Mérida spreads along a high Andean shelf at about sixteen hundred metres, with the Sierra Nevada rising behind it to the highest peaks in Venezuela. Pico Bolívar, at nearly five thousand metres, carries a small glacier that is shrinking year by year, and on a clear morning you can see it from the city streets. The place has the unhurried, cool-aired feel of a university town, helped along by the Universidad de los Andes, one of the oldest in the country, whose students fill the cafés and plazas.
The city was founded in 1558 by Spaniards who came up from the lowlands, and the old centre keeps its colonial grid, with a cathedral, churches, and shaded plazas where families sit in the evening. The cuisine of the Andes is hearty: pisca andina, a milk and egg soup, pan de jamón, trout from mountain streams, and strong coffee from the hills. One ice cream parlour in the city has made a name for the number of its flavours, running to hundreds and including ones like trout and garlic, and it has made the world record books more than once. Whether or not you love the idea, it is an amusing stop.
As the end of the Trans-Andean ride, Mérida is a good place to land, with proper hotels, restaurants, mechanics and shops. The final descent into town from the pass area is long and winding, through cloud forest and farm terraces, with tight bends, lorries, and fog that can drop visibility to a few metres. After days of cold air at altitude, the warm valley feels like a reward. The city also has a famous cable car system, the Teleférico de Mérida, once the highest and longest in the world, which climbed toward Pico Espejo above four thousand metres.
The surrounding mountains are excellent for further riding, with small roads climbing to villages like Jají and Los Nevados, and the high páramo. Weather is the main variable, with a dry season roughly from December to March, and a wetter, cloudier period in the middle of the year.
Fuel supplies in Venezuela can be unpredictable, so ask locally and fill up when you see a pump. The city is large enough to have several stations, but queues are possible.