The Mérida cable car — Mukumbarí — climbs from the city of Mérida to Pico Espejo, at 4,765 metres, inside Sierra Nevada National Park. It is the highest and the longest cable car in the world, and it is the reason most visitors to the Venezuelan Andes see high mountain at all: it takes you from 1,577 to 4,765 metres without walking a step.
The five stations
The system runs in stages, and each one is a different ecosystem. You can stop at any of them and come back down:
- Barinitas (1,577 m). The base station, in the city of Mérida. Temperate climate, city views.
- La Montaña (2,436 m). Cloud forest. This is where the temperature starts to drop.
- La Aguada (3,452 m). The transition out of the forest and into open ground.
- Loma Redonda (4,045 m). Páramo. It is also the access point for walks in the area and for the route down to the village of Los Nevados.
- Pico Espejo (4,765 m). The end of the line and the highest cable car station in the world, with the summits of the Sierra Nevada in front of you.
What you see on the way up
The climb crosses the whole altitude sequence of the Andes in about two hours. Below, the city and the valley; then cloud forest on the slopes; then páramo, with frailejones; and at the top, bare rock.
From La Montaña upwards, and if the cloud allows, you have the high summits in view, Pico Bolívar among them — at 4,978 m the highest point in the country. The cloud is the variable: mornings are usually the clearest.
History
The original cable car opened in 1960, the first in Venezuela, built to give access to the summit of Pico Espejo. Building it meant solving a hard engineering problem: high altitude, strong wind and extreme temperature swings along the whole line.
It ran for decades, was taken out of service in 2008 for a full reconstruction, and reopened in 2016 as Mukumbarí with new cabins, new stations and modernised machinery. Service has been suspended more than once since. Confirm it is running before you build a trip around it — this is the single most useful piece of advance information about Mérida.
Fares and opening hours
Fares and timetables change, so treat anything you read — here included — as a reference and check the current information before you go. What is stable is the structure:
- There are different fares for Venezuelan residents and foreign visitors, and reduced categories for students, children and over-65s.
- The fare depends on which station you travel to; you do not have to go to the top.
- Large rucksacks and parking are charged separately.
- It runs on set timetables that change with the season and with the weather, generally starting early and finishing in the afternoon.
Buy in advance where you can: places are limited and the high season sells out.
Getting to the base station
By air. Fly to Mérida’s Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonso airport; from there it is about 50 minutes by car to the Barinitas station.
From the city. Car, taxi or public transport. The access road is steep and has tight bends, so allow more time than the distance suggests.
Public transport. There are buses and shared taxis in Mérida that leave you close to the station. Ask at the terminals or locally for the current routes.
The altitude is the real issue
Going from 1,577 to 4,765 metres in two hours is a gain no walker would ever do in a day, and the body notices. Headache, breathlessness and nausea at the top station are common and they are not a sign of poor fitness.
What helps: spend a couple of days in Mérida first, go up early, drink water, skip alcohol the night before, and get back down if you feel bad. The station limits how long you can stay up there for exactly this reason.
Where to stay and eat
Everything is in Mérida, at the foot of the line: hotels in the centre, guesthouses in the páramo villages, and restaurants with Andean cooking. The full picture is in the Mérida guide.
Where it fits
The cable car is the easy way into Sierra Nevada National Park. The hard way — Pico Bolívar and Pico Humboldt — starts from the same city. And if you want the páramo landscape without the altitude, La Culata is on the other side of the valley.