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Along the Coffee Route, you can also visit towns of lower elevations with warm temperatures and dry weather. One of the most well known is: San Juan de Lagunillas, which has a botanical research experimental center, a part of The University of Los Andes (U.L.A). Connected by highway and mountain road to Lagunillas, is the: Urao Lagoon. This lagoon use to be a sacrificial lake, where in ancient times, the Indians would offer different animals to please their gods. If you visit the Estanquez area you can see the beautiful altar made of wood at the “La Urbina Chapel”. Santa Cruz de Mora is a small village with one of the largest coffee plantations to be found in the State of Merida. Visitors are always welcome, and you’ll find the experience tasty, and well worth while. Nearby, is the City of Tovar, 45 miles from Merida. Here, the area is known for the many different artisans who create craft items from wood, including musical instruments. One of the most visited towns on this route is Bailadores, a beautiful village founded on 1628, that now is surrounded by important strawberry and veggie plantations. Here you’ll have the opportunity to visit natural scenes like “Las Tapias” valley, the Old Mill-200 hundred years old,and still working, the Hot Springs of Las Tapias, and the beautiful Park of the Caru Indian, where you will be able to see the impressive waterfalls. In Bailadores, the Belandria House, where our national hero, Bolivar spent the night when he passed through, during the Admirable Campaign, is open to the public.
About an hour from Mérida, on a fine winding mountain road, with beautiful vistas, farms and small pueblos is a special place. It’s called the coffee museum, and for those who love the brew, it offers the history; complete with actual machinery used in the washing, grading and roasting of coffee. The museum has been built on the grounds of an old coffee plantation complete with a large center court yard paved in natural stone. This area is surrounded by the displays, antique pictures, tools, machinery and history of production of coffee in Venezuela. This is a first class facility and worthy of a visit. A guide can assist you. Admission: about $1 for adults. note: it's also a perfect facility for a coffee lovers convention! Check with CORMETUR. |
This route
goes from The City of Merida to the south, and passes by many interesting places.
It’s called the Coffee Route, because this area is famous for
beautiful coffee plantations which produce the fine aromatic bean which Venezuela
coffee drinkers prefer. You’ll also see towns like Ejido, which adjoins
Merida, Pozo Hondo and Los Guaimaros, where you can see and experience the creation
of wonderful handicrafts. If you travel this route, you will see (and smell) the
sugar-cane plantations, some with steam billowing sugar mills. 
THE COFFEE MUSEUM