#8: [19-Jul-11]

#7: [18-Apr-10]

#5: [22-Jul-07]

#4: [26-Oct-06]

#2: [08-Apr-04]

#6: [12-Sep-09] (incomplete)

#1: [09-Mar-04] (incomplete)

06-Aug-2006 --

On Sunday 6 of august we planned a nice day of hiking up to the cerro Santa Ana and afterwards go on confluence-point hunting for 12N70W also on the Paraguana peninsula.
We left from Coro in the ealy morning ( 7h00 ) and arrived at the top of Santa Anna around 11h00.

The Cerro Santa Ana, located at the Paraguana Peninsula, was declared Natural Monument on June 14th 1972.
The Cerro Santa Ana stands out by being the only elevation with 830m of height! in the Peninsula of Paraguana. Its summit has actually three peaks that extends from North to West in the following order: The Picacho (Peak) of Buena Vista, The Picacho of Santa Ana (center) and the highest: the Picacho Moruy.

INSIDE THE CERRO.

There has been identified five different types of vegetation, since the vegetation species changes depending on the altitude. The first is the Xerófita (arid dessert) Area where they prevail the cujíes, cardones, student minstrels and crops and also other species like the bush of hoop, and the lily of mount. The second denominated Tropofitica Area includes higher trees like the tabacon de falda, and the morillo. In this are the climate is less hot given the number of precipitations.

The next area is the Cloudy Forest where the trees reach a height until of 15 meters and since the concentration of humidity is more high, the floors are marshy. Up of this forest, in the Zone that according to the authors: Tamayo, Lasser And Aristiguieta denominate of Antillean Heath, the vegetation is smaller plants and bushes, similar to the Andean heath.

At the top, the area is call of dwarf vegetation because prevail small plants like ferns, the clusia, and the corta-corta ( a plant of shaft and sharp leaves).

FAUNA

The Fauna that lived in each area is also varied. The birds that live in the cloudy forest : the guacharaca, paraulata montañera, siriri, curtío of the Tocuyo and the tile verdeviche, by naming some, live exclusively in this area. They are not found side of the Península. As for Mammals refer exist rodents: like the mouse mochilero, the casiragua, and the rat "arboricala", but it have been also identified marsupials. At the highest part have been identified bats of long muzzle and in its lowest part there are also rabbits of mount.

GOING TO THE TOP

There are two routes in order to go to the summit. One of them is by Moruy, where it is a path until the highest peak the Picacho of Moruy. It is possible to go to the summit , but INPARQUES has restricted the traffic until "LA PLANICIE" (550mt) in order of preventing the destruction and conserve the natural habitat. The other is for Santa Ana, here the road is interrupted and for recommendations of INPARQUES you could only go until the area known as " LA HIERBITRA" (550mt). Please Contact INPARQUES in order to verify and update the information presented here.

after a short break in the nearby village we went on “point-hunting”. We put our hiking shoes back on and parked the car near to a fence at about 180 m distance of the CP. The shortest ditance was through some plot of land but the owner didn’t give us the permission to cross so we made a small detour around and finaly arrived at an open area were the point should be located. We crossed the open area and arrived at a double fence were we found the point and made a small victory dance. We really enjoyed this quest, it's a good alternative to see new places and meet new and local people. It was a nice exercise for a greater mission we our planning: “ the visit of a not yet discovered CP 10N70W".

Many greetings and kisses from Tessa, Christian and Christoph ( daniella stayed at home with a foot injury, to bad would have been great if she could have come too )