Description
Agricultural town hidden in the side of the mountains facing to the Maracaibo Lake between Pico Águila (Eagle Peak), also called El Paso del Cóndor (Condor pass) and the town of Nueva Bolivia at the Panamerican road. Although is more or less known by the people, few tourists take the road to go there, and even fewer finally reach  this small village. However, there are some “posadas” (lodging) for travelers. 

The village is small and quite, a special place to be far from the noise and hurry of the modern world. His church (picture 2) is big enough for this town and in very good shape, is dedicated to Saint Lucia. Her interior (pict. 3) is comfortable with a touch of rustic style. The statue of Saint Lucia appears holding a palm in her left hand and her eyes in her right hand, is strange because normally is on the contrary. 

The Bolívar square (pict. 1) have the right size for this town, although the plate at the base of the statue of El Libertador says “1953”, it seems too new to have more than 50 years. It must be rebuilt few months ago. The plants of the garden have not grow enough to show its beauty (july 2007), I would like to see them in the next future, I suppose it will be a nice view, with all those flowers. It’s interesting, at least for me, to see at the Bolívar squares, in Piñango, as well in Las Pailitas, commemorative plates to the kids who finish primary school, one of them says: The Basic School Dr. Ignacio Fernández Peña first graduated group, in honor to The Liberator, Piñango, 19-07-85. 

What most liked to me was its white houses with red tile on roof and those big windows a long of narrow streets (pict. 4 and 5). Its small stores selling old fashion traditional products that remind us that the time, at this place, has a more quite rhythm!

Some history
About one kilometer from the village, there is a sign (pict. 13 in Pictures of the road…, below) that says: “El Dividive. Place of the foundation of Saint Anthony of salt by Matías Ministrone in 1619. Piñango, capital of Andean bolo”. This revelation says, first, that the place where is now the town wasn’t the original place, it was moved by a flood of Chirurí river. The matter of salt was because the conqueror Juan Maldonado in one of his expeditions in 1559, reaching this place the inhabitants, to honor him, gave to him bags of salt. I didn’t find any reference to Matías Ministrone, but his family name sounds italian. Andean bolo is a bowling-like game brought by basques in XVI century. Until 1890 it was known as Salt Town (Pueblo de La Sal), since that year it was promoted to civil parish (parroquia) with the name after  Judas Tadeo Piñango governor of Mérida in 1830 (Marco Vinicio Salas, Los Encantadores Pueblos de Mérida, Mérida 2001, p. 50).

Las Pailitas
Small agricultural village at 7 kilometers (4.4 miles) of Piñango, coming from Pico Águila, located at 2890 meters above sea level. It has a small Bolívar square, a chapel and a very good equipped school and a few houses. To mi the word “paila” sounds something like “hot”, strange name for such a cold place! (pict. 6).

Getting there
The easiest way is to follow the road from Pico Águila. The road is paved about 12 miles, then the road became into two cement pieces of road, seeming to those of a garage (see pict. 9 below). I took two hours and a half to reach Piñango, but I was enjoying the landscape, taken pictures, watching frailejones, etc.  The returning trip I made in just one hour and a half, but it was a non stop trip. There are another way coming from the Panamerican road, through Las Virtudes and San Cristóbal de Torondoy, until this town the road is paved and a very good one. The road is unpaved, according some people of the place, it takes more than two hours to Piñango. For more details read Tale of the trip to Piñango below.

Altitude
2320 above sea level

Date of picts
07.28.2007

Location on map
 C3    (09º 16' N,  70º 35' W)

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Picutres of the road to Piñango from Pico Águila - Piñango (42 Kms)          

      Distance: 42 Kilometers
      Alitude Pico Águila: 4118 meters above sea level.
      Altitude Piñango: 2320 meters above sea level
      Estimated trip time: 2 hours
      Kind of road: Asphalt / Cement.

