El Cerro del Aripo

Where is El Cerro del Aripo?

El Cerro del Aripo is part of the Northern Range, Trinidad.

You will find it in: Trinidad and Tobago.

Summit: 10.717° N, 61.250° W

The story behind it

El Cerro del Aripo is the high point of the Northern Range, the line of hills that runs along the top of Trinidad only a short boat ride from the coast of South America, whose coastal mountains continue in the same rock. Rainforest covers the summit completely, so there is no wide view, only huge trees, dripping leaves and the calls of parrots and howler monkeys somewhere out of sight. Below the peak the limestone is riddled with caves, and in the darkest of them live oilbirds, brown birds that leave at night to find fruit and find their way in the dark by clicking, a little like bats. A muddy trail climbs from the village of Aripo through cocoa plots and then into wild forest, taking several hours. The mountain carries the name of a people who lived on the island long before the towns grew.

Find it on the globe

El Cerro del Aripo is there as a small peak with its own shape — a horn, a ridge, a volcano — standing on the surface. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.

It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.