Tapo

Tapo lies in the Venezuelan Andes near the middle Chama valley. Between the Sierra Nevada and the Sierra La Culata, the river passes a broad terrace on which the town of Mérida was established. Indigenous villages in the mountain valleys used channels and reservoirs to irrigate their fields. Juan Rodríguez Suárez founded Mérida near Lagunillas in 1558. The following year Juan de Maldonado moved the settlement to the terrace facing the Sierra Nevada, where it became known as Santiago de los Caballeros de Mérida.