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Tale of the trip to Piñango (42 Kms)         July 28th, 2007 It was about noon when reached the highest point of the Transandina road, Eagle Peak (Pico Águila), 4118 meters above sea level. For sure, the most outstanding tourist attraction in venezuelan andean roads. The very famous monument to the “Eagle”, which really is a condor, it was created to commemorate the pass of Bolivar through the Andes when he was in his Admirable Campaign in 1813. In one of its plates at the base there is an inscription: “1813. Here under the breath of war, crossing jungles and climbing hills, El Libertador passed”. Besides this great impressive monument, there is a small “shelter”, a log cabin where operates a restaurant, there most of the tourist drink hot chocolate, but also you can find soft cold drinks, specially for “maracuchos” (the people from Maracaibo, very addictive to this kind of beverage (I always forget to ask for ice creams, next time I’ll do it!).  For maracuchos is almost a tradition stay there with any kind of jacket , some of the even just wear bermuda pants, t-shirt and sandals! At the restaurant you can find local food like trout, wheat arepas, besides hen soup (caldo de gallina), chicken, etc. The climax of satisfaction when you are there is to be when snowing, and we had the chance to see it!. Few venezuelans have seen snow, and  even few in our country. I’ve been here a lot of times and this was my very first.  The snow last short time here, when somebody called you “hey, everybody come, is snowing at the Peak”, when you finally came, the place appears as a normal day, no snow! By the way, when this event is on news, the Transandina road gets so plenty that the traffic becomes really heavy. A friend of mine told me that he was just 2 kilometers from the Peak y he spent 2 hours to get there. Somebody said to me that the most probably for a snow fall are the last week of july and the first of august, but this year I knew of another at june’s last days and another the third week of august. I joined to the rest of people who was enjoying taken pictures everywhere, and when there were enough snow, they began to make small snow men over the cars and, of course, others were in snow ball battles. I had lunch there and at 1:15 pm I began my trip to Piñango. The way is very well indicated by a sign placed at one side of the restaurant’s parking. The road pass behind the log cabin and goes up for about 30 more meters, that is why Pico Águila isn’t the highest point of the Venezuelan roads, it is on the way to Piñango. The snow accumulates more in this area, so, if some day you have the chance to be at the Pico in a snow fall, I recommend you to go a pair of kilometers more on the way to Piñango (pictures 3, 4, 5 and 6). En picture 5 I appear with no jacket and pretending freezing, but as I said above “maracucho must stay at the páramo in t-shirt”. Really I didn’t feel too much cold, I think it only happen if the wind blows, I experience this a lot of times. I remember once when I was in Amsterdam and I didn’t feel cold until I saw the thermometer indicating 5 celcius degrees! Of course, this has its limits, at 20 degrees celcius below zero you will feel cold with or without wind! What I mean is that thermic sensation is different if wind blows. At the moment when we were taking pictures there were no wind and I was very well without any jacket. We maracuchos enjoy cold! The true is to stay there with all that snow makes feel you at Switzerland, or in a movie studio, the landscape if beautiful indeed. Is a unique experience. Up to four kilometers the snow is on the hills and mountains both sides of the way. The road is paved but narrow, but there are not deep precipices or too inclined passages, any kind of car can go over there, at least until El Llanito, at 29 kilometers from Pico Águila. The landscape, although without snow is really wonderful, I like more the panoramic view shown in picture 6 than that of picture 5. There frailejones are huge and nobody are around, no houses, no any single soul, nothing that remember you any sign of civilization, just the road, a landscape to enjoy. Reaching kilometer 24, we found a beautiful view of a typical Andean landscape with sown fields and the rapids of Chirurí river, this area is called “El Hatico” (picture 8) at 3390 meters above sea level, this data come from interesting road signs placed there by Miranda Municipality and National Parks Institute, who besides reminds that all that is part of National Park “Sierra de La Culata”. At 3:30 pm, after 30 kilometers from Piñango, we reach a place called El Llanito (3280 meters above sea level) and a little after, the road became a kind of garden entrance (pict. 9), this is, two infinite cement strips and this last until Piñango. The problem with this isn’t the grass at between the two strips that in some places grow high, this just “brush” the bottom of the car, but sometimes isn’t just grass but also hard ground. First time I found this, I didn’t care, but I feel the impact down there. I learned that I must be careful with this, so, each time I saw this kind of “promontories” I went to one side of the road and drive over them. This could bother cars (or its drivers!). From El Llanito began a very thick fog, with a visibility no more than 4 meters, before each curve I sounded the car’s horn, just in case. Few times I had seen something like this before, maybe on the way to Jají from Mérida city close to Las Cruces, but that time was even more difficult because it was night. According the maps I had studied, we must to find a place called “Las Pailitas”, and it appears at kilometer 35 (pict. 10). It’s seems to me not too appropriate this names for a so cold place, to me “paila” is a big pot use to warm food. Perhaps they named this village Las Pailitas because the people here used this pot everywhere every time, or because they used to sell them… Anyway, there is a little Bolívar squere,, with a bust of El Libertador with a plate saying “Las Pailitas square, built by the municipality. Timotes, August 1998. Pánfilo Briceño Moreno. Mayor”. Behind there is a little chapel that it seems to me gloomy specially with all that fog going through it. Down the road, there are some houses and school with well equipped. According the sign  of picture 10, Las Pailitas is at 2890 meters above sea level and at 7 kilometers only to Piñango. Just after Las Pailitas begin closed curves and very inclined road going down, but not too difficult. At last we arrive to Piñango!. First thing we saw was a road sign saying “El Dividive. Place of foundation of San Antonio de La Sal, by Matías Ministrone in 1619. Piñango capital of Andean bolo” (see article on Piñango above). In Piñango we stay for a while, I went into the church, I walked by the square and some of its streets, I was taking photographs here and there. My plan was to continue going down to San Cristóbal de Torondoy and Las Virtudes to finally reach the Panamerican road near Arapuey. On maps it seems something easy to do. I asked to some people at the square and they said that although the road wasn’t bad it wasn’t paved.  Puff, what to do? It was 4:30 pm, if I take the road down, I'll arrive to Arapuey, optimistically at 8:00 pm. I remembered the hard time that we had at El Alto de La Cruz of San Genaro y I took the decision to going back to Pico Águila. Go to Panamericana road was to take a unknown route for us, unpaved and with possible rain and worst, in the darkness of the night with no chance to take photographs. It was pity not to continue, I really wanted to go through the road used by the Spanish conquerors like Juan Maldonado in XVI century and then became in one of the routes that the Europeans used to carry out product from the Andes to ports like Gibraltar at Maracaibo lake, and whose final destination was Spain. At july 19th 2007 I went from Panamerican road (near Arapuey) to San Cristóbal de Torondoy, through Las Virtudes, there I corroborate that the way from there to Piñango takes two hours. I left Piñango at 4:35 pm and I reached Pico Águila at 5:55, one hour and 20 minutes and upwards! It was interesting to find out that when we passed again by places where just 4 hours ago was full of snow, now no sign of it. At a few kilometers from Pico Águila I saw some cars of tourist looking for snow but they came late. Even without snow the landscapes here are wonderful, huge frailejones, small lagoons, majestic mountains… If you have the chance, I strongly recommend to pay a visit to this places. Germán Montero Alcalá Septiember 2007 go top