Venezuela Guide on Instagram - FITVen2013

INSTAGRAMEANDO ANDO YO...

In October 2013 I was invited to travel around Venezuela on a Press Trip organized by the Tourism Ministry (MinTur) in the run up to the FITVen2013 International Tourism Fair.

As I lost my laptop and camera en route to Venezuela I was forced to improvise. Armed only with an HTC One S mobile phone with an 8 megapixel camera, I decided to document my trip on Instagram.

Through trial and error, I learnt how to get the most out of a single shot and train my eye to find images that would work in a square. The filters I just responded to depending on my mood that day. The feedback on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter has been really encouraging.

I am pleased with the results.

The restrictions of Instagram forced me to be more creative and think carefully before taking each shot, which helped me to see Venezuela in a different way.

I came home with some great new images of Caracas, the islands of Margarita, Coche and Cubagua, rafting in Barinas, paragliding in Mérida and the folk festivals of the Pueblos del Sur, remote villages in the Andean mountains south of Merida.

To see more of my Instagram images follow me at @Venezuelaguide - http://instagram.com/p/gJ0qZdNZZG/



Street Theatre: In the area around Plaza el Venezolano and Plaza Bolivar in the centre of Caracas, actors recreate key scenes from Venezuela's history by bringing to life famous characters from the past who tell the story of their time. Here, the dictator Juan Vicente Gomez takes a stroll with Independence hero Francisco de Miranda.  



Whitewater Rafting: On the Rio Acequias in Barinas, adventure tour company Arassari Trek took us on a bumpy, adrenaline-pumping ride down a Grade 3 stretch of foaming rapids. It helps if everybody rows together.

For more details of rafting in Barinas contact Arassari Trek

Remote Andean Villages: Just outside San Jose de Acequias, one of the so-called Pueblos del Sur, we came across this tiny chapel dedicated to San Isidro Labrador, the patron sain of farmers. 

Vibrant Folk Festivals: The Locainas de Santa Rita are gentlemen who dress like ladies for a day during the festivities in honor of San Isidro, as Santa Rita in popular lore is the wife of the saint. As their name suggests, these ladies can get quite "loco" during the festivities held on 21-22 May, and after dancing with their sticks they try to liven up the festive mood by flirting with the men in the crowd.





Paragliding in Merida: Close to the city of Merida is one of the best paragliding spots in Venezuela, a place called Tierra Negra. Jose Albarran of Fanny Tours is one of the pioneers of paragliding in Venezuela and a great pilot for a tandem flight. Known to his friends as "Piojo" (Flea), due to his uncanny ability to scale sheer rock faces, Jose is one of the founders of the paragliding school in the nearby village of Las Gonzales, close to the landing site, where youngsters are being trained to become the paragliding champions of the future. Watch a video of me paragliding with Piojo here

For more details of paragliding in Merida contact Jose at Fanny Tours

Timote-Cuica: Caribay and the Five White Eagles of Merida

Timote-Cuica Myth 1: Caribay and the Five White Eagles

This myth from Merida is taken from Maria Manuela de Cora's book "Kuai-Mare: Mitos Aborigenes de Venezuela" but was originally collected by the noted Merida historian and writer Don Tulio Febres Cordero (1860-1938). The Timote-Cuica were a pre-Colombian collection of loosely-linked Chibcha-speaking chiefdoms living in an area that encompasses the current Andean states of Merida, Trujillo and Tachira. Their chief God was Ches, the Supreme Being, but they also worshipped Zuhe, the Sun, and Chia, the Moon, and venerated the mountain peaks and lakes. This myth tells the tale of Caribay, wind spirit of the high paramos, and the origin of Merida's five highest peaks - Bolivar (5007m), Humboldt/Bonpland (4942m), La Concha (4922m), El Toro (4775m) and El Leon (4743m).

High among the rocky crags of the Andes mountains, with their jagged peaks and hills, the Mirripuyes Indians lived a hard life, fighting frequent wars with their neighbours. In their vegetable plots, they grew corn, yucca, ocumo and different fruits. They hunted the abundant rabbits and deer in the forest and the birds that soared in the clear mountain sky.

One of the fierce Indian chiefs had a daughter, Caribay. She was so beautiful that people from the tribe thought she must be the daughter of Zuhe, the Sun, and Chia, the moon, because her eyes and her skin were so bright that they seemed to be made of pure light.


Caribay liked to wear necklaces of bone or painted clay and adorn her hair with coloured feathers.

One day, she was on the bank of a river looking for shiny flat stones to decorate her cotton shawl when she saw five gigantic condors fly past, their white plumage shining like silver in the sun.

Caribay had never seen birds like these before. Straight away, she felt a desire to adorn herself with their feathers and she began to run after the shadows they cast on the ground, hoping they would tire of flying before she tired of chasing them.

So she ran from hill to hill, jumping over ravines and the streams formed by the meltwater that blocked her path, until, overcome with fatigue she reached one of the highest summits of the mountain, a place bare of any vegetation, where the silence made her feel she was in the presence of Ches (the Supreme Being of the Timote-Cuica tribes).

When the birds got there they stopped for moment and then began to fly higher until they disappeared from view.

Caribay stopped. She was surprised at how far she had run. From the peak where she was standing she could see on one side, far away, the wide savannah at the foot of the mountain, and on the other side the great Laguna de Coquivacoa, in which the mountains of the sierra were reflected as if they rose up from the lake itself.

Above her head the mist which guards the realm of Ches was closing in as night began to fall.

Caribay felt cold and was afraid. She began to cry, calling on Zuhe, the Sun, to help her. But her cries bounced off the rocky crags until they turned into a terrifying whistle that echoed through the mountains. The Sun, however, unheeding of her pleas, began to set behind the Andes.

"Will you help me Chia!" said the girl, turning to the Moon.

As the wind dropped, Caribay´s words could be clearly heard. Chia, the Moon, appeared. Her radiance blocked out the light from the stars and lit up the sky, suddenly highlighting the five white eagles, which began to fly towards the Earth.

Filled with joy, Caribay began to sing a slow, rhythmic chant - like flute music - as the eagles descended lower and lower, until they touched down on the high Andean mountains close to the girl, cleaving to the rocks with their claws, each one on a different peak.

There they remained, motionless, their faces pointing north and their wings extended to form the white mountain peaks that stand out even in the dead of night.

"Now I can pluck some of their feathers," Caribay said to herself, and ran with new energy towards the birds, holding out her arms to reach them.

But when she touched their hard feathers, she stopped, afraid, and fled - giving out a long cry, because the condors had turned to ice and stone in their positions.

On hearing the young girl's cry, which resounded around the peaks like the echo of a great wind, Chia hid herself in the clouds and the five eagles awoke and furiously beat their wings, their white feathers falling down in a flurry of snowflakes that covered the mountains completely.

Caribay was lost that night among the peaks and became the spirit of the Andes. The eagles - still and silent in their high perches - became the five enormous mountain peaks that make up Merida's high sierra, perpetually covered in snow.

Nowadays, when Caribay, the spirit of the mountains, gives out her shrill lament - which is the howl of the storm - the eagles once again awake and shake off their feathers as falling snow and all the mountain peaks once again become white, in the heavy snow storms.

Translated by Russell Maddicks