The Ávila mountain capital — colonial plazas, modernist towers and Venezuela's cultural heartbeat
Caracas is the capital of Venezuela, a city in a long valley at 900m pressed between the Caribbean coast and the 2,765m wall of El Ávila National Park — a dramatic natural setting that gives it a pleasant climate despite being just 10° north of the equator. The teleférico (cable car) from the city to the top of El Ávila and down to the Caribbean beach resort of Macuto at sea level was one of Latin America's most extraordinary rides for decades (currently non-operational but historically remarkable). The city's central historic district around Capitolio Nacional and Bolívar's birthplace retain…
Caracas was founded by Diego de Losada in 1567 in the Caracas Valley after several failed earlier attempts; it grew as a cacao and coffee trading centre. Simón Bolívar was born here in 1783 and the city became the intellectual and military centre of the independence movement that liberated five countries from Spain. Venezuela became the world's first petro-state in the early 20th century when vast oil reserves were discovered in Lake Maracaibo — the oil wealth that built the modern Caracas of glass towers and highways in the 1950s–70s under the dictatorships of Gómez and Pérez Jiménez. Hugo C…