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It is unforgivable that after more than 30 years visiting Choroní, I had never been curious to walk its mountains. And look who invited me, but I always preferred the sea, the coast, the towns reached by peñero: Chuao, Cepe, Tuja, Puerto Maya, Ocumare, La Ciénaga. Big mistake.
On this occasion I decided that we would walk through those mountains of Henry Pittier National Park - the first national park in Venezuela - and we would do it with a local guide. That's how they recommended José Gregorio Blanco to us, born and raised in Uraca, in the middle of the mountains, a lover of all those paths and proud of its stories, its vegetation, the sounds, the inhabitants and the rivers. It was immediate love.
José Gregorio is for real and I love people like that. The first impression was to get Aguafuerte, a building with more than 100 years stuck in the mountain, which once served as home to a hydroelectric plant that the general ordered to be built
Juan Vicente Gómez - dictator of Venezuela between 1908 and 1935-when he died. How he designated Maracay as the capital of the country because he lived there, he was determined to have a great electrical service for his companies and he decided that the solution was in the water that ran through the mountains of Henry Pittier.
He sent for German and French engineers who took those roads, diverted part of the ravines and rivers, the material arrived by sea from La Guaira and was carried on mules and on the shoulders of prisoners who thus alleviated their sentence. The work of canals for kilometers of mountains that are still intact, although the plant no longer operates, is impressive. The super engineering work. The building on the ground floor with stained glass windows and a very high ceiling that was later converted into an arts center by the Jesuit Father Ignacio Castillo in the 80s and until 2000, a work that changed the lives of the inhabitants of Uraca and its surroundings.
Theater, music, all the arts came there. There are murals by Pedro León Zapata and Elsa Morales. A library. Objects that no longer exist and are not used, but are there as if they had been forgotten forever. A recoverable abandonment.
But that is not all. Those mountains smell like molasses. Those who live along those trails are in charge of planting cane. A lot of cane that is not burned, but is cut only when it is done, so that the papelón tastes better and does not have that smoky and dirty candela.
There is also a woman who does alfondoque and says she doesn't teach anyone. Let whoever sees it because that's how he learned. Another who works with cocoa by hand with a mill through which he passes his cocoa many times. And there is Jose Gregorio, our exemplary guide who founded Prosperidad, a small farm to plant organically, live in harmony with nature and take his friends to hear the silence of the mountains where he grew up and wants to share with those who visit him. An admirable journey.
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