Venezuela

Spreading over 352,000 square miles, Venezuela's majestic and varied landscape serves as the gateway to South America. Eleven miles from the coast, midway between Venezuela's eastern and western borders, lies the capital, Caracas: a captivating and modern city,whose hectic life-style also offers space and time for relaxation. Caracas is located in a ten mile long valley, three thousand feet high, cradled by mountains up to 9,000 feet. Venezuela has many facets, a bit of everything for everyone all year round and Caracas is but the introduction to Venezuela's many attractions.

The Venezuelan islands, for example, form a veritable pearl necklace in the Caribbean Sea. The Andes range, with peaks topping 16,000 feet, delight the eye with their serene beauty, and one of the most impressive, Pico Espejo, can be reached by riding the world's highest cable-car. And nestling among the slopes of these high mountains lies a myriad of small towns and villages. Eastern Venezuela with its luminous atmosphere and the endless blue of its horizon, constitutes one of the tourist attractions with beaches and islets where visitors can surf, water ski, fish.

South of the country's main waterway, the Orinoco River, lies the Venezuelan jungle, a virgin and untamed land, marked by swift-running rivers that traverse formidable cascades such as Angel Falls, highest in the world at 3,212 feet. Great tablelands tower above the rolling plains of the Gran Sabana and are another of Venezuela's unforgettable natural wonders. Away from the wide horizons of the jungle, Venezuela's central-western plains, called the "Llanos", are yet another expression of nature's infinite beauty. The endless plains stretch out on all sides as far as the eye can see, interrupted here and there by streams and ponds, where colorful herons and ibises flock and take off in thrilling flight. A land the plainsman gallops on horseback, herding his cattle, where rivers overflow with the rains and where music fills the air at dusk.