Parque Nacional San Esteban covers about 430 square kilometres of the coastal cordillera between Valencia and the Caribbean port of Puerto Cabello. The southern flank — most easily reached from Valencia — has cloud forest, small waterfalls, and a string of walking trails that climb out of the suburbs into surprisingly cool, green country within an hour of leaving the city.
The park's other draw is the Piedra Pintada del Pozo Azul and similar boulders carved with pre-Columbian petroglyphs along the trail that follows the old colonial path between Valencia and Puerto Cabello. The path itself — sections of which were paved in the eighteenth century — was the route used to move cocoa to the coast and is one of the better-preserved colonial roads in northern Venezuela. Go in the dry season (November to April), take water, and check with locals before going far without a guide.