Trinidad and Tobago Caribbean Discovery Tours Ltd, El Tucuche Mountain Climb

El Tucuche is the second highest peak of the Northern Range. Fabled in Amerindian lore as a sacred mountain, it is today important to naturalists as the last refuge of species long extinct in South America like the Golden Tree Frog.

We leave Port of Spain at 6am drive through St Joseph, the Capital of Trinidad in Spanish Colonial times, to Maracas Valley in the Northern Range where we begin our steep ascent to the peak. Spectacular Views appear and disappear as we ascend the cloud-shrouded mountain. You will see and hear many birds in these pristine rainforests.

We pass through white bearded manikin leks, and the habitat of Brown Violetears and Hepatic, Blue crowned and Swallow Tanagers and Collard Trojans. Hummingbirds hover near you and Toucan can be sighted in the tall trees overhead.

Vegetation changes with altitude. Giant Tree Ferns, Bromeliads, give way to upland ecosystems of mist shrouded elfin woodland where a variety of mosses cover the trees and ferns carpet the ground.

During the strenuous climb to the plateau of El Tucuche we see a variety of monkeys,lizards, and frogs and small mammals. Animals are fearless because man seldom ventures here. Good chance of sighting the endemic Golden Tree Frog. On the climb down, we may visit a large Rock outcrop bearing the only known Amerindian Glyphs in Trinidad.