and the same rains make parts of the Llanos impassable. The Llanos are best in the dry months, when wildlife concentrates. Twelve days cannot have both at their peak; pick which one you came for.
Go through an established operator with its own vehicles and radio contact. This is not a country for improvised independent travel at present, and the people who run camps in Canaima and the Llanos have been doing it through worse.
Shorter or longer?
Canaima and Angel Falls only — fly in, three nights on the river, fly out. The single most spectacular part of the country.
Add the six-day Roraima trek from Paraitepui, and Los Roques in the Caribbean at the end for reef and empty sand.