Merida is the main tourist town in the Venezuelan Andes. Merida is
growing rapidly, and has a very young population. Merida is famous
for having the longest and highest altitude cable car, or teleferico,
but it is currently undergoing maintenance. Merida is relatively
safe, and it's one place where being a tourist is not something
totally out of the ordinary. Because of the many altitudes one can
visit from Merida, birding opportunities are excellent. If you want
to stay inside the city, I can recommend Hostel Aleman, whose garden
has a few Steely-vented Hummingbirds. The lonely planet recommends some
places outside of city, which are preferred, but challenging for me who
needs constant Internet access.

Hiking up to the first stop on the teleferico seemed like a reasonable
place to look for birds. Ask the locals for directions to the start
of the trail; you have to go down to the river before going up. Our
hike did turn up some birds, but the forest is think and tall, and
photography is challenging. I caught glimpses of some unidentified
cracids (guans or curassows or chachalacas), and caught a fleeting
glimpse of a large bright red bird, probably the Golden-headed
Quetzal. A small grey hawk was often seen around Merida, but I have
not identified it.

Parque Nacional Sierra Nevada is a large park which supports many
terrain types, from could forests to the paramo, a high altitude
terrain described later. A great hike through the cloud forest starts
is at La Mucuy, and is easily reached from the town of Tabay. Near
this enterance of the park you will definitely see the Great Thrush
and Black Phoebe, and perhaps the Smoke-colored Pewee. The trail
enters the cloud forest is thick and tall, and you have to work hard
to find birds. I found a Collared Inca and two other hummingbirds I
could not identify, and glimpsed a few unidentifed spinetails and
antbirds.

A great day trip is to visit the higher altitude part of PN Sierra
Nevada, near the town of Apartaderos. Two trail leave the enterance;
a few years ago I took the trail to the right, towards Lago Pato, but
this time I took the trail to the left, to Lago Victoria, and think it
is less travelled and more beautiful. This park is entirely in the
paramo, which Wikipedia defines as

is a neotropical ecosystem. It is located in the high elevations,
between the upper forest line (about 3800 m altitude) and the
permanent snow line (about 5000 m). The ecosystem consists of
accidented, mostly glacier formed valleys and plains with a large
variety of lakes, peat bogs and wet grasslands intermingled with
shrublands and forest patches. Nearly 57% of this ecosystem worldwide
is found in Colombia.

The paramo is amazingly beautiful! Failejones, called
Espeletia in English, are an abumdant fuzzy plant with yellow flowers
and create the sensation of being on another planet. The endangered
Spectacled Bear is found here, as is the worlds smallest mammal. Some
paramo specialists include the Bearded Helmetcrest (hummingbird) and
the Brown-backed Chat-Tyrant, which I saw. The endangered Torrent
Duck eluded us.

Close to Apartaderos is the Mafafi Condor Center. Andean Condors once
travelled the entire Andes range, but are now extinct in Venezuela.
Many factors play a role, including hunting, competition for carrion
with wild dogs, and less carrion because of conversion to land to
farming. Maybe a few decades ago the Condors could live just on puma
kills. This project does not plan to release Condors any time soon,
but plans first to educate the people not to hunt them. The center
currently has three condors in a medium sized cage.

The Merida zoo has some interesting animals, but many seem to be kept
in captivity for no apparent reason. I saw very little in the way of
education either; my main criteria for evaluating a zoo, in addition
to conditions of the cages, is the emphasis on rehabilitation and
education.

Another worthwhile stop is the Botanical Garden at the University.
Lesser Goldfinches and Rufous-talied Hummingbirds are abundant. There
is a nice trail through a forest, but only the common Green Jay was
found there.

Catatumbo is an area around Lago Maracaibo famous for continous lightning, and
is one of the most popular excursions from Merida. It is also one of the best
birding destinations in Venezuela. The problem for me was that the trip is
entirely on water, including the floating cities where the local live, and I
know I can't take photos from a boat.

Jurgen Beckers, a Belgian who does birding tours of Colombia and
Venezuela, maintains a site about birding around Merida. His site is
easily found with Google, and he is extremely knowledgable about locating
and identifying birds.